The anti-American right

[homersapien 11,393]

Rooting against Olympians, scoffing at Capitol police, broaching civil war — meet today’s conservative movement.

By Zack Beauchamp

 

The Olympics are typically a boom time for jingoism: patriotic fervor heightening among Americans of all stripes with each gold medal for Team USA. But this year, we’ve seen an unlikely faction of Americans rooting against our athletes: conservatives.

During a late July rally, President Donald Trump claimed that “Americans were happy” about the women’s soccer team losing to Sweden — a loss that he blamed on “wokeism” turning the squad “demented.” Tomi Lahren called Team USA “the largest group of whiny social justice activists the Olympics has seen in decades,” accusing them in a Tuesday Fox News segment of engaging in “typical leftist so-called activism.” And after the men’s basketball team lost to France, Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield said he “took pleasure” in their defeat.

“The team is filled with anthem kneelers — and I find it ironic that they’re willing to put USA on their chest when, in the not so distant past, they would kneel for the anthem. Somebody ought to go up there and just rip USA off their chest,” said Stinchfield, who briefly went off the air earlier this year after insinuating that Jewish Americans are foreigners during a monologue

These attacks on Team USA are not just culture war red meat; they are a reflection of a rising tendency in the conservative movement to reject America itself. In this thinking, the country is so corrupted that it is no longer a source of pride or even worthy of respect. In its most radical versions, you even see cheerleading for revolution or civil war.

Conservative anti-Americanism still pays lip service to love of country: Its proponents declare themselves the true patriots, describing their enemies as the nation’s betrayers. But when the cadre of traitors includes everyone from election administrators to Olympians to the Capitol Police, it becomes clear that the only America they love is the one that exists in their heads. When they contemplate the actual United States — real America, if you will — they are filled with scorn.

“They see no role or place for themselves in America now,” says Paul Elliott Johnson, a communications professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies conservative rhetoric.

What’s striking about this strain of anti-American thought is how pervasive it is. Naturally, you frequently hear versions of it from rank-and-file conservatives and the carnival barkers of the right-wing echo chamber — but it doesn’t stop with them. Its most refined and troubling versions come from the highbrow thinkers of the Trumpist right; leading conservative politicians put their stamps on it.

While not entirely new — this has been bubbling up for years now, especially since Trump’s rise — the recent flare-up amid the Olympics and the January 6 hearings only underscores that influential elements of the American right seem past beyond the point of no return. These conservatives do not believe in sharing America with those who disagree with them. Forced to confront the country’s political diversity in the Biden era, they are choosing to turn on America rather than accommodate themselves to its reality.

How the right’s hyper-patriotism curdles into anti-Americanism

In the Jewish community, many of us have a suspicion of non-Jews who are a little too outspoken about how much they like Jews. These “philo-Semites” often end up being funhouse mirror anti-Semites, spreading stereotypes in the name of praising us. Trump’s infamous comment about Jewish accountants — “the only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes” — is a perfect example.

Conservative anti-Americanism is a little like this. It’s a hyper-patriotism gone sour: a belief in a fictional ideal of a perfect right-wing America that’s constantly betrayed by reality, leading to disillusionment and even disgust with the country as it actually exists.

Trump’s 2016 address to the Republican National Convention, which promised “a straightforward assessment of the state of our nation,” painted a picture of a country on the verge of collapse. “The attacks on our police and the terrorism in our cities threaten our very way of life,” then-candidate Trump said. “Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in third-world condition, and 43 million Americans are on food stamps.”

This dark depiction of the state of the country has become a hallmark of the Trumpified GOP, and Democrats’ 2020 electoral victories only deepened the conservative sense of betrayal at the hands of their countrymen. In late July, Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance warned that “we have lost every single major cultural institution in this country” — and suggested that America “has built its entire civilization” around selfish, miserable people. Earlier that month, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said “I look at Joe Biden’s America, and I don’t recognize the country that I grew up in.”

The Olympics have brought out this sense of alienation from America on the right. When conservatives see American athletes representing values at odds with their vision for the country, they don’t back Team USA in the name of patriotism — they turn on the icons of the nation itself.

Queer female soccer stars demanding equal pay, Black basketball players kneeling to protest police brutality, the world’s best gymnast prioritizing her mental health over upholding the traditional ideal of the “tough” athlete — this is all a manifestation of the ascendancy of liberal cultural values in public life. And an America where these values permeate national symbols, like the Olympic team, is an America where those symbols are worthy of scorn.

“So much of the self-perception of the American right is about losing the culture war. And that, specifically, is where some of this overt anti-Americanism — especially from the grassroots — is coming from,” says David Walsh, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Virginia who studies the history of the right.

That disdain has also seeped into the right’s recent rhetoric toward an institution that conservatives have typically celebrated: law enforcement.

When Capitol police officers testified to the House about their experiences during the 1/6 attack, ostensibly pro-police conservatives vilified them. Fox’s Tucker Carlson laughed at Officer Michael Fanone’s claim to experience “psychological trauma” after the attack; fellow host Laura Ingraham gave out mock acting awards to the officers, implying their experiences were fake or ginned up.

