“Nothing that we despise in other men is inherently absent from ourselves.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

This is hard to write, as anything involving self-reflection does.  One of my many vices is the tendency to be, well, self-righteous and unforgiving.   And yet I do like to think of myself a civil, reasonable person.

But 2 weekends ago I found myself being anything but.

Much of the following refers to Ben Sasse, but it’s also not really about Sasse.  If you believe that President Trump truly had legal and constitutional authority to declare a national emergency, and that the Republican Senators who defected are traitor RINOs, this applies to you too. Just imagine, say, that a hurricane devastated Florida and Rubio went to tour the damage.

I have made it clear in my prior post that I think Trump did NOT have such authority, or that even if he did, that the same law granting him that, also granted the Congress to authority to terminate the emergency. And that I was quite disappointed when Sasse voted against the House resolution to do exactly that.

Two days after that vote, Sasse posted numerous tweets from his personal Twitter account.  The subject of all of them were the unprecedented floods that had turned his home state, Nebraska, into a disaster zone — and a state of emergency.

The replies to this Tweet and others, as he posted numerous pictures of the damage, came swiftly — and mercilessly.  “So, a REAL emergency?”

When he lamented that the story was not getting much coverage in national news media, many replied to point out, that perhaps recent actions of his had hurt his credibility with the media, as to what constituted a real emergency.

Not to mention the chronic trolls who would have descended upon him anyway.  Now I usually simply ignore such trolls.  When I first signed up for Twitter, I did not do so planning to become one myself.

But that day, full of self-righteous anger, I did.

It didn’t start out that way.  I did praise him for raising awareness of the events.  But when he posted a PSA warning against fake GoFundMe sites and posted links to legitimate charities, I couldn’t resist posting this:

Then a fellow Tweeter posted this:

I pressed on.

Only to get this:

Well, that made me pause.

But I continued to reply to other Tweets with self-righteous verbiage as if possessed by Tom Nichols. (I read them again before writing this blog post and cringed repeatedly.)

At one point, in reply to (yet another) Tweet questioning my behavior, I posted:

“He deserves it”.

And that was my take as I continued to rage-tweet. He deserves it.  He deserves it. He deserves every bit of mockery and disparagement he gets for selling out.

But then … I came across a reply to a Tweet about the loss of a bridge.  I wound up blocking the person so I don’t have a screenshot, but it essentially said he didn’t care about what Nebraska and didn’t want a dime of HIS hard earned money to go to rebuilding the bridge, because, the poster claimed, Sasse hadn’t supported enough disaster relief for Puerto Rico.

Well, this went too far for me.  I posted this:

Also around this time, another Tweet came across my timeline with a link to this story:

Trump Supporter In Cleveland Drives ‘Build The Wall’ Float Past Vigil For New Zealand Victims, Blaring Music

Well that was terrible, I thought.  A MAGA idiot interrupting a vigil for victims of mass murder to tout the Magic Wall?  Pretty lame, pretty out of place, whether you believe the Wall is a good idea or not.

But then as I turned back to Sasse’s Twitter feed, it occurred to me; was that so different than what I, and the other members of this mob, were doing ourselves?

Then I conducted a thought experiment. What if a group of protesters unhappy with a politician’s vote, had followed him around, as he toured a disaster zone, screaming, “FRAUD” and “YOU HAVE NO CREDIBILITY” and “NOW DO YOU SEE WHAT A REAL EMERGENCY IS” or “NOW DO YOU BELIEVE IN CLIMATE CHANGE”?

I’d have thought they were a bunch of lunatics who had forsaken all concept of basic decency, and all compassion for the disaster victims, in order to score political points. Especially if they had parachuted in from outside the state to do so.

Did it really make a difference that this was happening on Twitter, and not real life?

Some, of course, would say yes.  Look at Tweets from most politicians (other than ones who ruthlessly block dissenters) and you’ll see most of the replies are from Tweeters who don’t exactly warmly support the politician.  I could go into a rant on how Twitter encourages negative replies, but that isn’t the point.

