I have never been a loyal member of any party, as my opinions do not depend on group loyalty or ideology, but upon what I try to keep dispassionate, objective, history- and fact-based analysis of issues. However, the rapid ethical rot and totalitarian bent of the Democratic Party is causing me anguish. I am being pulled toward a conclusion that the only rational and patriotic political position now is to be committed to a Beware the Democrats! position. But that is, superficially at least, indistinguishable from the Trump Deranged “Trump is Satan” position that the Machiavellian Axis of Unethical Conduct has been using for almost a decade now, with no sign of changing course.
What’s the difference? Well, call me reductionist, but it’s this: Trump isn’t Satan, though Trump is an infuriatingly flawed individual and leader, but the Democrats are corrupt and untrustworthy. They have intentionally poisoned a critical mass of Americans—yes, the dumb ones, the gullible ones, the badly educated ones and the weenies, but still—against their own system of government using a level of fear-mongering that evokes the McCarthy era here and Hitler’s Final Solution in Germany.
One poll—yes, yes, I know, polls—suggest that virtually zero per cent of Democrats “approve” of Trump as President. That’s irrational bigotry and hate, straight up. They disapprove of enforcing the immigration laws–every Democrat? They all disapprove of Trump making an effort to end international conflict? They disapprove of his projecting the nation’s unique economic power to reduce trade inequities? They disapprove of the government shedding superfluous jobs and wasteful projects? They object to stopping universities and colleges from becoming partisan indoctrination factories? They object to stopping their own nation’s museum network from presenting the United States as a continuing blight on humanity?
They object to replacing the principles of merit and personal responsibility with racial and gender preferences? How is that possible? I found conservative radio demagogue Michael Savage repulsive for his characterization of liberalism as a mental illness, but whatever it is that the New Left has been inflicting on its supporters seems pretty close to madness.
So now what? I thought, silly me, that the ridiculous “Trump is a danger to democracy” message that the Democrats ran on in 2022 and 2024 would be abandoned, first because it failed, and second, because it is the opposite of reality, but no: the “resistance,” the Democrats and the Axis news media is, as the cliche goes, “doubling down.” Amazing. Gavin Newsom, a slimy, cynical, principle-free and bad governor who appears to be Mitt Romney’s dark doppelganger, has risen in popularity while saying that Trump is planning on eliminating elections and serving a third term. That is insulting, unconscionable and a lie (Newsom can’t possibly believe it), but the Trump Deranged are so sick that they do. Trump, damn him, thinks it’s funny to troll these hysterics by sending out “Trump ’28” caps. In a thread on a post last week, a commenter asked me to cite an example of Trump’s cruelty. That’s one. It is like throwing a rubber tarantula at someone with arachnophobia. He thinks taunting Trump-phobics is funny. In fact, it plays into ruthless progressive demagogues’ hands.
I hear Democrats like Connecticut Rep. John Larson thunder about “storm troopers” (referring to ICE agents desperately trying to undo the Biden open borders damage) and wonder, “How can Democrats look at themselves in the mirror?” Have they, at last, no decency at all?
Maybe not.
Meanwhile, what we are seeing is an entire party deliberately defying the constitutional guardrails while, in a display of hypocrisy unparalleled, I now think, in American history, accusing the Trump Administration of doing so. Executive branch employees are refusing to leave their jobs when fired. Democrat judges are, as Justice Gorsuch stated last week, defying Supreme Court decisions in order to foil legal Trump policies. Whole Democrat-run states and cities are declaring themselves empowered to undermine federal law, a return to the pre-Civil War strategy of what became the Confederacy.
The entire party is playing a dangerous game, gambling with the foundations of the republic in a desperate effort to avoid the rejection their own irresponsible and cynical conduct has courted.
What is the measured, ethical response to this horrible development? I honestly don’t know.
Ethics Alarms 
This piece is, in and of itself, a COTD.
The reference to Hitler’s Final Solution and associating it to left-wing ideology and messaging is a perfect turnabout.
I think the ethical response is this: Be patient. Be a good citizen, and a good example; live your life with as much joy as you can, and do what you can to bring joy to others, even the Trump-deranged. Do not let the aggravations of the current period of time – and there are many – distract you from living as well as you can, and helping others do the same.