The willingness to attack police officers who defended an attack on the seat of American government gets at the through-the-looking-glass ugliness of contemporary right-wing patriotism.

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that leading elected Republicans have “concocted a version of events in which those accused of rioting were patriotic political prisoners and Speaker Nancy Pelosi was to blame for the violence.” Their base is listening: a recent poll from CBS-YouGov found that over half of Trump voters believe it’s appropriate to describe the events of January 6 as an act of “patriotism.”

The intellectual home of the anti-American right

This kind of anti-Americanism isn’t just the province of Fox News provocateurs and base voters. It’s also prevalent in the movement’s most intellectually rarefied corners.

The hub seems to be the Claremont Institute, a think tank based in Southern California, and affiliated institutions like Hillsdale College. Claremont is undoubtedly the most radically pro-Trump of any major right-wing intellectual institution, its thinkers most willing to defend both his presidency and his false claims of a stolen election. Claremont’s output in the past year has been astonishingly radical, all but openly calling for regime change and rebellion.

“Increasingly,” historian Joshua Tait writes in The Bulwark, “these [Claremont] patriots appear to actively hate America and their fellow citizens.”

In a May podcast, Hillsdale College lecturer and former Trump administration official Michael Anton chatted with entrepreneur Curtis Yarvin — a self-described monarchist who wants to appoint a Silicon Valley CEO king of America — about their shared desire to topple what Anton terms the American “regime.”

During the episode, Yarvin muses about how an American strongman — whom he alternatively calls “Caesar” and, more honestly, “Trump” — could seize authoritarian control of the US government by turning the National Guard and FBI into his personal stormtroopers. Critic Damon Linker identifies this politics, which meets with little pushback from Anton, as “broadly coterminous with fascism” — and it’s hard to see where he’s wrong. The pining for a strongman stems from disgust with an America Yarvin and Anton no longer recognize, a country they describe as a “theocratic oligarchy” controlled by a cadre of progressive “priests.”

In the American Mind, Claremont’s blog, writer Glenn Elmers declares that “most people living in the United States today — certainly more than half — are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term.” If Trump voters and conservatives do not band together and wage “a sort of counter-revolution” against these “citizen-aliens,” then “the victory of progressive tyranny will be assured.”

Elmers intimates that violence will be a part of this struggle. “Learn some useful skills, stay healthy, and get strong,” he advises his fellow conservatives. “Strong people are harder to kill.”  (see following post)

And an essay in the Claremont Review of Books by scholar Angelo Codevilla describes a country whose government is clinging to “an illusion of legitimacy” after “a half-century of Progressive rule’s abuse” has demolished American society.

“The War on Poverty ended up enriching its managers while expanding the underclass that voted for them. The civil rights movement ended up entitling a class of diversity managers to promote their friends and ruin their opponents,” Codevilla writes. “There is no end to what the Left can do because there is so little that conservatives do to fight back.”

Over email, Tait tells me that Claremont has become the foremost center of anti-American right-wing thinking in large part because of its “sacralized view of American history as an ideal regime.”

Even among conservatives, generally a nostalgic bunch, Claremonters are particularly inclined toward veneration of the unique wisdom of the country’s founders and early America. This makes them particularly inclined towards a sense of political betrayal — and the same kind of hyper-patriotic anti-Americanism that motivates anti-Olympian, pro-Capitol riot punditry.

Abandoning America

A sense that the country has strayed because of liberalism has long been a core part of American conservatism. But this idea has become particularly dominant now due to the influence of both the Trump presidency and longer-term trends — most notably demographic change and defeats on culture war fronts like same-sex marriage.

Barack Obama’s 2008 election victory, powered by an expanding minority population and a left-ward tilt among the young, convinced many Republicans that they might well be consigned to permanent minority status. The left’s subsequent total victory in the central culture war topic of the 2000s, same-sex marriage, led many conservatives to believe that they had no power over a culture whose values were tilting inexorably leftward.

Combine all that with liberal dominance in mainstream American culture — Hollywood, media, academia, and even a growing share of corporate America — and you have a recipe for rising conservative alienation from the country they claim to love.

Part of Trump’s political genius was his ability to harness this sentiment among the conservative elite and rank-and-file and make a movement out of them.

There’s a reason that the most famous intellectual case for Trump is Anton’s “Flight 93” essay — a 2016 argument that a Trump victory was the only way to avoid national suicide. It revealed the sense of desperation that animates the modern right, a deep-seated fear of losing their country permanently.

During his initial campaign and presidency, Trump tapped into this sentiment by explicitly dividing the country into good Americans that supported him and his people and bad ones that did not. He found that there was a market in his party for a style of politics that eschewed unifying bromides and high-minded patriotism in favor of division and cruelty; he made it okay to say openly that you just hated the other side and didn’t want to share the country with them anymore.

Trump was all the permission that many in the conservative movement needed to finally express what it really felt about the American experiment. After his defeat, the sense of marginalization that animated his original campaign has come roaring back — a feeling of utter alienation manifesting in vicious attacks on the country’s symbols and government.

