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Pigs Fly; George Will Endorses Harris
(www.dailykos.com)
I’m going to keep pointing this out until it becomes a part of the narrative.
The strategy of prominent Republicans flipping to vote for Harris is specifically designed to help Republicans win Congress.
If Republican voters are demoralized by the prospect of Trump, a lot are going to just stay home and not vote at all. That would lead to a Democratic electoral sweep.
Cheney, George Will and other Republican ghouls’ best option to avoid this is to give permission to their voting base to toss their Presidential vote to Harris, but also get them into the polls so they can be reliable Republican voters down the ticket and try to keep the House and take the Senate.
FFS, quit giving the enemy oxygen.
Not everything has to be 18D chess. Maybe they just hate Trump.
It doesn't have to be 18D chess, but it can also be a result that republicans will take advantage of.
Interesting angle. If it wasn't so close (how tf is it this close) I might agree more. But gop voters staying home, this way they vote for Harris and GOP Congress is also an interesting point. But maga Congress right now is a disaster, shutdowns and defaults are insane. So I think they want maga gone.
I will join you in this
Not quite, Will de-registered as a Republican years ago... (checks notes) 2016.
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/george-will-leaves-gop-224801
So he's not anti-Conservative or anti-Republican, he's just anti-Trump.
For those too young to remember, there was an era of intellectually honest conservatism. It was led by people like George Will and the late, lamented William F. Buckley Jr.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_F._Buckley_Jr.
Buckley would have shot Trump in the middle of 5th Avenue and gotten away with it.
Intellectually honest in expressing their support for apartheid, ignoring the Constitution in favor of segregation, and promoting military coups against democratically elected leaders of foreign countries?
Intellectually honest in that they were open to having their minds changed through debate. Buckley saw his earlier positions were wrong, and regretted that he took them. This stands in contrast to the Republican party of today which is almost entirely dogmatic in its beliefs.
This stands in contrast to the Republican party of today which ~~is almost entirely dogmatic in its beliefs.~~
Doubles down even when anything it believes is shown to be patently false/immoral/illegal.
I approve this edit
I am so confused.
George Will
Who? Has he played a significant role in past elections and I've never noticed?
and baseball fan
Why? Why is this part of this story? It makes me want to care even less. Is that the point?
don't how old you are, but will is old school republican. hails from what what was known as the "intellectual" appendage of the gop's corpse. dude is wrong, but not dumb.
if we set aside the accelerated rightward sprint of the democrats since the 1980's, a public kamala endorsement from him really is kind of a pigs flying moment.
this move might signal to the remains of his caste that its ok to secretly pull that dem lever or just sit it out. effect will likely be minimal, but not inconsequential in a super tight race.
what is more intersting is that parts of the lobotomized right are still making gurgling noises.
He's a power behind the throne kind of guy, but he's well known in wonkish circles.
He once didn't know what to write for his regular column, so he ranted about how blue jeans are a blue collar symbol taken over by elite coastal liberals.
haven't a clue myself.
I was like... "george who? King George? Curious George? George Costanza?"
George Will is a conservative commentator whose name is familiar to us olds. He used to write in Newsweek when it was a prominent magazine back in the day and was on TV. I imagine he is a never-trumper so what is surprising here is not that he would refuse to vote but that he will vote for Harris. That can only mean that the old guard conservatives recognize trump as an existential threat to the country which he is.
most of the super-rich folks prefer stability over chaos.
Like a lot of people talk about how rich Musk and Bezos are. They're likely not the richest people in the world- they're the richest people in the world dumb enough to talk about how rich they are. The Rockefeller family, for example, has who-knows-how-much stashed away in blind llc's etc, and all the Old Money types pay a fortune to maintain their privacy.
People like the Koch brothers (well except that fourth one that's not talked about,)... they endorsed trump last time around because he promised to deregulate everything- and they've been on a tear ever since they got dinged for benzene leaks in Corpus Christi.
Yes, he has played a significant role in past elections all the way back to Reagan, and you haven't noticed.
He's an intellectual pundit that was on Fox News until 2017. He writes political commentary for the Washington Post; his column currently appears in 415 newspapers.
He won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary.
He continues to appear on MSNBC to this day.
He's also considered to be a baseball expert who has written extensively on the subject including his own book. Their "baseball fan" comment was intended to be cute, I think.
This really isn't that surprising. The Republican party has become a cult of personality around Trump, putting it at odds with actual, ideological conservatives.
I don't know what Trump's ideology is, or if he even has one. He seems to only believe in his own ambition, for wealth, power, and control.