Simply put, time is NOT on the Democrats’ side. For all the theatrics about response to Texas’s gerrymander, the blue states pretty much emptied their arsenal long ago. The D-party old guard is under attack from the party’s progressive flank, which advances positions that most Americans find untenable. Dems are seeing serious declines in voter registration; Republicans are seeing gains. Republicans are also seeing gains in support from groups Democrats believed were in their pocket.
Most importantly, there are some serious contenders to replace Trump once his term is over. Vance has been solid. Rubio has been a star, and there are other potential candidates as well. Meantime, the Dems have little beyond Newsom and Pritzker, who should prove easy to defeat just by pointing out the records of their failed states. Whitmer has her own baggage that should make it difficult for her to prevail. Even Wes Moore, who I would argue is probably their best option in 2028, can be hammered for making claims about his record that weren’t true. And count Harris out forever.
This is not to say that there isn’t work to do, because there absolutely is. In some states, such as my beloved Maine (and current adopted residence of Massachusetts), the odds run seriously against R pickups in 2026. But other states have possibilities to at least hold a narrow edge in the House – maybe even pick up a few seats.
Yes, Trump is exhausting as a president. I’m pretty sure that almost everyone who voted for him knew that would be the case. But as we continue to see Dems beclown themselves left and right, fail to put forward a vision of a better way to run the nation, and fail to coalesce around potential candidates who possess the combination of track record, political skill and charisma, they become that much easier to brush off.
The country as a whole sees this, even if the geniuses at the core Democratic Party do not.
Be patient. Live well, and kindly.
“What is the measured, ethical response to this horrible development? I honestly don’t know.”
Adding to what Repstrat said: when confronted with a problem or issue of unmanageable proportions the most common time-honored solution is to divide into smaller less daunting chunks. I can say from personal experience that this is a very good approach because it has the benefit of being doable and therefore much less likely to generate inertia and exasperation.
Keep it local, keep your side of the street clean, operate within the territory where you know the players and the landscape and you will notice just how much there is to do within your own community. Of course this works at its very best when done by a lot of individuals willing to invest precious time/energy into their own unique community. It’s a whole lot easier to network and gather helpers when you know who to approach and where most people already know what the actual local problems are.
Just do what is in front of you to do…🤠
A in M wrote: Be patient. Be a good citizen, and a good example; live your life with as much joy as you can, and do what you can to bring joy to others, even the Trump-deranged. Do not let the aggravations of the current period of time – and there are many – distract you from living as well as you can, and helping others do the same.
Amen to this!
Yes, observing other humans acting idiotically can be discouraging. It is also true that ranting about how idiotic other humans are will not make them less idiotic. We ALL act sometimes in ways that others (and even, in retrospect, ourselves) find idiotic. It is part of the human repertoire.
From a functional perspective, denouncing people, calling them idiots, comparing them to Nazis or Satan tends to make people angry and/or defensive, and feeling angry/defensive/attacked is not a productive state for re-thinking one’s choices or positions. (Yeah, sure, the OTHER side is doing this…. do you approve? Do you really want to mirror the behavior you find so infuriating?)
And these are our neighbors, our fellow citizens, in some cases our beloved family members we are talking about…. We don’t ACTUALLY want them all to vanish from the Earth, right? We want them (I hope we can agree on this!) to become more thoughtful, more open to other perspectives, more open to seeing that…. yeah, that was stupid, yeah, maybe seemed initially like a good idea but went WAY too far, had negative effects yadda yadda.
So ask yourselves, when you believed and acted in foolish ways in the past, what helped you gain perspective and do better? People screaming at you? Calling you the spawn of Satan? Blaming you for all possible ills real and imagined? Probably not….
Absolutely. We knew what we were getting in Trump, or at least we thought we did. And I think most people who voted for him approve of what he’s doing, even if it isn’t exactly how we thought it would play out.
Demographics are not playing out in favor of the Democrats. We already know that the 2020 census overstated the blue states by a few seats in the House, and the expectation is that the 2030 census will give the GOP perhaps 10 more seats.
If the Democrats really provoke all the Republican legislatures to match their gerrymandering, the projections I’ve seen are that the GOP could potentially add a net of perhaps 20 seats in 2026.
On the other hand, in the last 15 years when have foreseeable negative consequences deterred the Democrats? I give you the judicial filibuster……oops.
