I grew up in a conservative Christian household. Morality was a top priority for my family and they judged Bill Clinton accordingly. He was a villain in our household.
For the same people in my family to have thrown morality to the side when evaluating Trump and his administrations entirely proves your point. It was never about the morality, just about the policy and politics.
Hey Tony, I grew up the same way. And as I look back on it, Clinton's personal, moral failings made him a villain also to our household. But at same time my socially conservative parents didn't have any issue with the war hawks in the Republican party who had taken the US into forever wars, and by proxy to my parents, neither did I. But all the killings ran counter to our Biblical teachings. One of those conflicts my father participated in (Vietnam) so hard to say the government was wrong when its personal like this. The Republican Establishment of the time clouded our moral thinking on this matter of forever ward by pointing to god-hating communist USSR as our external enemy. But after the USSR dissolved, the thinking didn't update. In fact, the government was at it again by co-mingling 9/11 and the Iraq War (WMDs!) For me (also a veteran) the 'no more forever wars' didn't update and sink in until around 2014. By that time, I had personally met many other vets injured physically and mentally and asking - 'for what?'. And then Trump saying what a 'big fat mistake' the Iraq War was on debate stage in 2016 woke up even more. So yeah, it's been about the policy and politics all along. Gabbard has been freshly called a Russian agent. Hegseth has been charged with being a white supremist. And Gaetz charged as sleazeball rapist. I think it that doesn't stick, they'll report he had kiddie porn on his computer. The current bureaucratic Establishment is scared that Trump's coming Schedule F Executive Order (making fed employees 'at will' and therefore more easily fire-able) will become codified in law by Congress, with heads of those departments loyal to Trump. They are also frightened Trump might get Congress to give him the power of 'Impoundment' which allows Executive to not spend $ to max allocated by Congress. And Executive might want to do this if the spending is wasteful. But law currently prevents Impoundment (since the 1970's) - and federal bureaucracies are totally fine with that because it allows them to grow more and more unconstitutional power. It also helps balloon the national debt. I'm so ready for DOGE to reveal a type of 'Twitter Files' on the government and how it actually works (and works against we the people and who we elect) in so many cases.
Did your family put personal morality aside or did they consider decades old allegations that were politically motivated and evidence free not the same as behavior in presidential office with a woman younger than his daughter?
Dierk, with a large government bureaucracy intent on preserving its unchecked power, IMHO, you care too much. Because you are now opening yourself up to be manipulated.
I couldn't have said it better. Even brainwashed lemmings like me are starting to notice the intensity of the propaganda aimed at Trump's cabinet picks. Using innuendo to smother good ideas...
I’m a Trump voter but I also look for this on the right. And looking back 20 years it was the political right manipulating me at that time and I was blind to it then.
Many, including plenty of conservatives, have also soundly argued that he is inexperienced, unproven, and technically incompetent. A reader of this substack would have no idea about this.
As usual, the focus here is on false equivalences between largely different situations. The Herschel Walker comparison is even more dishonest since he might be even less qualified to be a senator than Gaetz is to lead the DOJ.
Ahh, "qualifications", that siren song of the management class to keep themselves from ever being challenged. While it is of course true that experience can be and is helpful, the qualifications you seek are often attained because folks just "play the game", paying attention only to their ambition and not to what is good for the country. How did your "qualified" people do during the opioid crisis? How did the experienced Rumsfeld and Cheney do after 9/11 and the Iraq debacle? The Clintons and Haiti?! Fauci and the decline of average life spans?! You say Gaetz is unproven. Fine, I'll accept that he is. But the "qualified" class has in fact proven themselves - to be monstrous failures.
Hell, the "qualified" class cannot even beat the unproven, unqualified Trump!! Shouldn't that test your faith in the "experienced", "qualified", "expert", "technocratic" class?!
Maybe the "qualificatikns" you seek are not actually that important with regard to doing good work, but in fact only function to gate-keep those might change things for the better?
