Isakson Will “Whip” Trump Over McCain Smears
A.B. Stoddard at The Bulwark reports that later today, Senator Johnny Isakson will make good on his word that anyone who attacks the late Senator John McCain deserves “a whipping.”
What makes it interesting is that said person is President Donald Trump.
“I just want to lay it on the line, that the country deserves better, the McCain family deserves better, I don’t care if he’s president of United States, owns all the real estate in New York, or is building the greatest immigration system in the world. Nothing is more important than the integrity of the country and those who fought and risked their lives for all of us.”
It’s also worth asking: what’s going to be the point? There’s no point re-hashing all the ways President Trump is neither Republican nor Reagan-esque (nor hard working, nor decent, nor…). But it’s startling that the only senator to have defended McCain after Trump continues to defecate all over him is: Johnny Isakson. A man so mild mannered and deferential that toast is too extreme.
Has every other member of the Republican Senate caucus decided Trump’s obduracy is not worth fighting over or has the Republican Party truly become Trump’s party?
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If we are not allowed to criticize someone’s policies or, as in this case, their underhanded playing to Democrats’ illegal surveillance of a presidential candidate, simply because they were an honored veteran and are now dead, then we’re in trouble. I would suggest taking the symptoms of your Trump derangement syndrome seriously and seeking help.
Does Isakson have Trump Derangement?
Of course not.
Criticism is fine. But there’s a What and a How to criticism.
So, say you were criticizing, and in your criticism, you added an extraneous insult like “last in his class” to characterize a dead war hero— that’s not a respectful or useful or productive How. It goes beyond policy, and beyond McCain actually, because you generally attempt to respect the dead, even when they led imperfect lives. (Protip: Everyone leads imperfect lives).
And I’m sure there’s more than that in the Twitter feeds that I didn’t read.
But, on top of that, the insult is coming from a man who allegedly bought off and/or threatened college profs and/or administrators to conceal his poor college academic record.
There’s a word for that kind of hyprocrisy.
It’s hyprocrisy.
It is the man with many sins throwing rocks at the man with two sins, and throwing them all from inside a glass house.
Kudos to Sen Isaskson for sticking up for his friend and colleague and civility. Too bad the culture of rhetoric can’t change for the better easier.
So now it is just the fact that criticism is coming from Trump. You praise Isakson, though, for promising to whip “anyone who attacks the late Senator.” So which is it? Who is worthy, since all are imperfect, as you point out, to criticize anyone else? I suppose we should only criticize those who criticize and pretend all all is fine in Denmark, while the rot makes us hold our noses.
Here are a couple of examples:
POLICY-BASED CRITICISM:
“I think Donald Trump’s approach to tariffs and Chinese trade balances is short-sighted and arises from his lack of experience with complex subjects like international trade.”
PERSONAL INSULT:
“Looking at Trump’s trade policy, I can see why his brother became an alcoholic, if I was related to someone as stupid as Donald Trump, I’d drink myself to death, too.
One concerns the actual substance. The other is needlessly antagonistic and mean.
If the accusation is that Trump is too mean in his criticism, then of course, he is guilty. I agree with you. But if the accusation is that he should be more nice like Jeb and Romney, cowardly but nice, then I have to disagree.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone right in the middle? Yes, it would. Until that guy (or gal) comes along, I think I’ll take the guy who errs on the mean side for once given that it sometimes takes a bully to put bullies in their place. See, e.g., Victor Davis Hanson’s argument in The Case for Trump.
I’m not a fan of the “whipping” reference either.
Neither the mean bully nor the person who is being mean to stop the bullying is doing it right, but at least the second guy is standing up for a principle. And you can confront and stop a bully without being mean.
Our imperfections can’t preclude us from being critical, but they sure can inform them. And if that information is actually processed and used, the criticisms can trend more to the substantive rather than to the interpersonal insults.
But if you reject introspection and see yourself as perfect…. your criticisms are just going to be like they were from a mean bully.
The accusation isn’t that he’s mean, it’s that he’s chickens—. The guy only runs his mouth from the safety of his Twitter account. He lacks the backbone to repeat his Twitter tone to someone’s face. That’s cowardly. That’s childish. I don’t care if a President is “mean” or “nice” or somewhere in between, I just want a President capable of acting like an adult.