Better the Trump we know than another four years of not knowing who is actually president.
“They object to their own nation’s museum network presenting the United States as a continuing blight on humanity?”
No, they object to him changing that.
Jack asked, “What is the measured, ethical response to this horrible development? I honestly don’t know.”
This post caused me to reread a Guest Post of mine that Jack posted a couple of months ago, “Silent Pondering Our Shared Tomorrows As The Road Stripes Streak By” where one of the general themes was “Trump Derangement Syndrome and Trump didn’t create what’s happening in the political left”. I think that guest post fairly represented where we are socially and politically and I too couldn’t come up with a ethical solution, or any solution, to the perceived problem. We have a serious cultural upheaval happening right now.
I have come to the conclusion that there isn’t an ethical solution to this problem because the political left has undermined anything that resembles ethics, civility, and normality; the political left now exists in the realm of the absurd. I think it’s obvious that the political left has openly rejected anything that resembles traditional morals and has openly embraced the absurd and along with that comes societal chaos and anarchy. You cannot, I repeat cannot, fight off morally bankrupt open chaos and anarchy with niceties or ethics. The behaviors of chaos and anarchy will always openly reject any ethical solutions; therefore, these behaviors must be rejected with actual force and choosing an ethical level of force is exactly what chaos and anarchy want us to do because they depend on that kind of irresponsible choice to survive.
It’s time to take off the gloves and, in a very real way, that’s exactly what President Trump is doing by empowering law enforcement. Trump is doing this specifically because it’s what government should do so ordinary citizens don’t have to physically fight off he horde of previously empowered lunatics in the streets and we’ve come precariously close to that.
What is the measured, ethical response?
It is not this:
… the Democrats are corrupt and untrustworthy
… They have intentionally poisoned a critical mass of Americans
… an entire party deliberately defying the constitutional guardrails
… whatever it is that the New Left has been inflicting on its supporters seems pretty close to madness
… The entire party is playing a dangerous game, gambling with the foundations of the republic
Those are rants, not unlike the ubiquitous rants against the supposed adherents of both parties which pollute social media, rants not worthy of discussion.
The measured, ethical position is this: dispassionate, objective, history- and fact-based analysis of issues.
‘Ad-hominem’ attacks usually are wrong in a debate on issues. Likewise, ‘ad partes’ attacks.
So, stick to the issues, specific, defined issues.
I wouldn’t consider those “rants.” I’d say they are observable facts. Nor are the personal attacks. They are observations about what people have done.
I don’t think your response is defensible. The Democratic Party lied to the public as it installed a disabled President who was clearly not in command. It openly installed officials based on race and ethnicity rather than experience and established success. It bypassed traditional democratic processes to choose a Presidential candidate.It did install unconstitutional policies discriminating against whites and men. It did weaponze the justice system to eliminate a threat to its power. It did run a campaign of pure hate and demonizing unparalleled in American history: Biden’s “They are Nazis!” speech was an all-time low. You can’t spin that, and I don’t know why you would try. Every bit of that is true, as is the open border description. I’d rank this commrnt as deial without substance.
I don’t believe in castigating or stereotyping every member of a group based on the actions of some members, even a large majority, of that group. So, defensible or not, I’ll stick with a focus on the issues. “They are Nazis” and “They are corrupt and untrustworthy” are non-arguments of a similar nature, perhaps useful for venting frustration or promoting hatred, but useless in debating issues.
“I don’t believe in castigating or stereotyping every member of a group based on the actions of some members, even a large majority.” Boy, do I dislike that dodge. An esteemed friend and sometime commenter here, now deceased, used to say, “Not ALL Democrats support open borders!” That’s a pretty big anti-sovereign, anti law enforcement position to just shrug off and say, “well, except for THAT, I’m a loyal Democrat.” The party has a platform. It is still pro-DEI, which is repugnant to ethics, the Constitution and the law. The party still behaved like children during the President’s joint address—it still concocted two illicit impeachments, it still tried to lock up Trump rather than beating him in an election, fair and square. I don’t support or join groups whose majority display, embrace or enable revolting values and characteristics. The “well, not all of us are like that” is lame attempt to duck accountability.