Was Melville "qualified" to write Moby Dick? Was Zuckerburg "qualified" to start a $1.5 trillion company? Which of the of the "founding fathers" were qualified to start a new type of government that had never before been even attempted?!
As far as Gaetz goes, you said "plenty of conservatives have argued".... did you read Lee Fang's piece? Or go to any primary sources to learn about Gaetz? I doubt it because if you had, you would know that "conservatives" hate Gaetz and willsay anything and everything, true or false, to stop him. Does that make Gaetz good? No, but if Reagan and Cheney type conservatives hate him - thay goes in the plus column for me.
Raphael, if the conservatives you read are not yet woken up, perhaps have a read from Democrat author/political commentator, Matt Stoller. His take on Matt Gaetz might surprise you. Stoller has had chance to observe Gaetz actions when the cameras are not rolling. Gaetz is anti-big business, anti-big tech and anti-big government. These are the reasons the Uniparty opposes him and is smearing him with rape, dirty pics, etc. I predict the Establishment will start to attack Gaetz for his anti-big tech leanings next to ratchet up the heat. The propaganda is getting very thick now as more is exposed, or threatens to be exposed.
As a football fan, I’ve noticed during the NFL Draft that concerns about a prospect’s character or behavior only ever make a difference when a team is ambivalent about a player and needs and excuse to pass on him. If they really think he will make them a better team, they will make whatever excuses they think will satisfy their fans, who are all likewise making them same calculation.
Same goes for politicians. If people think that a candidate’s policies will improve their lives, or at the very least keep the other tribe out of power, there’s very little they won’t overlook. May not be moral or ethical, but when has that ever mattered in politics?
In most cases they do not. They are just used as a cudgel by opposition forces when the indiscretion is convenient or the opponents stance is inconvenient.
I grew up in a conservative Christian household. Morality was a top priority for my family and they judged Bill Clinton accordingly. He was a villain in our household.
For the same people in my family to have thrown morality to the side when evaluating Trump and his administrations entirely proves your point. It was never about the morality, just about the policy and politics.
Hey Tony, I grew up the same way. And as I look back on it, Clinton's personal, moral failings made him a villain also to our household. But at same time my socially conservative parents didn't have any issue with the war hawks in the Republican party who had taken the US into forever wars, and by proxy to my parents, neither did I. But all the killings ran counter to our Biblical teachings. One of those conflicts my father participated in (Vietnam) so hard to say the government was wrong when its personal like this. The Republican Establishment of the time clouded our moral thinking on this matter of forever ward by pointing to god-hating communist USSR as our external enemy. But after the USSR dissolved, the thinking didn't update. In fact, the government was at it again by co-mingling 9/11 and the Iraq War (WMDs!) For me (also a veteran) the 'no more forever wars' didn't update and sink in until around 2014. By that time, I had personally met many other vets injured physically and mentally and asking - 'for what?'. And then Trump saying what a 'big fat mistake' the Iraq War was on debate stage in 2016 woke up even more. So yeah, it's been about the policy and politics all along. Gabbard has been freshly called a Russian agent. Hegseth has been charged with being a white supremist. And Gaetz charged as sleazeball rapist. I think it that doesn't stick, they'll report he had kiddie porn on his computer. The current bureaucratic Establishment is scared that Trump's coming Schedule F Executive Order (making fed employees 'at will' and therefore more easily fire-able) will become codified in law by Congress, with heads of those departments loyal to Trump. They are also frightened Trump might get Congress to give him the power of 'Impoundment' which allows Executive to not spend $ to max allocated by Congress. And Executive might want to do this if the spending is wasteful. But law currently prevents Impoundment (since the 1970's) - and federal bureaucracies are totally fine with that because it allows them to grow more and more unconstitutional power. It also helps balloon the national debt. I'm so ready for DOGE to reveal a type of 'Twitter Files' on the government and how it actually works (and works against we the people and who we elect) in so many cases.
Did your family put personal morality aside or did they consider decades old allegations that were politically motivated and evidence free not the same as behavior in presidential office with a woman younger than his daughter?
