Credibility Gaps

At this point in the 2016 Presidential election cycle, the more credible consensus is that the only reason to vote for one of the mainstream candidates is because the alternative is worse, and a third party vote will just essentially be a vote for one’s opponent and therefore contribute directly to the destruction of our esteemed Republic.   

[This, of course does not apply to the diehard acolytes of either candidate, who actually ascribe Messianic qualities to their respective standard bearer[s], the diabolic character of the opponent either notwithstanding, or the driving catalyst behind the messianism, or both.]

I maintain that for 2016 there has been no preferable Democratic candidate since the debates: Clinton is inexorably tied to the abhorrent policies [especially foreign] of this administration, and that’s even before one gets into the credibility issues raised by the servers and the Foundation; Sanders’ socialist and terrorsplaining tendencies are now actually celebrated in many corners of the DNC; O’Malley’s success in “cleaning up Baltimore” is now belied by the DOJ reports that the BPD wasn’t so much racist or sexist as it was thoroughly unprepared and unprofessional across the board; and Jim Webb blew all his credibility defending the Stars and Bars.  No Democrat could have garnered my vote.

And, all that was before Hillary’s DNC coronation.  Once one realizes that her foreign policy is basically dictated by the Blumenthals pere and fils and George Soros, said policies are no longer misguided; they're outright malignant.

That would have left, in theory, whomever the GOP would have put forth as the its standard bearer.  Until Trump emerged from the fray and led one to discard the notion that he could be counted on to carry out, much profess to actually really believe, in the bulk of what’s in the GOP platform--at least, the parts that weren’t written by his lawyers. 

He also has continually undermined whatever credibility there might have been to charging Obama with being a “teleprompter President”.   The problem is every time he actually sounds credible, he seems completely like he’s chomping at the bit to lead another fan rally, which indicates a profound disconnect between the policies he might be purporting to promulgate and his true leadership temperament.  Or, in English that he could understand: he won’t be credible if he isn't scripted, but he won't win if he isn't allowed to be "Trump".

His other Obamanian penchant: laying down red lines that he could never fully hold to; never mind the Mexican wall—suspend ALL Muslim immigration?  Judging allies solely on their participation in America’s mission to root out Islamic terrorism?  What’s he going to do, fight the Saudis, Pakistan AND Iran while disengaging militarily?

While nowhere near the fascist he’s been made out to be, Trump's pronouncements, calculated for the maximum effect they would garner at that moment irrespective of whether they contradict any previously stated positions, might be paradigmatic demagoguery.  That definition might be further undergirded by the perception that his handlers—such as they are—don’t really have control of the messaging, such as when they make mistakes like Katrina Pierson’s Af-gaffe.  They just aren’t as good at the doublespeak, and when they’re called on it and they double down, they look worse than he does. 

At the same time, while Trump’s campaign would be nonexistent without digital technology and the attendant speed it has bestowed on contemporary media culture, there is little doubt that the overwhelming majority of the mainstream media is “in the bag for Hillary”.  The media can continually do this and maintain a veneer of credibility for two reasons.  One is because of Trump’s talent for inflammatory doublespeak; he gets punished twice over, by the trenchant PC culture pervasive in the media, and by the speed with which his contradictory statements can be discovered and published.  The other may have to do with a theory posited in Eric Alterman’s “What Liberal Media?”: that the MSM was too solicitous of Dubya’s aw-shucks charm and too critical of Gore and was therefore complicit in eight years of W’s warmongering and they now feel compelled to atone their collective grievous error by shilling for the more liberal candidate, every time.

At the same time, often the media will outdo itself and reveal its hand.  One example: the New York Times dedicated a news alert to Donald Trump’s ostensible $30 million tax break received when Chris Christie assumed the governor office in New Jersey.  One would assume that involves chump change compared to the transaction occurring in and out of the coffers of the Clinton Foundation where George Soros and foreign countries are concerned.  Once in a while, Trump may have a point.

Either way, there is no credibility gap between the candidates.  There are individual gaps between actual credibility and each respective candidate, and then between credibility and the media.  ALL media.

Dennis Prager's Conservative Conscience

So here's how I see this election:  Hillary won't dissociate from the Blumenthals; Bernie is publicly courting Zogby and West; Trump needs the alt-right that he won't disavow [because he'd be nowhere near where he is without them], and even his own progeny won't [or can't] stand up to him. 