At the outset of this post, you said this way of viewing things, superficially at least, is not unlike that of the Trump deranged. You then sought to distinguish between the two to justify damning not only the Democratic Party but all Democrats.
Those referred to here as deranged argue in exactly the same way, damning all Republicans for, to give just one example, their supposed support of the Gestapo-like tactics ICE has used.
When both sides prefer spewing hatred to rational discussion of actual issues, the optimism for a more perfect union is diminished.
Words have specific meanings and you’re probably misusing one there. Which is more ‘Gestapo-like’, the hunt for J6 protestors and the weaponizing of law against an opposing candidate, or enforcing immigration law?
How did this happen?
Could it be that the network broadcast and print media reinforced their worst excesses?
From context, I suspect you meant to write the reverse.
I can clarify. You’re projecting your own assumptions about the effects of Trump’s actions onto other people. Other people see the situation differently, and it’s not just because they’re told different things by their media, and it’s not just because they’re ignoring things they don’t want to see. It’s because they see things that you are ignoring or dismissing as unimportant.
Before replying, try suspending your assumptions and actually thinking about how other people see the issue, even if you think their interpretation of what’s happening is distorted or deceived. They’re not just objecting to good things; they see the drawbacks where you only see the benefits.
That typo was fixed a few hours ago…..
Sorry, I had had the page open for a while; I should have refreshed it.
“they will arrest lawful permanent residents for petty reasons and hold them for extended periods of time in inhumane conditions.”
???? Give me a concrete example of that. The law is the law. Enforcing laws is not “petty.” If non-citizens do not meet the legal requirements, enforcement is not “petty.” “Inhumane” is a characterization, not a fact.
2.All of Trump’s outreach on conflicts has been based on negotiated settlements and ceasefires. What “crushing”?
3. You’re not dealing with the post: you’re making unrelated arguments. I wasn’t writing about legitimate policy disagreements.
4. You’re stretching. The US is in dangerous debt because every program has a constituency, Cutting programs and jobs is still not an “existential threat to democracy.” Again, I didn’t write a thing about legitimate program disputes. The Democrats are opposing cuts in general…which is irresponsible.
5. You know and I know that the emphasis on past “injustices” has nothing to do with avoiding the same “mistakes.” We aren’t going to take more land from Native Americans. We aren’t going to re-institute slavery or Jim Crow. Are you capable of admitting that any position is indefensible? Because constantly seeking acknowledgement of the failings of another time as a means of extracting benefits in perpetuity is exactly that.
6. Discrimination on the basis of race is discrimination on the basis of race. Putting people in management and positions of power who are not the most talented, skilled and accomplished hurts all involved. Seriously, how hard was it to tell that Karine Jean Pierre was incompetent?
7. Your approach to issues like this requires validating crap, which wastes time and perpetuates misconceptions. “Well, now think about it: believing the world is flat seems reasonable to many people.” But the world isn’t flat. By what means does your method promote any progress?
https://www.newsweek.com/ice-illegal-immigration-detain-deport-marijuana-2119365
https://www.newsweek.com/green-card-holder-detained-ice-walking-dog-2100215 (This last story is more confusing; I can’t tell whether the person was officially allowed to remain in the U.S. or not.)
It seems that ICE has started detaining at least some permanent residents for small crimes that they were already punished for long ago. Given that those crimes didn’t prevent them from obtaining or retaining permanent resident status, this seems like a weird blend of double jeopardy, ex post facto, and ignoring the statute of limitations.
What’s the rebuttal here? Do you think that these events aren’t happening as described, or do you think that they are ethical as described? Or could ICE be doing something unethical after all? I assert that we need to decide what sorts of crimes make a permanent resident eligible for being kicked out of the country (parking tickets? jaywalking? excessive noise?) and the time limit for revoking their green card after their conviction.
As for the museums, I would argue that it is important to know what unethical deeds were committed that resulted in the society we live in today. It provides context for the aftereffects that we still see, as well as a reminder of what humans are capable of justifying to themselves. It makes people think about ethics. What ethics would a person need to have understood back in those days to not support what we now recognize as unethical? So yes, learning about past injustices is necessary for avoiding the same mistakes. Have you ever seen the movie The Wave?
