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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   26318 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 22, 2024

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It's pro-Trump if you want Trump's policies to be implemented, and anti-Trump if you don't want them to be implemented. Dems have pushed really really hard for the better part of a decade on convincing their voters that it would be disastrous for Trump's policies to be implemented and only his incompetence and inability to push things through saved us the first time, so saying that won't save us the second time is an effective scare tactic.

I probably have a similar blindspot for the conservative side of the narrative - I would have guessed that conservatives can't say 'Trump will actually get things done this time' because it would be acknowledging that he didn't get much done last time (beyond his constitutional right to propose SC appointments), and no acknowledging of weakness or failings for Trump is allowed. Maybe it's allowed if they wrap it in 'the deep state stopped him form getting things done' or w/e.

I probably have a similar blindspot for the conservative side of the narrative - I would have guessed that conservatives can't say 'Trump will actually get things done this time' because it would be acknowledging that he didn't get much done last time (beyond his constitutional right to propose SC appointments), and no acknowledging of weakness or failings for Trump is allowed. Maybe it's allowed if they wrap it in 'the deep state stopped him form getting things done' or w/e.

I'm not an American conservative and so I'm not quite sure what conversation is like in their spaces, but in the discourse I actually have access to (and my own personal opinion) that is indeed the case - Trump was hamstrung by a GOP establishment more concerned with preserving their own sinecures and access to power than actually doing anything to help him implement the policies that got him elected, as well as Crossfire Hurricane and the Mueller investigation it turned into (to say nothing of the open disobedience of people like Milley). Maybe my impression is incorrect, but I always felt that the right didn't mind acknowledging Trump's various weaknesses/failures, they just didn't like obsessing over it because whatever the man's flaws there isn't really an alternative willing to fight for them.

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