“For most parts of the right, there was this idea that you could still redeem the country — that you could reverse these long-term trends by political organizing, electing conservatives to political office, etc.,” Walsh, the UVA scholar, tells me. “Today, there is this move away from even the trappings of the American democratic tradition — and I think that is linked to the broader sense that this country can no longer be redeemed

https://www.vox.com/22600500/olympics-conservatives-simone-biles-anti-american

 

Edited August 4, 2021 by homersapien

[homersapien 11,393]

“Conservatism” is no Longer Enough

Glenn Ellmers

 

 

All hands on deck as we enter the counter-revolutionary moment.

Let’s be blunt. The United States has become two nations occupying the same country. When pressed, or in private, many would now agree. Fewer are willing to take the next step and accept that most people living in the United States today—certainly more than half—are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term.

I don’t just mean the millions of illegal immigrants. Obviously, those foreigners who have bypassed the regular process for entering our country, and probably will never assimilate to our language and culture, are—politically as well as legally—aliens. I’m really referring to the many native-born people—some of whose families have been here since the Mayflower—who may technically be citizens of the United States but are no longer (if they ever were) Americans. They do not believe in, live by, or even like the principles, traditions, and ideals that until recently defined America as a nation and as a people. It is not obvious what we should call these citizen-aliens, these non-American Americans; but they are something else.

What about those who do consider themselves Americans? By and large, I am referring to the 75 million people who voted in the last election against the senile figurehead of a party that stands for mob violence, ruthless censorship, and racial grievances, not to mention bureaucratic despotism. Regardless of Trump’s obvious flaws, preferring his re-election was not a difficult choice for these voters. In fact—leaving aside the Republican never-Trumpers and some squeamish centrists—it was not a difficult choice for either side. Both Right and Left know where they stand today… and it is not together. Not anymore.

Those who wanted to Make America Great Again may refer to themselves as Republicans, though many realize that, apart from Trump, the party does not really care about them. Many may also, in some loose way, consider themselves conservatives. But among these plumbers, insurance salesmen, gym owners, and factory workers there’s one question you can pretty much guarantee they never discuss with their family and friends: “What kind of conservative are you?” This question has virtually no bearing on the problems that overshadow their lives.

It is still a question, however, that occupies intellectuals, journalists, and the world of think tanks. And this matters, unfortunately, because however sensible and down to earth the voters may be, an effective political movement needs intellectual leadership to organize and explain the movement’s purposes and goals. This leadership is still divided into—to name a few—neocons, paleocons (not to be confused with paleo-libertarians!) rad-trads, the dissident right, reformicons, etc. A lot of these labels are a distraction. But before I reject these disputes as mostly irrelevant, let me make a couple of points about why we can’t immediately leave this debate behind—and so why an essay like this is necessary.

“The conservative movement” still matters because if the defenders of America continue to squabble among themselves, the victory of progressive tyranny will be assured. See you in the gulag. On the off chance we can avoid that fate, it will only be if the shrinking number of Americans unite and work together. But we can’t simply mandate that conservatives “set aside” their differences, no matter how urgent it is that they do so. So my goal here is to show why we must all unite around the one, authentic America, the only one which transcends all the factional navel-gazing and pointless conservababble.

Practically speaking, there is almost nothing left to conserve. What is actually required now is a recovery, or even a refounding, of America as it was long and originally understood but which now exists only in the hearts and minds of a minority of citizens.

This recognition that the original America is more or less gone sets the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy apart from almost everyone else on the Right. Paradoxically, the organization that has been uniquely devoted to understanding and teaching the principles of the American founding now sees with special clarity why “conserving” that legacy is a dead end. Overturning the existing post-American order, and re-establishing America’s ancient principles in practice, is a sort of counter-revolution, and the only road forward.

 

Knowing What Time It Is

Claremont was one of the very few serious institutions on the right to make an intellectual case for Trumpism. This is not an accident. Nor is it an accident that Claremont has never identified with any of the conservative (or liberal) factions. When commentators try to label us, they usually just say “Claremont conservatives.” “True MAGAs” is another label—occasionally used by those who think Trump voters inhabit yet another enclosure in the conservative zoo. In fact, however, they are not a partisan faction or an interest group at all. On the contrary, the position they represent transcends the conservative divisions by representing the true, non-partisan understanding of America. (Yes: this is a bold claim. I will defend it in a moment, along with the claim that Trump voters are essentially “Claremont conservatives.”)

The great majority of establishment conservatives who were alarmed and repelled by Trump’s rough manner and disregard for “norms” are almost totally clueless about a basic fact: Our norms are now hopelessly corrupt and need to be destroyed. It has been like this for a while—and the MAGA voters knew it, while most of the policy wonks and magazine scribblers did not… and still don’t. In almost every case, the political practices, institutions, and even rhetoric governing the United States have become hostile to both liberty and virtue. On top of that, the mainline churches, universities, popular culture, and the corporate world are rotten to the core. What exactly are we trying to conserve?