1. If you are going to enforce laws, you have to either provide a margin of prosecutorial discretion that makes sense, which easily devolves into a slippery slope of non-enforcement, or decide that the only approach is strict enforcement, because prosecutorial discretion can’t be trusted. So inevitably some people get swept up in the enforcement on the margins who (perhaps) shouldn’t be. When millions of illegal and otherwise non-citizen abusers have been allowed to bend and break the law,the pendulum swinging back is going to be hard on some. Utilitarianism.
2. Critics aren’t thinking through these wars thoroughly enough to approach your analysis. Two facts: Ukraine is screwed. Russia won’t go through what it has without coming away with something. The longer the war goes on, the more dangerous it is for the world, and the more resources and lives are wasted. Trump is being pragmatic. Putin has to win. Too bad, Sucks for Ukraine. Fact Fact Two: Israel does have to crush Hamas. Simple as that. Trump is wrong to yield to the cease fire crowd; right now he’s playing both sides.
3. When people polled say they “disapprove” of a Presidency that has already had remarkable substantive accomplishments, I conclude, correctly, that the disapproval is mostly based on emotion and bias.
4. The only way to make substantial cuts in the system as it exists is to cut first and fix mistakes later. That’s why the deficit keep growing. Best of two nad options.
5. “but every position that someone genuinely holds is entitled to a defense.” I simply don’t buy that, EC. There are objectively indefensible position from an ethical perspective. It sounds nice, but its delusional.
6. Who is the most competent for a job is indeed a tough analysis. Whi is NOT is easier, and not using extraneous and irrelevant factors to pretend its a close call is unfair and irresponsible, as well as dishonest..
7. I’m eager to read the essay!
I also suspect it’s not strictly legal to say, “Hey, you know that crime you committed 20 years ago that we didn’t kick you out of the country for? We just decided to kick you out after all. We’re arresting you for a crime you already served the time for. No time to prepare for your removal.” I think there has to be a bit more due process before revoking the privilege of residence, even if the threshold is less than that required to imprison a citizen.
It’s perfectly fine to say that other people’s points don’t outweigh your own. It’s another thing entirely to say that their points are completely illegitimate, illusions based on emotion and bias. For many points, that is objectively untrue. Those points are worth addressing, meaning that there are things that Trump could stand to do differently.
And there is every reason to make getting rid of illegal immigrants a priority after it had been irresponsibly neglected for so long. There is also a significant deterrent factor, which actually prevents future violations. As for the ten years argument, which I hate, consider it stolen goods. Holding on to stolen goods for six years doesn’t make it yours: if you are caught withe Crown Jewels, you still have to give it back. This is stolen citizenship and all the benefits it involved. They aren’t being punished…they are just told they can’t keep the stolen “goods.”
3. Talk to those people. I have. They disapprove because “he’s only interested in himself.” “He’s a racist.” “He’s an asshole.” They literally are unable to articulate a substantive reason more often than not: Trump doing something they would hail from another leader is automatically considered a horror. It’s all style and assumed motives. If you begin with teh position, “I hate this guy,” then of course you disapprove. (I can’t stand him myself, but I can give him credit for what he does right.)
4. By watching 40 years of futile efforts to cut programs “using a scalpel,” and running my own organizations. That’s life and human nature. The Education Department is a cesspool of waste: I’m sure it did some good things, but it was politically impossible to shave off the waste. So you kill the department, and see what falls out. Same with USAID. Same with the CDC.
5. “God’s law should take priority over man’s laws”—the position taken by those who refused to process gay same sex marriages.” “Trump is different from other elected Presidents, so we shouldn’t have to respect his policies.” “Climate change is causing California fires.” “Simply calling yourself a woman makes you female.” “There is no mainstream media bias.” I got a million of them.
6
1. I’m not talking about people who snuck into the country in this case. I’m talking about people with green cards who were told they’d served their punishment and allowed to stay in the country.
3. A stopped clock is right twice a day. Just because you have concluded that something Trump is doing is the best way to handle a situation doesn’t mean other people can’t reasonably disagree.
Either way, I have to take your assessment of other people’s motivations with a grain of salt. The people I talk to will articulate plenty of reasons, most of which are just as substantive as yours. That is to say, they look at the same evidence that you do and willfully forget the counterpoints that don’t fit the conclusion that they have come to.