However, conservativism does lend itself to people like Trump rising to power, because it promotes a central authority and/or aristocracy that preserves tradition, culture, and the established social order. Conservatism doesn't just tolerate social hierarchies, like class, it promotes them, and, in fact conservatism believes that such hierarchies are not only necessary, but natural and essential. It makes sense that malignant narcissists would take advantage of such a system to try and take their "rightful place" at the top of the hierarchies, because they believe that they are inherently superior to everyone else.
This really isn’t that surprising. The Republican party has become a cult of personality around Trump, putting it at odds with actual, ideological conservatives.
Luckily for them, they still have a party.
Do you mean the Democrats? If so, yeah, the Democrats do seem willing to accept anti-Trump conservatives into their party.
The Democrats really want to be a big tent party. They'll take just about anyone within a certain ideological range, centered around the American political middle. This definitely includes many conservatives.
I question the effectiveness of this strategy, though, as when you include too many opposing ideologies in a single party, it can be difficult for the party to choose a clear path to take. It's often the case that when you try to appeal to as many different people as possible, you end up not appealing to very many people at all.
Do you mean the Democrats? If so, yeah, the Democrats do seem willing to accept anti-Trump conservatives into their party.
Willing to accept? They've been desperate to please them for decades.
The Democrats really want to be a big tent party. They’ll take just about anyone within a certain ideological range, centered around the American political middle. This definitely includes many conservatives.
And excludes progressives.
I question the effectiveness of this strategy, though, as when you include too many opposing ideologies in a single party, it can be difficult for the party to choose a clear path to take.
It would be if the default weren't "pander to the right and only the right."
That guy’s still a cunt.
George Will can eat shit.
Congratulations to centrists on the occasion of the achievement of their only ambition. You finally moved so far to the right that you're actually getting Republicans' approval.
Congratulations on being the right combination of passible straight, white, cisgender, male, and Christian to not worry about the consequences of another Trump term.
The rest of us don't have the luxury of purity-testing Harris because the alternative is a fascist who wants us dead.
Regardless, the fact that old school Republicans are endorsing a Democrat over the fascist should serve as evidence that Trump is bad even for a Republican, but folks like you seem more interested in painting Harris as the more conservative candidate for some reason. It's almost like you prefer Trump...
Do you have an actual argument,or do you just scream "trumper!" at anyone to the left of George Will and Dick Cheney?
What this poster and others like it miss, dear reader, is the truth being shown them. It must be nice to not have any concerns that might be harmed by harming the opposition to the Leopards Eat Your Face party, despite so many other people being harmed by the Leopards Eat Your Face party. We can't know which faction this particular poster belongs to, but we should keep in mind that there are three major factions that are pushing the 'don't vote for the guys who will save you from the Leopards Eat Your Face party':
- The faction that honestly doesn't believe that harming the Democrats will get us Trump and somehow their choice for the Green party or whatever will actually win.
- The faction that embraces letting Republicans run the show because somehow, in their stupid, convoluted brains, it'll break the Duopoly of power between Team Blue and Team Pepe without resulting in a single-party dictatorship and eventually Greens will win.
- The faction that actually supports Republicans and Authoritarianism and are looking to use the fact that we must fall in love to vote for a candidate to split our vote so Republicans win and they get the single-party Authoritarian dictatorship they want, and can get to the business of grinding Democrats, Socialists, Left-Libertarians, Greens, and other left-of-centre ideology followers under their authoritarian jackboot-heels.
We can't know what faction THIS poster belongs to, and even if we did and could convincingly prove so, Rule 3 would prevent us from calling out members of the third faction anyway, but keep in mind that there ARE people out there who want to make you throw your vote away so America can be conquered by Russian- and Chinese-style Authoritarianism.
Oh christ. The party has moved so far to the right, Dick Cheney and George Will are on board.
Pointing that out is "Hurting the party"? Give me a fucking break. Not everyone who isn't as delighted that the Democratic Party moves to the right is the Russian Chinese Bot you walked right up to the line of accusing me of being in order to not get your comment removed by the mods.
Here's another thing this poster misses in its rant.
Dick Cheney and George Will are not on board our party for our policy. Both have made it clear that there are major policy disagreements between them and the Democratic Party, but they have said that the other party is so dangerous, they felt it necessary to both vote for AND endorse our party. They've said so much in almost so many words!
In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.
As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
The restoration of normal politics will require two things: The removal of Donald Trump — that Krakatau of volcanic, incoherent, fact-free bombast — from public life. And the rekindling of an irrepressible conflict.
It is between progressivism, of which Kamala Harris is full to overflowing, and actual conservatism, about which Trump is contemptuous.