At a basic level, Trump understood this. His problem was that he lacked the discipline to target his creative/destructive tendencies effectively. But even with greater discipline, he still would have lacked the insight to discern and explain what needs to be destroyed and why. His presidency, especially in a second term, might have corrected this deficiency, except that Trump suffered greatly from an absence of good advisors who could help him make sound judgments. This is partly his own fault, thanks to his bombastic vanity, but partly not, since only a handful of such advisors exist—and these few, moreover, have long been unwelcome in the corridors of power inside the Beltway.

Conservatism, Inc. is worse than useless in this regard because it does not understand through perpetual study what Trump grasped by instinct. As if coming upon a man convulsing from an obvious poison, Trump at least attempted in his own inelegant way to expel the toxin. By contrast, the conservative establishment, or much of it, has been unwilling to recognize that our body politic is dying from these noxious “norms.” Keep taking the poison! it advises. A cynic might suppose that many elements on the right have made their peace with (and found a way to profit from) the progressive project of narcotizing the American people and turning us into a nation of slaves.

What is needed, of course, is a statesman who understands both the disease afflicting the nation, and the revolutionary medicine required for the cure. But no such figure has emerged, and it is unreasonable to pin our hopes on such a savior simply turning up.

What, then, are Americans to do?

 

Toward America

First, we need to set goals. It is not enough just to smash all the bad things. Mindless chaos or anarchy is no way to achieve justice. One of conservatism’s huge errors for the last several decades has been to think big concepts like justice and fairness don’t matter. So we allowed the Left to own these ideas. Big mistake! Authentic Americans are men, not gerbils—or robots.

If you are a zombie or a human rodent who wants a shadow-life of timid conformity, then put away this essay and go memorize the poetry of Amanda Gorman. Real men and women who love honor and beauty, keep reading.

Authentic Americans still want to have decent lives. They want to work, worship, raise a family, and participate in public affairs without being treated as insolent upstarts in their own country. Therefore, we need a conception of a stable political regime that allows for the good life.

The U.S. Constitution no longer works. But that fact raises more questions than answers. Can some parts of the system—especially at the local and state level—be preserved and strengthened? How would that work? How do we distinguish the parts that are salvageable from the parts that are hopeless? How did all this happen, anyway? The answers to these questions are not obvious. Having a coherent plan—thinking through what American citizenship used to mean, what made it noble and made the country worthy of patriotic love, and how to rebuild its best elements—requires input from people, and institutions, who have given these matters a lot of thought.

I can’t answer each of these questions in detail, or provide the comprehensive political plan we need. But I can tell you that the Claremont Institute is one of the few places where some answers can be found, and where the essentials for such a plan can be developed. And that gets us back to the question of the divisions within conservatism.

Lots of groups today will tell you what’s wrong with society, in light of their particular theory or doctrine. Anarcho-libertarians, Benedict-option Christians, Bronze-Age insubordinates…. the list of quirky responses to America’s accelerating decline goes on. Each of these schools has some important points to make. Yet none represents, or even claims to represent, the vast numbers of heartland voters who still call themselves Americans, and who can only be organized around a restoration (and explanation) of authentic American citizenship—even if that citizenship is now mostly a cherished idea rather than a reality. Claremont does make that claim. And because what the Claremont Institute understands goes to the roots of human nature, justice, and free government, its teaching may prove to be more useful than any other “doctrine” for recovering a decent way of life—the American way of life.

Part of what makes the Claremont Institute a bit oddly unique—recall its full name—is the belief that political philosophy actually matters for political life. That is why it has always had much more of an academic or scholarly orientation than other think tanks. This focus is not quite so odd when we reflect that the founding fathers read, and cited, quite a lot of political philosophy when they created a novus ordo seclorum and a “more perfect Union.” Nor does it seem quite so strange when we reflect on what is happening to our nation today. As fundamental concepts of equality, rights, consent, tyranny, and the right of revolution force themselves into our thoughts and our speech, Claremont’s devotion to exploring and explaining political philosophy now seems increasingly relevant and even urgent.

What, then, is this thing Claremont tries to teach?

When I say that MAGA voters are Claremont conservatives, and that this transcends any faction, I am referring to the idea that the United States was the first nation in the history of the world explicitly founded on the idea that government derives all its legitimacy from the inalienable rights of the people, and makes their consent essential to the common good and justice. American constitutionalism established a nonpartisan form of government that was genuinely unprecedented.

By saying this, I don’t mean that every prior nation, or regime, was evil—though most had little regard for the welfare of the common man. But even when a monarch or ruling family brought peace and safety to the people, this was simply a matter of luck. Aristotle, the first political scientist, explains in his Politics that the best approximation of justice one can practically hope for is to balance out the different factional interests, which usually boil down to the poor many (the “democrats”) and the rich few (the “oligarchs”). Theoretically, you could have a perfectly wise and just king who ruled purely for the common good, but this was so unlikely as be hardly worth considering. (Monarchy, even in Christian kingdoms, also has a strong tendency to descend into tyranny—a lesson underappreciated by some on the right.)

America’s re-conception of “democracy” differed from what that word had usually meant up to that point. For Aristotle and other political theorists, democracy referred to the factional interest of the poor and the many against the rich and the few. That simply amounted to the majoritarian rule of the mob. But when the American founders rebelled against a divinely anointed king and established republican government on the basis of the natural equal rights of all human beings, they inaugurated a truly radical idea.