That last fact is enough to make Trump as dangerous as the Dems, even before one gets into what exactly his real political positions are, what he might say they are, or his psychological profile.

Dennis Prager writes that conservatives with a real conscience will vote for Trump to stop the Dems' inevitable leftward march. 

Au contraire. 

Conservatives with a conscience won't make anything resembling common cause with alt righters and pretend that even the most possible leftward lurch of the US gov't is on par with choosing sides between Stalin and Hitler.   This election is NOT a war.

Conservatives with a conscience will not conflate "my side right or wrong" with "the fate of the Republic is in our hands".

Conservatives with a conscience would publicly STAND UP to Trump's refusal to disavow himself from the alt right instead of being afraid of both his displays of ostensible power and their fear of the American Left.

Conservatives with a conscience won't make the kind of moral assumptions about other conservatives that are best left to the scrumming between Hillary and Bernie acolytes.

Conservatives with a conscience and any sense of American history will realize that the Republic they believe in will survive either way without them assuming that either side's electoral successes will be the determining factor.

Conservatives with a conscience will actually make the choice between not supporting someone who needs repulsive supporters and making common cause with him because he might advance your agenda.

Conservatives with a conscience will realize that even Vince Lombardi qualified "winning...is the only thing."

Conservatives whose conservatism is informed by a conscience won’t make assumptions—or make public statements about—the morality of other conservatives who may stay home on November 8.

Conservatives whose conservatism is informed by a conscience may stay home on November 8.

Mirrored Madnesses, or--Both Houses, Plague On

"...sometimes I can think six impossible things before breakfast."

One of the more prevalent ironies in most political debates is the fact that a categorical position often lays the seeds of its own contrary argument. 

Sometimes this is due to the simultaneous pursuit of contrary aims.  Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry illustrated this last year, explaining that "stop-and-frisk" put liberals in a "moral bind" because it presented an opportunity to advance their vision of a "gun-free polity" through a means they "revile" as "comprehensively wrong".  

[I personally AM for stop-and-frisk; I think a gun-free polity; especially anywhere in the US, is well-nigh impossible [nor truly desirable], but I hold other positions vis-a-vis registration and restrictions that lead NRAniks and other categorical absolutists to label me as an ammophobe.  C'est la vie.]

Other times, it occurs when two advocacy movements ostensibly on the same side of the political fence make a zero-sum claim to the mantle of their movement's authenticity.  This has been occurring on the conservative side for a while; even before David Brooks' piece about "Republican Incompetence" a few weeks ago where he decried notions or "revolutions" as the antithesis of everything conservatism is supposed to stand for, former W. staffers were decrying their former boss as traitorous to conservatism.  [This doesn't even consider the bandying of the term "RINO".]

Then there's the ultimate progressive brouhaha between the radical feminists and transgender activists about what defines a woman and why either side is [and isn't] in consonance with progressive principles.  [And all this was happening before and after the Jenner saga.]

Recently, the efficacy of so-called "conversion therapy" was called into serious question with the disbanding of one prominent "ex-gay" "ministry", the legal finding that one prominent "therapy" outfit engaged in consumer fraud, and the very public distancing of two religious organizations--one Southern Baptist, the other Orthodox Jewish--from the practitioners of said "therapy", if not decrying the possibility of said "therapy" ever having any efficacy.

[What actually makes the persistence of the idea even more borderline criminal is the possibility that there are reparative therapies for victims of abuse who might have developed unwanted inclinations as a result, it probably actually existed and was efficacious before the moral wingnuts and panicked relatives latched on to "conversion", and now it's going to be lumped into that category.  However, this time the burden of proof has to be upon the practitioners of the real therapies to distinguish themselves from the "converters"; the proposed bans should go through in all states, if not on a Federal level.]

However, while I am all for bans on "conversion" "therapy", I wonder if my erstwhile progressive "allies" would feel the same about transsexual operations [especially ones designated for minors!!!].  Yes, there are differences between all these scenarios, and I almost share the progressive vitriol for religious-influenced activity turning into a horror show [which is what specifically makes "conversion therapy" particularly galling, the base assumption being that it must work because G-d wouldn't allow anyone to be born irrevocably gay].  But at the very least, not only are pro[re?]gressives guilty of hypocrisy, but they are just as guilty of the same type of categorical thinking as their theocratic opponents.