Here’s my take… don’t say anything about the dead that you didn’t have the courage to say when they were alive. Here’s another take… don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t be willing to repeat to that person’s face. That’s how I was raised. That’s how I’m raising my kids. I think we should all give it a try.
This goes both ways. If you want to say Trump is a soft-palmed, smooth-brained, and spoiled trust fund kid who acts like a bully because his father never loved him… you need to be willing to say it directly to his face and suffer the consequences of his limp-wristed attempt at slapping you.
Dang, between the Democrats’ all-encompassing power, and the media, and higher education, and the scientific community, and poor people, and people of color, and Hollywood, and coastal areas, and Colorado, and Europe, and the corrupt Justice Department, and comedians, and musicians… it must be hard to find allies.
+10
So we’ve elected a man as president whose issues almost daily insults to American citizens, private businesses and our allies that include:
Loser, horseface, weak, crooked, beleaguered, angry, not a war hero, calling another man. Mr. Kelly Ann, enemy of the people etc
But here’s what he says about our enemies:
“We fell in love”, “I take him at his word”, “He’s very strong,” “He’s a great leader”
George Conway is right, its getting worst everyday and his enablers never stop trying to justify things that if they were said or done by any other president would be grounds for a mandatory psych exam.
So who is more in the wrong, the president or the constitutional majority that elected him and retains him in office?
Who cares who is more wrong?
The question is, what, if anything, is to be done about it?
It matters if you care about the will of the sovereign people of the United States. You can either thwart their will (which is what the Steele dossier, with McCain’s help, tried to accomplish) or you can try to change their mind in the next election. That is what you can do about it.
“constitutional majority” — is that the wording for “lost the popular vote” now?
“A constitutional majority is the only true sovereign of a free people.” -Abraham Lincoln
Our republican Constitution does not countenance popular votes for president.
So you are saying anyone who objects to the immoral behavior, the childish tweets, the insults to allies and american businesses, the dehumanizing language towards black and brown people and the cozying up to dictators around the world is somehow thwarting the will of the majority?
The problem you having in defending him is that since most of what he says are baseless lies, you have to twist yourself in to a pretzel to defend him. Donald Trump is an extremely flawed man who is not qualified to be president. He got elected and now we have to deal with it but we don’t have to remain silent and lose our humanity.
That’s why I made the distinction. It’s fine and good to criticize the president for being crass, but it is something else to go beyond that to insult those who elected him. They did not elect him because of but in spite of his crassness. Did they have good reason to? That’s a fair question.
Objective standards of the nation’s basic safety and prosperity would say that they were at least not crazy. What is crazy is to say that because the man is crass on Twitter, he is always and everywhere a bad president and we should get rid of him yesterday. That would be to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face, which is generally not prudent.
At least your defense incorporates some reason.
But if we explore the “always and everywhere” of when the man is crass, or when he lies, it’s way more times and places than Twitter.
A “syndrome” exists because there is a large large large web of circumstances connected to his crassness and indifference- if not hostility- to truthfulness.
Plenty of folks think that’s enough to say he’s gonna be bad always and everywhere. Some folks think they can separate it out.
And some folks like Isakson take an ad hoc approach to addressing it.
But tolerance of bad behavior only gives it the space to grow.
Count me one of those who can separate it out, but only because I believe the Left’s proposals carry much, much more potential for harm than Trump’s crassness. Again, I buy Victor Hanson’s argument that Trump is like the uncouth cowboy whom nobody would want to marry their daughter, but who, when the town is taken over by a gang of thugs, you need to drive them out. Think of Tom Doniphon in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
So, Trump is only a good guy because Dems are thugs?
With such a viewpoint, it’s no wonder that the culture has degraded to tolerate leadership by the “uncouth” (“uncouth” could be read alternatively as “immoral”, “criminal”, etc.)
Even upon such a shaky premise, you might deputize an uncouth character, but you’re not gonna let them be the Mayor. Because then the solution is no better than the problem.