The rule of the majority in America would be limited in principle to doing what could only rightly be done by all the people. That is, the majority acting in and through the Constitution, could not infringe the rights of the minority. The government derived its authority from consent of all the American people, who created the Union to protect their natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That meant no more kings exercising authority by “divine right”; no more hereditary aristocracy; no more established churches; and no permanent bureaucracy staffed by unaccountable “experts.” For the first time, the idea of a social compact uniting all the people would form a truly nonpartisan regime.

The great difficulty is that this idea only works if everyone agrees—that is, if everyone “gets it” and acknowledges that we are all fellow citizens (friends, ultimately) and that any temporary majority in power must represent the rights and interests of all.

This is the vital heart of what made American self-government work as long as it did. And it is the repudiation of this idea that animates the progressive, or woke, or “antiracist” agenda that now corrupts our republic, assaults our morality, and suffocates our liberty.

 

State of Disunion

Claremont’s intellectual founder, the late professor Harry Jaffa, explains this, and shows why a majority of people living in the United States today can no longer be considered fellow citizens:

The moral education of the whole community in the common natural rights of humanity, as the ground of the social compact, is a necessary condition of free society, of a polity in which majority rule may be combined with minority rights….

By reason of their understanding of what unites them on the fundamental level, the citizens of a free society, while becoming partisans (and even “factions”) with respect to the interests that divide them, will be able to transcend these distinctions, when these threaten the genuine interests they share as fellow citizens. It will teach them, above all, as members of a majority, not to permit the endangering of those rights of the minority, which ought to be their common care.

… [A] free society cannot be neutral towards the convictions of its citizens with respect to their mutual rights and duties. It cannot be neutral towards the morality of citizenship, without being neutral towards itself….

Without that frequent recurrence to (that is to say, frequent re-education in) fundamental principles enjoined by the great documents of the American Revolution “no free government… can be preserved to any people.” These principles as the ground of our patriotism must be defended, whenever the nation itself is defended, if necessary, by the sword. But they cannot be defended politically or by force, if they are not defended first and last, in the souls of the citizens.

 

Jaffa’s students (many connected with the Claremont Institute, but also at places like Hillsdale College) have spent the last 40 years articulating the premises and implications of that somewhat complicated set of ideas. Again, here is not the place to explain this comprehensive political philosophy. The Institute has lots of publications, and several fellowship programs, that provide different pathways to this teaching. This educational project, to the matter at hand, has been partly a failure and partly a success. It has failed inasmuch as we did not persuade a sufficient number of citizens to prevent the political disintegration now occurring before our eyes. Success, over the long term, may still be possible, but it is an open question. In any case, the ultimate outcome will not be due to a lack of trying.

In 1979, the year the Claremont Institute was founded, Charles Kesler—now the eminent gray-haired editor of the Claremont Review of Books—was a young graduate student in political philosophy at Harvard. In a long cover story for National Review (then in its heyday), Kesler wrote, “When the central ideas of our political tradition become blurred and obscured, when Americans no longer understand what it is that makes them a people, then they will cease to be a people, and that noble and reasonable tradition will decay into ideology.” When that happens, the “spiritedness, the prideful assertion of dignity and independence” that characterizes American citizenship “is severed from its connection to reason” and American self-government “collapses upon itself.”

I mention that 42-year-old essay because it shows how long, and how consistently, Claremont scholars have been making these arguments.

Again, this points to both failure and success. In terms of the latter, it is not well appreciated today how Jaffa, Kesler, and other Claremont writers played an enormous role in pushing William Buckley, National Review, and the whole conservative movement toward a greater focus on, and appreciation for, the American founders. A good argument can be made that were it not for Jaffa’s 60 years of influential scholarship (he died in 2015 at the age of 96), the New York Times and its allies would not have found it necessary to launch the 1619 Project. This assault on America’s history and meaning was deemed necessary, at least in part, because of the work of the Claremont school. Without its decades of advocacy and educational programs, the American founding—the Spirit of ’76—would be even more distant and unfamiliar today than it already is.

This understanding of fundamental principles is also why Claremont may be the only “conservative think tank” that can continue to carry on its work—essentially unaltered—in the face of the great revolutionary change we are now experiencing. This is another way of making the point I argued earlier: America, as an identity or political movement, might need to carry on without the United States.

This brings us back to the question of whether the MAGA voters, and Claremont, can become an effective political force. To do so will require not only an understanding of the right principles, but also the detailed knowledge and practical wisdom needed to apply those principles to our specific circumstances. This skill or wisdom points to the virtue of prudence, which Aristotle regarded as the comprehensive moral virtue, and the defining characteristic of the statesman.

In the meantime, give up on the idea that “conservatives” have anything useful to say. Accept the fact that what we need is a counter-revolution. Learn some useful skills, stay healthy, and get strong. (One of my favorite weightlifting coaches likes to say, “Strong people are harder to kill, and more useful generally.”) Also, read some books, like this one, and this one, or any of these; and consider one of the Institute’s fellowship programs, for yourself or a smart young person you know.