Cheney is circumspect about it, but if you read eep enough, you can see he's not voting for Harris, but against Trump. Meanwhile, George Will makes it clear -- he's NOT a friend of Kamala Harris or Progressivism. He's just anti-Trump and wants Trump out of his political sphere.
No. The party of cancelling Student Loan Debt is not right-wing by Trump measures, and that's not why GOP Alums are moving to the Dems. The only reason they're endorsing us is they, like me, believe that the GQP as it currently stands is an existential threat to the USA.
I play the game by the rules the Mods have established. It is a fact that Russia is stoking divisions and interfering with our election in order to get the Authoritarian Trump party elected so they may get to the business of crushing democracies in their orbit without Western interference. And they have a variety of tools with which to do it. Nothing this poster says changes that fact. If the poster feels called out by me pointing out that there are Russian influence operations, as well as Chinese and Iranian operations, well, all I can tell the poster is sucks to be him. Maybe reconsider his tone and goal here, in this election where outside bad-faith actors are trying to get us to install an Authoritarian Dictator for their own Authoritarian Dictators' goals?
Cheney is circumspect about it, but if you read eep enough, you can see he’s not voting for Harris, but against Trump. Meanwhile, George Will makes it clear – he’s NOT a friend of Kamala Harris or Progressivism. He’s just anti-Trump and wants Trump out of his political sphere.
Keep moving right. I'm sure they'll come around. Not like any of you need encouragement.
I suspect 'right' to this poster means anything left of the Buddha. Really big words for someone who can't get even a quarter of the country to own any left-wing labels. ;)
The party is supporting an ongoing genocide, and has adopted Republican border policy and support for fracking. The Biden administration openly brags about having the greatest oil production of any administration, as though that's not something to be ashamed of. That's what I consider moving to the right. And what centrists consider a good start.
No, dear reader, the party is supporting an ally that we swore we'd protect from a variety of hostile nations who have sworn to wipe Israel off the map. Houthi rebels attacked inside of Israel in the past 24 hours. And this is not a left vs. right thing as much as it is a foreign policy issue that's being exploited by bad actors trying to divide the Left and unify the Right so they can get their authoritarian friends installed.
Again. Most Americans, especially those who vote reliably, are far more concerned about cost of living than whether or not we let more foreigners live here or whether or not we spank Israel for their misadventures in Palestine. You want to reduce oil production? And do what? Russia's oil production was curtailed severely after its invasion of Ukraine and that resulted in a massive surge of energy costs world wide. You need to cut oil consumption if you want to cut oil production, and we've already seen that voters in the USA are willing to punish any party that cuts production for political purposes if it harms them at home. This poster's idea of cutting oil production will get Republicans elected, which will harm everything this it says it supports. That's my point in all of this.
Interesting questions to think about:
- This poster and its ilk are constantly talking about Palestine and how evil Israel is, but never how they plan on making it so that Israel isn't run roughshod over by its neighbours. Why is that?
- Why don't they hold Hamas as accountable for this as Israel? I mean, Hamas WAS the aggressor and technically this is a defensive war by Israel...
- This poster and its ilk focus so heavily on Palestine. What about Ukraine, who is also being brutally invaded and subject to atrocities?
- Republicans have said that they plan on empowering Israel to wipe out Hamas, whatever it takes, and allow Israel to subjugate Palestine, no matter what the locals want.
- Republicans have said that they are going to withdraw military support to Ukraine. This will allow Ukraine to be steamrolled by Russia in short order. Do these people who advocate voting third party or staying home think that Ukraine doesn't deserve to exist?
- And above all, how does this poster and its ilk justify getting Democrats thrown out of office through non-voting or third-party voting when we know that the Republicans have a plan for everyone, that includes stopping all left-wing voters from ever voting again.
Genocide apologist.
Still voting blue.
You're still a genocide apologist.
Genocide apologia is basically what .world is for.
Zionist!
It's more like the Republican party has moved so far to the extreme that other party members are endorsing the opposition party candidate because they recognize who the lesser of two evils is.
Kamala is a shift to the left from Biden. You should be fucking happy.
Kamala is a shift to the left from Biden. You should be fucking happy.
Oh? We're already going with the "most progressive evar" label with Harris too?
Her policies on fracking, immigration, and Gaza are identical to Biden's.
This is starting to get scary.
Why are all these warhawks endorsing Harris?
Because think of how Trump is now. Now add two, three, or four more years to his obvious decline.
Even if he doesn't end democracy, they're afraid he could literally end the Republican party.
Was Will ever a Trump supporter? Somehow I thought he was smarter than that, but I haven't read an essay of his in decades.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/12/2269978/-Pigs-Fly-George-Will-Endorses-Harris
this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
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