“Uncouth” practically implies that issues like thuggery are much more likely from the start.
But if you shade your vision so much as to hate Dem leadership, you’re just opening the door to tolerate actual immorality, and justifying it as the necessary solution.
And I feel that’s exactly what we’re experiencing.
A real thug as Mayor, and now we need federal Marshalls to come clean this town up.
Chemotherapy is poison, but it is good and necessary sometimes. No one would think it a good idea to have a steady diet of though. That’s not a shaky premise; it’s called using prudence, not ideological thinking. The problem with the folks at The Bulwark is that they can’t see the difference.
No one wants Trump as a permanent solution, but he may be just what we need right now.
I suggest trying to look passed his Tweets to his policies, since those policies are helping lots of people.
Okay, let’s focus on the policies that are helping a lot of people:
1) Trade wars are good and easy to win: can you link to any wins we’ve had because of the trade war started by Trump?
2) North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat: the president told us this after his first summit. Do you have any evidence that this is true?
3) On day 1 we’re going to replace the ACA with insurance that is cheap and good: So we know he failed to repeal the ACA but I’m more interested in a replacement plan. Can you provide a link to show what it is? When was it introduced during the two years the Republicans held all three branches of government?
4) One day we’re staying in Syria, the next day we’re withdrawing all troops right away. Now it looks like we’re staying. Which one is it and how is it helping people?
5) I only pick the best people: more resignations, more firings and more indictments, convictions and accusations than any administration in history and he’s not through yet. I call that winning.
6) Coal is coming back: so what state has seen a resurgance in the coal industry since Trump was elected?
7) We’re gonna build a big beautiful steel wall from border to border and Mexico is going to pay for it. Can you link to the pictures of the new wall that’s being built and when can we expect the payments from Mexico? How come this didn’t become a national emergency until the republicans lost the midterms?
Yes, you got your tax cut for the top 2% and two judges (one stolen from Obama) but what are the policies you want us to focus on that are helping so many people? I’m happy to ignore his speech but lots of unstable people aren’t ignoring it and he is radicalizing people all over the world with his language. He’s being idolized by people who commit mass murder here and abroad. One dictator after another has adopted the enemy of the people rhetoric (Trump borrowed this from Nazi Germany) he uses day after day.
So to sum up your point, the end justifies the means and if I get what I want to hell with everyone else.
Yes, typically the ends justify the means; that’s how we all do our moral thinking. The means do not justify the ends, however, when those means undermine the ends. I know this must be hard for you to understand.
I’m not going to waste any more of my time trying to convince someone who thinks in ideological terms.
I will leave you with this poll from CNN, which since it is positive of Trump, you have to believe it probably true. 71% of people think the economy is doing better and because of Trump’s policies. I’m sorry if you’re not one of the 71%, but please get off your high horse as though you speak for the majority, since according to this poll, most people think most people in our country are better off economically.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/18/politics/cnn-poll-trump-economy-tech/index.html
Hear Hear! Thank you, Ch2596, for having the patience and intelligence to post this logical, reasoned discussion with the anti-Trump folks who frequent GeorgiaPol. It made dropping by today especially worth while. Do come back often.
Off Topic…
Ed, where is the GSU made the dance and your time didn’t Basketball Bracket?
On topic… You know I posted that on the morning reads already right…?
As we’re discussing this, the president has just issued another tweet calling George Conway the “husband from hell” and a “whack job.” He’s just finished a speech where he attacked a dead war hero for the fifth day in a row. Before he left for Ohio he was instructing Fox News on who should and should not be on the air.
The business of being president must really be slow because this man spends most of his time watching TV and issuing completely insane tweets full of lies and petty insults.
This is America!
Repeatedly insult a man on his death bed after numerous other insults over decades, attend the funeral where presence was known to not be wanted, taking a front location to boot, then complain publicly there was no thank you.
I’m happy that John McCain lives on in Trump’s head.
Yeeeesss, Yeeeeess young Jedi, let the hate flow through you. Feel the power of the dark side. Trump did not go to his funeral. Trump is an example for us on how not to live. McCain is an example for us on how not to die.