It’s all hands on deck now.

https://americanmind.org/salvo/why-the-claremont-institute-is-not-conservative-and-you-shouldnt-be-either/

[jj3jordan 2,056]

Well there's a couple of folks who are overthinking this.

[creed 1,641]

I believe the thread's title is BS because on Saturdays in the SEC I see and hear republicans, democrats and independents hating on players of the opposite team, who just happen to be Americans.....lol. 

Edited August 5, 2021 by creed

[aubaseball 2,633]

This is all blah blah blah.   Where are the hearings for officers that were on the front lines of Minneapolis, Seattle, D.C, New York and Milwaukee that had to experience the same thing that capital police experienced???? If you don’t know that this is a dog and pony show, you’re an ostrich.   

[aubiefifty 16,823]

4 hours ago, aubaseball said:

This is all blah blah blah.   Where are the hearings for officers that were on the front lines of Minneapolis, Seattle, D.C, New York and Milwaukee that had to experience the same thing that capital police experienced???? If you don’t know that this is a dog and pony show, you’re an ostrich.   

one huge difference is you guys try to act like you are above that sort of thing and guess what? you are not. you guys did just as bad. f the police. lets go hang some folks. you guys talk out your ass but you are just as bad as anyone else..........probably worse since people have been warning you guys about trump for years.

[CoffeeTiger 5,135]

17 hours ago, jj3jordan said:

Well there's a couple of folks who are overthinking this.

 

Excellent Rebuttal. You are truly one of the Conservative movements foremost scholars. Might want to apply to be apart of the Clairmont Institute yourself. 

 

4 hours ago, aubaseball said:

This is all blah blah blah.   Where are the hearings for officers that were on the front lines of Minneapolis, Seattle, D.C, New York and Milwaukee that had to experience the same thing that capital police experienced???? If you don’t know that this is a dog and pony show, you’re an ostrich.   

So if the Capitol seige was similarly bad to the protest in the cities and you agree that those protests should be investigated.....then you are agreeing that the Jan.6th event should be investigated and you are in support of the investigation? 

good to hear. 

[aubaseball 2,633]

1 hour ago, aubiefifty said:

one huge difference is you guys try to act like you are above that sort of thing and guess what? you are not. you guys did just as bad. f the police. lets go hang some folks. you guys talk out your ass but you are just as bad as anyone else..........probably worse since people have been warning you guys about trump for years.

Only farts I’m hearing are coming from your mouth.  I’m saying let’s be consistent in the reporting, outrage and penalties across the board.   Let’s not pretend that burning down business’s and destroying blocks are not as bad as people storming a building.   And seriously, calling it an insurrection or coup is slam on a real insurrection/coup (where actually guns and death happen while the insurrection is taking place).   
 

 

[aubaseball 2,633]

1 hour ago, CoffeeTiger said:

 

Excellent Rebuttal. You are truly one of the Conservative movements foremost scholars. Might want to apply to be apart of the Clairmont Institute yourself. 

 

So if the Capitol seige was similarly bad to the protest in the cities and you agree that those protests should be investigated.....then you are agreeing that the Jan.6th event should be investigated and you are in support of the investigation? 

good to hear. 

Last time I checked, FBI was conducting an investigation and people were being arrested.   And I don’t see current republicans going out and raising money for bail.  
if not for political purposes, why is the hearing going on?  Who cares why they did it, they did it and are being arrested.
 

 

[CoffeeTiger 5,135]

Just now, aubaseball said:

Last time I checked, FBI was conducting an investigation and people were being arrested.   And I don’t see current republicans going out and raising money for bail.  
if not for political purposes, why is the hearing going on?  Who cares why they did it, they did it and are being arrested.
 

 

That's the rub isn't it? 

Who cares why this group of people stormed the capitol while congress was in session? Who care what caused them to do it, and who cares what they were trying to achieve? Maybe America SHOULD care why, so that it might help prevent this situation in the future, and if individuals or politicians encouraged or helped cause the attack then maybe they should be held accountable for it...that's why. 

I strongly suspect the reason you and a lot of Republicans "don't care" is because you actually already know 'why' they did it and you know that it wouldn't be good or complimentary towards Trump/Republicans as a whole if those reasons were investigated or put on the record. 

[aubaseball 2,633]

13 minutes ago, CoffeeTiger said:

That's the rub isn't it? 

Who cares why this group of people stormed the capitol while congress was in session? Who care what caused them to do it, and who cares what they were trying to achieve? Maybe America SHOULD care why, so that it might help prevent this situation in the future, and if individuals or politicians encouraged or helped cause the attack then maybe they should be held accountable for it...that's why. 

I strongly suspect the reason you and a lot of Republicans "don't care" is because you actually already know 'why' they did it and you know that it wouldn't be good or complimentary towards Trump/Republicans as a whole if those reasons were investigated or put on the record. 