Neither is the point whether Ben Sasse, himself, “deserved” all of this anger.  Often, the main critique of outrage mobs (such as the recent one driving the #BoycottTucker and #FireTucker hashtags) is that the anger is feigned, or performative.  I am sure this was indeed the case for some trolls, but as I noted in detail in my open letter to Sasse, my anger and disappointment at his putting politics before his stated principles was all too real.

But…did that justify what I was doing, even in the face of protest from actual Nebraskans and others affected by the disaster?

It didn’t. Not because he didn’t “deserve” it.  But because one vote on a bill that was never going to survive a presidential veto, was not worth me putting politics before MY principles.  That certainly include NOT being an insensitive lunatic who screams at politicians and ignores pleas from disaster victims.

Now, from following Sasse’s Twitter I know he reads at least some of his replies.  So when he posted this quote from a friend, it certainly seemed to indicate the dragging over his vote was starting to get to him …

…but my anger at him remained.  I was very tempted to reply:

“So NOW you post about not caring who votes Red or Blue?  Quite convenient for you, if we didn’t, isn’t it?  You betrayed your principles, put your party over the country and had the audacity to blame Nancy Pelosi for it.  Shut up and go away!”

But I didn’t. I also saw thousands of Likes for that Tweet, from people who must have agreed with him. So this is what I posted instead:

And suddenly I felt something I hadn’t felt before in all my previous rage-tweeting that day.  Peace.

I felt like I had reclaimed part of myself that I’d lost somewhere along the way.

Not long after that I came across reviews of the new book, “Love Your Enemies” by Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute. I also came across a NYT essay by Brooks based on the book.

In one such review on RollCall.com by Helen Raleigh, One of Brooks’ points is summarized thus:

In his view, when you are angry with someone, you still want to engage. But contempt is worse than anger because “contempt represents not merely an outburst following a moment of deep frustration with another but rather an enduring attitude of complete disdain.”

Yes.  Somehow, I’d gone from anger to contempt.  Not just at Sasse himself but anyone I’d encountered on Twitter that day, who didn’t share my contempt for him.  How dare they try to defend the fraud!

But I’d managed to overcome it.  How?

Again from Raleigh’s review:

In his book, Brooks gives an example of his own. Once he received an email from a reader who criticized every chapter of his book. Brooks faced three options: ignore him; write back to insult him; pick some faults in the email and destroy the email’s author. Instead, Brooks chose a fourth option. He wrote back to thank the email’s author for reading his book.

The email’s author was shocked because he didn’t expect to hear from Brooks at all. So he wrote back to invite Brooks for beer next time when Brooks was in his neck of the woods. Brooks’ conclusion from this experience? It was the practice of this warm-heartedness that broke a possible cycle of contempt, which left both Brooks and the reader feeling good about themselves and the other person despite their disagreement.

This, I realized, is what I had done when I had replied to Sasse, at the end of the day, not to slam him yet again, but to thank him.  Reach inside myself and pull out a scrap of warm-heartedness.

Now there is a big difference in that, when Brooks’ replied to the critical e-mail, the critic actually wrote back.  It is very unlikely Sasse took any particular notice of my reply among the hundreds of others.

But it did break me out of my contempt for him.

As Brooks himself notes in a New York Times essay based on his book:

Next, each of us can make a commitment never to treat others with contempt, even if we believe they deserve it. This might sound like a call for magnanimity, but it is just as much an appeal to self-interest. Contempt makes persuasion impossible — no one has ever been hated into agreement, after all — so its expression is either petty self-indulgence or cheap virtue signaling, neither of which wins converts.

What if you have been guilty of saying contemptuous things about or to others? Perhaps you have hurt someone with your harsh words, mockery or dismissiveness. I have, and I’m not proud of it. Start the road to recovery from this harmful addiction, and make amends wherever possible. It will set you free.