For example, some of my friends were complaining that Trump’s tariffs make it more expensive to get board games. After a few questions, they did acknowledge that the reason board games were cheap before is that China uses exploitative labor practices. They realized that maybe allowing American factories to compete with sweatshops while still paying decent wages could be a step in an ethical direction. That’s more understanding of other people’s perspectives than it seems you’re willing to extend.
Quick answer on one parts because it’s late:
“3. A stopped clock is right twice a day. Just because you have concluded that something Trump is doing is the best way to handle a situation doesn’t mean other people can’t reasonably disagree.” The President is pledged to enforce the law, and open borders are a violation of the law, making 14,000,000 illegals a serious problem. Fixing it is a positive accomplishment. There is no rational or legal argument that it isn’t. It is also a major positive accomplishment. People can disagree that the sky is high, but it doesn’t make their opinion respectable. Meanwhile, a clock is required to be right all day. No leader is so required, because no leader has ever been.
People can reasonably disapprove of the ways in which major accomplishments are accomplished. Hypothetically, if a president permanently cured cancer by sacrificing 10 million people, that would be a major accomplishment that I can see lots of people disapproving of. To prevent a stupid argument where each side accuses the other of endorsing mass death, I reframe the situation as, “Nobody wants mass death, but given these two alternatives, people might weigh the pros and cons differently. How can we figure out options that might remove the cons while leaving the pros?”
Wow. You really don’t believe you can be wrong about things you’ve decided you’re right about. You have concluded that no good rebuttals exist, so your brain is automatically marking those arguments as spam (“based on emotion and bias”, irrational, delusional, et cetera) so they can’t make you reconsider your position. This phenomenon is called “depletion,” as in, “starved of important information and perspective.” It prevents intelligent people from learning concepts and principles that humans categorize as “wisdom.”
Please stay away from progressives. I don’t want them to think all people who disagree with them are like you.
(Continued… Sorry, I was looking at the email preview and it didn’t show the whole comment.)
4. I respect that it seems like the best option based on your experiences.
5a. Speaking as an atheist, it seems obvious that people would favor “God’s law” over “man’s laws”. People are always told to disobey the law if it goes against what their deity tells them is the right thing to do. That’s baked into Christianity from the Book of Daniel to dozens of martyred saints. (That said, there are a few counterpoints in favor of human law, such as “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.”) Now, fundamentalists haven’t necessarily given much thought to why they fear two people of the same sex being married in the eyes of the state, but the principle of refusing to follow an order that goes against your religion is fairly well established.
5b. Many people who see a brash, egocentric leader start implementing policies without seeming to care who is harmed are not inclined to trust such a person. They’ve read about how dictators act, and based on Trump’s policies, they are not willing to assume, as you are, that Trump isn’t going to become one of them. They figure that to shrug and go along with it is how those dictators managed to acquire their power, and they’d rather that not happen again. The only way they know how to prevent that is to refuse to cooperate with policies that give take away people’s stability and protections, because putting people in bad situations makes it easier for Trump to wield power (and it just hurts people in general for no clear benefit to society as a whole).
5c. If people have an unusually dry summer, they may suspect climate change had something to do with it. They may be wrong, but dismissing them out of hand won’t win you any credibility.
5d. Biologically, no. I’ve never heard anyone say that. People are referring to “woman” in the social sense: emotional cues, communication styles, and cultural associations that humans assign to different genders. Part of the problem is that in the process of developing language to simplify transmission of ideas, you oversimplified it. You bundled a bunch of unrelated concepts into single words, and you barely put any effort into untangling them correctly. Even philosophers and psychologists often screw it up.
5e. Yes, we can clearly, objectively see that the mainstream media is biased. For someone who is biased in the same way, it appears unbiased. You have to acknowledge the point of view in order to help people step out of it. Attacking someone for a bias they don’t realize they have never works; that’s something that progressives have been struggling with as well. That just indicates to people that you have a bias and can be safely ignored. To get someone to realize they’re seeing the world through a bias, you have to show that you appreciate the points that support the bias, no matter how few they may be. People will take you seriously when you tell them that despite those points, you still disagree. That’s how they know you aren’t biased.
I think there has to be a bit more due process before revoking the privilege of residence, even if the threshold is less than that required to imprison a citizen.
What should be the level of due process?
Is the due process required by current law insufficient?