That’s my point.   If you are going to accuse politicians for inciting what happened, then we need investigations into everyone of the protest last summer and hold those politicians accountable as well.   That would include half of the democratic-congressman /congresswoman and current VP.   
 

you don’t need a congressional hearing to know that those people were pissed at the results of the election and believed that it was stolen.   They thought they would go in and make it “right” in their mind.   They drank the cool aid.   
the capital police and whoever that was in charge of defensive posture dropped the ball.   Everyone knew, I am talking everyone, that is a large pissed off group of trump supporters were going to gather on the mall for a rally.   Why in the hell would you  not be prepared in case they started towards the capital?

[aubiefifty 16,823]

36 minutes ago, aubaseball said:

Only farts I’m hearing are coming from your mouth.  I’m saying let’s be consistent in the reporting, outrage and penalties across the board.   Let’s not pretend that burning down business’s and destroying blocks are not as bad as people storming a building.   And seriously, calling it an insurrection or coup is slam on a real insurrection/coup (where actually guns and death happen while the insurrection is taking place).   
 

 

oh you are so full of feces. they were going to hang pelosi and pence. also part of the investigation was trying to find out how the mob could find where folks were hiding from the mob. in other words there were insiders trying to make trumps wishes happen. and people were beaten. four people have committed suicide because they could not believe their own supposedly respectful americans were hurting them and calling them pigs and the n word. this is important because trump instigated this one along with some of his azz kissers.  the fact you try to dismiss what is happening is laughable.

[aubiefifty 16,823]

7 minutes ago, aubaseball said:

That’s my point.   If you are going to accuse politicians for inciting what happened, then we need investigations into everyone of the protest last summer and hold those politicians accountable as well.   That would include half of the democratic-congressman /congresswoman and current VP.   
 

you don’t need a congressional hearing to know that those people were pissed at the results of the election and believed that it was stolen.   They thought they would go in and make it “right” in their mind.   They drank the cool aid.   
the capital police and whoever that was in charge of defensive posture dropped the ball.   Everyone knew, I am talking everyone, that is a large pissed off group of trump supporters were going to gather on the mall for a rally.   Why in the hell would you  not be prepared in case they started towards the capital?

because no one thought a sitting president would escalate things like they did. trump told them to fight like hell over lies he keeps putting out there.

[CoffeeTiger 5,135]

19 minutes ago, aubaseball said:

That’s my point.   If you are going to accuse politicians for inciting what happened, then we need investigations into everyone of the protest last summer and hold those politicians accountable as well.   That would include half of the democratic-congressman /congresswoman and current VP.   
 

you don’t need a congressional hearing to know that those people were pissed at the results of the election and believed that it was stolen.   They thought they would go in and make it “right” in their mind.   They drank the cool aid.   
the capital police and whoever that was in charge of defensive posture dropped the ball.   Everyone knew, I am talking everyone, that is a large pissed off group of trump supporters were going to gather on the mall for a rally.   Why in the hell would you  not be prepared in case they started towards the capital?

Sure, write your congressman and tell them you want them to investigate the riots in Portland then. 

That'd be fine with me. 

But im not going to use the summer protests as an excuse for pretending that the Jan6 incident shouldn't be investigated. Go tell the Republicans to get on the ball and get to investigating if they want. 

[AU9377 4,979]

7 hours ago, aubaseball said:

This is all blah blah blah.   Where are the hearings for officers that were on the front lines of Minneapolis, Seattle, D.C, New York and Milwaukee that had to experience the same thing that capital police experienced???? If you don’t know that this is a dog and pony show, you’re an ostrich.   

The hearings aren't about the plight of officers.  The hearings are to document what happened and are only needed due to the ease at which some on the far right have denied the truth and attempted to re-write the narrative.  For the first time in the history of this country, a group of people attempted to prevent congress from completing their duty to certify the results of the electoral college.  The sitting President urged them on in order to continue to try and persuade state election officials to lie for him and find votes to change the results.  I can't think of a more un-American thing to do.

[AU9377 4,979]

53 minutes ago, aubaseball said:

That’s my point.   If you are going to accuse politicians for inciting what happened, then we need investigations into everyone of the protest last summer and hold those politicians accountable as well.   That would include half of the democratic-congressman /congresswoman and current VP.   
 

you don’t need a congressional hearing to know that those people were pissed at the results of the election and believed that it was stolen.   They thought they would go in and make it “right” in their mind.   They drank the cool aid.   
the capital police and whoever that was in charge of defensive posture dropped the ball.   Everyone knew, I am talking everyone, that is a large pissed off group of trump supporters were going to gather on the mall for a rally.   Why in the hell would you  not be prepared in case they started towards the capital?

1. Why did they believe that the election had been stolen?

2. Has there been, at any time, proof of that claim?

3. Who made the kool-aid?

[aubaseball 2,633]

4 hours ago, AU9377 said:

1. Why did they believe that the election had been stolen?

2. Has there been, at any time, proof of that claim?

3. Who made the kool-aid?

No one seems to have an opinion on the posture of protection at the capital.   
 
It’s funny how some of you are worked over the riot at the capital but never mentioned the protest at Lafayette park last summer by BLM and Anitifa that injured several US Secret Service Uniformed Officers and Special Agents.   If not for their show of force and resistance, I can guarantee you that those protesters would have breached the White House fence.   