But their personal morality INFLUENCES their policy choices🤦♀️
For better or worse voters like me care about personal conduct. Maybe too much.
Dierk, with a large government bureaucracy intent on preserving its unchecked power, IMHO, you care too much. Because you are now opening yourself up to be manipulated.
I couldn't have said it better. Even brainwashed lemmings like me are starting to notice the intensity of the propaganda aimed at Trump's cabinet picks. Using innuendo to smother good ideas...
I’m a Trump voter but I also look for this on the right. And looking back 20 years it was the political right manipulating me at that time and I was blind to it then.
Many, including plenty of conservatives, have also soundly argued that he is inexperienced, unproven, and technically incompetent. A reader of this substack would have no idea about this.
As usual, the focus here is on false equivalences between largely different situations. The Herschel Walker comparison is even more dishonest since he might be even less qualified to be a senator than Gaetz is to lead the DOJ.
Ahh, "qualifications", that siren song of the management class to keep themselves from ever being challenged. While it is of course true that experience can be and is helpful, the qualifications you seek are often attained because folks just "play the game", paying attention only to their ambition and not to what is good for the country. How did your "qualified" people do during the opioid crisis? How did the experienced Rumsfeld and Cheney do after 9/11 and the Iraq debacle? The Clintons and Haiti?! Fauci and the decline of average life spans?! You say Gaetz is unproven. Fine, I'll accept that he is. But the "qualified" class has in fact proven themselves - to be monstrous failures.
Hell, the "qualified" class cannot even beat the unproven, unqualified Trump!! Shouldn't that test your faith in the "experienced", "qualified", "expert", "technocratic" class?!
Maybe the "qualificatikns" you seek are not actually that important with regard to doing good work, but in fact only function to gate-keep those might change things for the better?
Was Melville "qualified" to write Moby Dick? Was Zuckerburg "qualified" to start a $1.5 trillion company? Which of the of the "founding fathers" were qualified to start a new type of government that had never before been even attempted?!
As far as Gaetz goes, you said "plenty of conservatives have argued".... did you read Lee Fang's piece? Or go to any primary sources to learn about Gaetz? I doubt it because if you had, you would know that "conservatives" hate Gaetz and willsay anything and everything, true or false, to stop him. Does that make Gaetz good? No, but if Reagan and Cheney type conservatives hate him - thay goes in the plus column for me.
Raphael, if the conservatives you read are not yet woken up, perhaps have a read from Democrat author/political commentator, Matt Stoller. His take on Matt Gaetz might surprise you. Stoller has had chance to observe Gaetz actions when the cameras are not rolling. Gaetz is anti-big business, anti-big tech and anti-big government. These are the reasons the Uniparty opposes him and is smearing him with rape, dirty pics, etc. I predict the Establishment will start to attack Gaetz for his anti-big tech leanings next to ratchet up the heat. The propaganda is getting very thick now as more is exposed, or threatens to be exposed.
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/trump-nominates-khanservative-matt
As a football fan, I’ve noticed during the NFL Draft that concerns about a prospect’s character or behavior only ever make a difference when a team is ambivalent about a player and needs and excuse to pass on him. If they really think he will make them a better team, they will make whatever excuses they think will satisfy their fans, who are all likewise making them same calculation.
Same goes for politicians. If people think that a candidate’s policies will improve their lives, or at the very least keep the other tribe out of power, there’s very little they won’t overlook. May not be moral or ethical, but when has that ever mattered in politics?
I’m not encouraging the behavior, but when did hiring an escort start to equal to sex trafficking? There is a significant difference
This is turning into a very interesting philosophical question.
I once hired a man to do repair and remodeling work in my home. He was very good at and certainly had skills that I will never possess.
However one day he explained that he felt Bill Clinton was a great president. After all it was “just sex”.
As I used to say to my offspring, everyone has high moral standards, very few of them have the moral fiber to act on them.
In most cases they do not. They are just used as a cudgel by opposition forces when the indiscretion is convenient or the opponents stance is inconvenient.
Total bullshit basically.