I was under the impression that permanent residents are entitled to a hearing before being deported. If not, it seems like they should be. It’s untrustworthy to maintain that permanent residents can be kicked out of the country without a chance to defend their continued permission to stay.
At a personal level prefer to stay clear from all the political rancor, enjoy my friendships, church fellowship, and be a good citizen. My view is that politics has become way too important for many people, it has replaced religion and it creates anxiety and broken relations. Posting to Ethics Alarms about politics is an exception, as I see it as a fun exercise to spar with other minds.
On a political level, the Trump administration and the GOP need to think strategically. With strategically I mean winning elections, and achieve a long term Republican majority.
The Democrats lost the presidential election due to the negative messaging. The Democrats responded by doubling down on a loosing strategy, and do not seem to have learned anything. So it may be electorally beneficial for the GOP and the Trump administration to keep the Democrats in this TDS mindset, so they may be tempted to drop over the cliff at the left, metaphorically spoken. That is one of the reasons why Trump likes to troll the Democrats, and the Democrats take the bait every single time; this is good for the GOP of course. So here is measured response number one: keep the Dems mad for the foreseeable future.
We first need to see what the November 2025 elections in NYC, New Jersey and Virginia will bring. If Mamdani wins in NYC, and the Republicans win the governorships in New Jersey and Virginia against two relatively moderate gubernatorial candidates, the Democrats may conclude to lurch further to the left. Will the Democrats survive that drift, or will saner elements split of, register or even caucus with the GOP (Fetterman?). Will there be a third party of disaffected Democrats?
I am unwilling to speculate about the midterm elections, but right now the Democrats are in such a bad state according to the polls, that if elections were held today they would loose. So here measured response number two, as to what the GOP may consider to win the midterms: fix the Congressional game
The third measured response is for the Trump administration to take their powers under Article II of the Constitution serious and reign in the courts by ignoring court orders of lower tier judges that are borne out of judicial activism. Be as bold as Andrew Jackson in his (apocryphal) quote “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it” when dealing with pipsqueaks such as Boasberg. Such as policy may create a constitutional crisis, but it will also force the Supreme Court and Congress to provide clarity and reign in lower tier federal courts.
Nothing succeeds like success. And success goes further than an accomplished agenda, it should also result in a Democrat party who is either completely defeated and humiliated (and maybe? hopefully? obliterated), or in an opposition that is reasonable and willing to reach across the isle in the tradition of Tip O’Neill.
For now I have skipped the word “ethical”. As in a real war in a cultural war the only ethical course of action is to win decisively. Whatever it takes. That is what we did in World War II and that is what we have to do today in the USA. The Democrat are nothing of a loyal opposition; they have become a blight on American culture.
“My view is that politics has become way too important for many people, it has replaced religion and it creates anxiety and broken relations.”
My view as well, CVB. Recited this to my lovely and long suffering wife (a career Lefty); she unequivocally agreed!
PWS
The ethical response is a purely utilitarian one: Force them to live by the rules they set for everyone other than them.
Superficially, this is not ethical because those rules are transparently unethical. But from a utilitarian perspective, it stops the stupid practice of the Right playing by Marquess of Queensberry rules and the Left playing by MMA rules.
But…but…Michelle says “When they go low, we go high”…
Heh. Apparently, her audience found that unsatisfying.
“Force them to live by the rules they set for everyone other than them.”
Seems to me that this would be reasonable advice if progressives hadn’t proven themselves so adept at political Calvinball.
The geniuses who created our Constitution knew that under their structure things would swing wildly around, and permitted same out of faith in both their work and, ultimately the people, with the intent that liberty was more important than all else.
This nation has seen some crazy shit in the past. We’re seeing crazy shit now. History has shown that things have a way of normalizing over time.
I say this noting that today is my 71st birthday. One thing that becomes clearer to me as I age is that the young have a very limited understanding of history – partly because it’s so poorly taught, yes, but partly because being young often comes with a great deal of passion – and perhaps most importantly because of limited personal experience. It’s very human to assume that the things we’ve personally experienced are the way they always were, and if that’s not satisfactory, TO THE RAMPARTS!
Stick around long enough to see the pendulum swing a few times, and it becomes easier to recognize the truth in an ancient Persian aphorism: “This, too, shall pass.”