I personally can't stand either.  But I think the theocratic right will claim me faster than the regressive left.

Such is the life of a self-hating conservative.

Not Even Close

Apparently, success in politics is not predicated upon how well one performed tackling the analogy questions on the SAT's Verbal section.

In her otherwise spirited and welcome second debate performance Wednesday night, Carly Fiorina made an unfortunate and forced policy analog between the Iran Deal and the brouhaha surrounding defunding Planned Parenthood.  What makes it all the more galling is that she ostensibly reverted to using a similar series of historical and political fallacies that the Obama administration has used to proffer the JCPOA.  I doubt that Fiorina--her own personal views on abortion notwithstanding--actually believes that pro-life forces actually have a "right to deceive" to forward their policy goals, but by using a spliced--not even edited--video--as her Trump [sorry] card, she all but endorsed the tactic.

Another similar false analogy employing historical fallacies can be seen making the rounds of social media regarding the ostensible "refugee crisis" hitting Europe right now.   A few progressive outlets were comparing the "undocumented" crisis to the Holocaust last summer; now even some Jewish hand-wringers are going as far as self-flagellating over a perceived attitude that announces "I sure as hell don't want them coming here".  

In addition to the fact that I have not seen anything anywhere on the web where an indentifiable Jewish concern expresses the above sentiment [which in certain cases may not be all that morally perturbing as "open borders" advocates wish it to be], anyone and everyone should be infuriated by the need to even waste the effort to provide the requisite education in history and politics to fellow MOT's who are ostensibly steeped in both.  I accused a Facebook friend who posted the about sentiment as engaging in borderline anisemitism, one exercise in inappropriate hyperbole deserving another [social media is just more honest than the genteel backstabbing occurring in academia under the classy veneer.  Honest debate hasn't existed since at least 1968.]

However, just to make the central point that should pre-empt any more attempts at forcing the above analogy: the Jews in 1938--under the threat of annihilation because of who they were--had nowhere to go, and the world basically legally codified closing all borders to them.  Aside from the Yazidis, no one faces anything near that level of a genocidal threat.   Additionally, the international community is spending all sorts of political capital trying to make everyone else responsible, so no one is going to actually get together and make a concerted, united effort to close borders again.  But after what happened to the Jews, they--and by extension Israel--are the LAST group[s] of people who should have ANY moral responsibility to speak up, other than to say "It's YOUR problem."

Finally--there is the sordid matter of Ann Coulter's "f---ing Jews" tweet.  In truth, her antisemitic blurt is probably less dangerous than Obama and the State Dept. dogwhistling about "lobbyists" in the debates over the JCPOA, or Chief Obama TL'er Jon Stewart basically taking sides in last summer's Gaza war while pretending to be evenhanded. She also likely miscalculated about how far she could ride Donald Trump's coattails back to the mild cultural relevance she once had and lost, figuring that his anti-PC stance would "trickle down" and make her less of an outlier than she currently is.

Nevertheless, the progressive types who might cry that conservatives who don't call her out might be engaging in the same moral relativism of which they accuse their Leftist counterparts of engaging in might have a very slight prima facie point.  For about 22 seconds.

And this should be easy to rectify.

While Coulter's dogwhistle might have been unintentional [though her comments in 2007 about "perfecting Jews" by converting them all to Christianity might reveal her true mindset], it behooves Jews of all political inclinations--but especially more conservative ones--to agitate loudly enough that she becomes considered as socio-culturally toxic as Bill Cosby currently is, even if the Left seizes on a tenuous talking point that all Right-thinkers ascribe to her weltanschauung as a side-effect; she needs to be made to pay with her career, and Donald Trump must publicly and forcefully disavow any connection with her, or he needs to be made to pay a political price as well.

There are times when insane questions can be parried with sane considered answers.  There are other times when a querent needs to be forcefully embarrassed into both silence and compliance; later on, the answer can be proffered in ways that make everyone think that the truth was so obvious that whomever posed the question suffers further abject humiliation in public, and no one ever again tries to put "f---ing" and "Jews" together in a phrase.

Jews need to be respected, even by our ostensible erstwhile allies.