[AU9377 4,979]

1 hour ago, aubaseball said:

No one seems to have an opinion on the posture of protection at the capital.   
 
It’s funny how some of you are worked over the riot at the capital but never mentioned the protest at Lafayette park last summer by BLM and Anitifa that injured several US Secret Service Uniformed Officers and Special Agents.   If not for their show of force and resistance, I can guarantee you that those protesters would have breached the White House fence.   

Violence in any form is unacceptable, but the Jan 6th cluster F*** was intended to stop the constitutional process of electing a new President and the peaceful transition of power.  That is a few levels above the what about Antifa nonsense.

[jj3jordan 2,056]

10 hours ago, CoffeeTiger said:

 

Excellent Rebuttal. You are truly one of the Conservative movements foremost scholars. Might want to apply to be apart of the Clairmont Institute yourself. 

 

So if the Capitol seige was similarly bad to the protest in the cities and you agree that those protests should be investigated.....then you are agreeing that the Jan.6th event should be investigated and you are in support of the investigation? 

good to hear. 

Thank you Coffee. You're right I should be running that place.

[aubiefifty 16,823]

the point is the radical right has taken over the republican party. they are violent and extremely racist. i also believe most of them to be complete morons to believe some of the crap they are believing. i mean come on. hillary running a ped operation out of the basement of a pizza parlor? wanting to hang the vice pres and pelosi because mon fuhrer was mad at them? i am sorry but you folks are a disgrace to this nation. i see no supposedly decent republicans standing up against all this bull crap but maybe titan.

[jj3jordan 2,056]

1 hour ago, aubiefifty said:

the point is the radical right has taken over the republican party. they are violent and extremely racist. i also believe most of them to be complete morons to believe some of the crap they are believing. i mean come on. hillary running a ped operation out of the basement of a pizza parlor? wanting to hang the vice pres and pelosi because mon fuhrer was mad at them? i am sorry but you folks are a disgrace to this nation. i see no supposedly decent republicans standing up against all this bull crap but maybe titan.

You are out of your mind.

[aubaseball 2,633]

1 hour ago, aubiefifty said:

the point is the radical right has taken over the republican party. they are violent and extremely racist. i also believe most of them to be complete morons to believe some of the crap they are believing. i mean come on. hillary running a ped operation out of the basement of a pizza parlor? wanting to hang the vice pres and pelosi because mon fuhrer was mad at them? i am sorry but you folks are a disgrace to this nation. i see no supposedly decent republicans standing up against all this bull crap but maybe titan.

Come on man!!! You can’t be serious with this shi**.   To lump the whole Republican Party into a racist/violent extremist group is completely lunacy.   
 

that would be like someone saying all Democrats are for abolishing the police/ICE, open borders, critical race theory, no guns and on and on.   Because there are plenty more democratic elected officials that genuinely want these things to happen that have openly stated it.   
 

[aubiefifty 16,823]

1 hour ago, aubaseball said:

Come on man!!! You can’t be serious with this shi**.   To lump the whole Republican Party into a racist/violent extremist group is completely lunacy.   
 

that would be like someone saying all Democrats are for abolishing the police/ICE, open borders, critical race theory, no guns and on and on.   Because there are plenty more democratic elected officials that genuinely want these things to happen that have openly stated it.   
 

i have read several of your posts and the only thing i can gather is you cannot stand blacks might get away with something while whites are being arrested. as for some of the dems wanting repubs hurt i will need a link. but lets not forget majorie taylor greene suggesting alabama folks will shot those knocking on doors to see if anyone was vaccinated. she is also being looked at for telling the mob where they could find pelosi so they could hang her. i have seen nothing yet clearing her.

[aubaseball 2,633]

16 minutes ago, aubiefifty said:

i have read several of your posts and the only thing i can gather is you cannot stand blacks might get away with something while whites are being arrested. as for some of the dems wanting repubs hurt i will need a link. but lets not forget majorie taylor greene suggesting alabama folks will shot those knocking on doors to see if anyone was vaccinated. she is also being looked at for telling the mob where they could find pelosi so they could hang her. i have seen nothing yet clearing her.

Look dude! You’re a piece of work if you have gotten anything about what I’ve stated as being anti-black.   It seems that you’re the one trying to find a racist angle.   
you don’t seem to open up your ears and hear what I’m saying.    I’m about equal justice for everyone.   If you commit a crime, you face the consequences.    It’s not a hard concept to follow.    When you start projecting your beliefs and opinions onto others is were you get confused.    

I haven’t gone through every thread that’s been created in this forum but (here is where I will project like you do) I bet you were ok with the protest at the White House were officers were injured. You are for defunding the police and the stealing of merchandise.   
 

and just so that you completely understand where I stand on rioters of the capital,  I hope everyone that went inside gets arrested.   It was the dumbest thing that could have happened.    But I am for personal responsibility, so the Trump told me or made me do it defense, I don’t buy.  

[aubiefifty 16,823]

i am for prosecuting whomever breaks the law. your party does not seem to agree with me since they are trying to blame it on nancy and what ever else they can dream up.