You should focus on recovery from Trumpism. This person should be the face of the Republican party, instead of honoring Trump with a Golden Statue at CPAC.
Kinzinger is trying to break that cycle and reverse the incentive structures. He’s announced a new initiative, the Country First movement, to provide financial support to Republicans who stand against, and offer an alternative to, Trumpism.
Those Republicans need to “present an optimistic view, to reinspire people,” he said, “but I think just as importantly you have to call out BS. If somebody is peddling fear, you have to call that out. It’s calling out that stuff openly and aggressively and shining light at darkness. I think that‘s part of it.”
Kinzinger added that for the past four years “nobody’s heard anything against [Trump], so then when I come out and I say this stuff as aggressively as I am now, people are blown away, like ‘How dare you! He’s the messiah.’ Because nobody had said otherwise.”
Leaders have to lead, he said. “For too long, we just tried to reflect back what people wanted to hear, and so they heard no alternative.” And voters, for their part, have to demand better. But he has hope that if they do, they can turn the situation around. “It took us awhile to get in, it may take us a little bit to get out, but I also don’t think Donald Trump is as inevitable as people think. But he will be if nobody speaks out.”
Telling the truth, fighting fear, and putting forward a positive narrative will do a lot, but they’re not enough on their own, without structural changes. Kinzinger suggested finding media outlets that can serve as alternatives to Fox News and Newsmax. He said that think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute need to put together a policy agenda that reaches beyond the typical conservative mantra of lowering taxes. He wants to see a conservatism that aims for equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome, and that insists that children born in the inner city should have the same opportunity as those born in wealthy suburbs.
“But it can’t be done under the banner of a QAnon flag [while] burning down the Capitol,” he said.
I asked Kinzinger why he’s still a Republican, given that the GOP is unquestionably the party of Donald Trump. “I’m a Republican because I’ve been a Republican far longer than Donald Trump has,” he told me. “He’s a Republican usurper, and he’s a RINO [a “Republican in name only”]. I’m not going to let him take the party. So I will fight. I will fight like hell.”
From the Atlantic Magazine.
I voted for Reagan, because men like him ran the Republican party.
Trump bombed Syria several times and not once did you want to criticize him. For anything including putting your wife in danger
While the US’s leverage over Israel is diminishing, Iran’s leverage over the US grows. The US cannot achieve a peaceful and staged withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan without Iran’s permission. The Biden administration is determined to return to the Iran Deal, if only to restore the reputations of the Obama-era diplomats who negotiated it. The Iranians, in or out of a deal, know they can make a break for a nuclear weapon any time they like, that the US won’t use force, and that it would do its best to restrain Israel too.
The US is beaten in the Middle East and nothing can undo that. Iran is testing Biden, and Biden is failing the test because he cannot alter the calculus. This was a small test and Biden’s tit-for-tat response was a small failure: it changes nothing but invites Iran to further antagonize the US. If, however, Biden and his team really put their minds to it, they might turn it into a big failure.
Given enough tit from Biden and enough tat from Iran, the US can spark an all-out regional war. This will draw American forces back into the Middle East. If that happens, force in pursuit of flawed strategy will have summoned what it most fears. Yet another American president is about to pull defeat from the jaws of defeat. The quagmire deepens.
4 comments:
You should focus on recovery from Trumpism. This person should be the face of the Republican party, instead of honoring Trump with a Golden Statue at CPAC.
Kinzinger is trying to break that cycle and reverse the incentive structures. He’s announced a new initiative, the Country First movement, to provide financial support to Republicans who stand against, and offer an alternative to, Trumpism.
Those Republicans need to “present an optimistic view, to reinspire people,” he said, “but I think just as importantly you have to call out BS. If somebody is peddling fear, you have to call that out. It’s calling out that stuff openly and aggressively and shining light at darkness. I think that‘s part of it.”
Kinzinger added that for the past four years “nobody’s heard anything against [Trump], so then when I come out and I say this stuff as aggressively as I am now, people are blown away, like ‘How dare you! He’s the messiah.’ Because nobody had said otherwise.”
Leaders have to lead, he said. “For too long, we just tried to reflect back what people wanted to hear, and so they heard no alternative.” And voters, for their part, have to demand better. But he has hope that if they do, they can turn the situation around. “It took us awhile to get in, it may take us a little bit to get out, but I also don’t think Donald Trump is as inevitable as people think. But he will be if nobody speaks out.”
Telling the truth, fighting fear, and putting forward a positive narrative will do a lot, but they’re not enough on their own, without structural changes. Kinzinger suggested finding media outlets that can serve as alternatives to Fox News and Newsmax. He said that think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute need to put together a policy agenda that reaches beyond the typical conservative mantra of lowering taxes. He wants to see a conservatism that aims for equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome, and that insists that children born in the inner city should have the same opportunity as those born in wealthy suburbs.
“But it can’t be done under the banner of a QAnon flag [while] burning down the Capitol,” he said.
I asked Kinzinger why he’s still a Republican, given that the GOP is unquestionably the party of Donald Trump. “I’m a Republican because I’ve been a Republican far longer than Donald Trump has,” he told me. “He’s a Republican usurper, and he’s a RINO [a “Republican in name only”]. I’m not going to let him take the party. So I will fight. I will fight like hell.”
From the Atlantic Magazine.
I voted for Reagan, because men like him ran the Republican party.
Trump bombed Syria several times and not once did you want to criticize him. For anything including putting your wife in danger
with the bee you never really know because what they often post as satire becomes true later on.
Iran has already beaten Biden
While the US’s leverage over Israel is diminishing, Iran’s leverage over the US grows. The US cannot achieve a peaceful and staged withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan without Iran’s permission. The Biden administration is determined to return to the Iran Deal, if only to restore the reputations of the Obama-era diplomats who negotiated it. The Iranians, in or out of a deal, know they can make a break for a nuclear weapon any time they like, that the US won’t use force, and that it would do its best to restrain Israel too.
The US is beaten in the Middle East and nothing can undo that. Iran is testing Biden, and Biden is failing the test because he cannot alter the calculus. This was a small test and Biden’s tit-for-tat response was a small failure: it changes nothing but invites Iran to further antagonize the US. If, however, Biden and his team really put their minds to it, they might turn it into a big failure.
Given enough tit from Biden and enough tat from Iran, the US can spark an all-out regional war. This will draw American forces back into the Middle East. If that happens, force in pursuit of flawed strategy will have summoned what it most fears. Yet another American president is about to pull defeat from the jaws of defeat. The quagmire deepens.
https://spectator.us/topic/iran-already-beaten-biden-syria-strike/
Levine will be the high priest of America’s new state religion: The cult of transgenderism.
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