Very true.  So, two days after the (Tweet) storm, I went to one of Sasse’s Tweets to post this:

And this:

And apologizing DID set me free.

This is not to say I plan to stop following politics completely, or will never critique Sasse (or any other public figure) ever again, but … the haze of contempt has lifted from me. I hope I never fall into it again.  Not because some people may or may not “deserve” it, but because, in the end, being filled with contempt degrades me. I want to be better than that.

(Trigger warning for readers who are not Ben Sasse: I should warn you that I am appealing to the better angels of his nature here.  I realize some of you are convinced his vote on Thursday proves he has none.  If so you may want to skip this, you will likely find this letter ridiculously idealistic and a total waste of time.)

Hi Ben.  I can call you Ben, right?  I think I’ve followed your Twitter long enough to do that.  You even Liked one of my replies once. And it’s better than what some other people have called you on Twitter. Especially in the last few days.

Let me start with this quote from the Bard.

“All that’s spoke is marr’d.” – Gratiano. (Othello, Act 5, Scene 2)

I am sure you know by now that many of your followers are less than pleased with a certain vote of yours on March 14, 2019. That many serious conservative writers, some of who you have met, even some who are friends of yours, are disappointed in you.  That many of your fans are no longer fans (raises my own hand here).

You may say, I should never become a fan of yours.  That there’s something wrong with me for making politics and politicians that important, to care so much about some guy from Nebraska that I’ve never met in person.  Well you’d be right about that. I should have known what you were when I picked you up.

Still, you knew you had fans.  And not the kind of crazy MAGA fans who worship you no matter what you do and defend and rationalize your every move.  Though I’ve done my share of defending you from people who said you weren’t doing enough, not speaking out enough.

I’ve believed you when you said or at least implied, that you are working on persuading and trying to guide the President towards a better path. I’ve also understood why you’ve tried, when you disagree with the President, to focus on the issues, and not him.  I know it must be a difficult, awkward position, to disagree with a President who is so popular in the state you represent.

But I can’t just throw everything you HAVE said about him into a memory hole. As well as the whole separation of powers principle. Remember this from your maiden speech in 2015?

“We need Democrats to speak up when a Democratic president exceeds his or her powers, and I promise you that I plan to speak up when the next president of my party exceeds his or her proper powers.”

Or this from your Facebook post explaining why you could not support Trump in 2016?

“Much like President Obama, he displays essentially no understanding of the fact that, in the American system, we have a constitutional system of checks and balances, with three separate but co-equal branches of government. And the task of public officials is to be public “servants.” The law is king, and the people are boss. But have you noticed how Mr. Trump uses the word “Reign” – like he thinks he’s running for King? It’s creepy, actually. “

Or this on Facebook, just after Trump was elected?

“I’m hopeful that my Democratic colleagues — who swallowed their whistles while President Obama expanded the powers of the executive and ran roughshod many times over the Constitution — will learn this lesson…and I’m equally hopeful that my GOP colleagues who rightly decried President Obama’s use of unilateral executive power will be equally quick to challenge executive overreach even when it’s done by a Republican.

Not because the president is a Republican or a Democrat, but because he’s the executive, and we are senators.

Anyone who can’t handle that should look for a new calling.”

Well. A lot has changed since then, I guess.

Now I did read your official statement on this.  But that statement didn’t sound like you, Ben.  You know the vote that day was not just a run-of-the-mill policy dispute, when voting “no”  on a bill because the other side didn’t give you what you wanted is Standard Operating Procedure. No, it dealt with a fundamental constitutional issue, the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches.

Yes, you’re right that Speaker Pelosi had political motives, and that, long-term, it is more important to amend the NEA to give Congress more power.  But she’s also vowed to block the bill written by your colleague from Utah.  You know that.  And you knew the President would veto the bill you voted on. But you still could have shown your commitment to your constitutional principles and challenged this president’s executive overreach.

And you did not.

You also know that the problem here isn’t just that a future Democratic president might use the precedent to push the Green New Deal forward and persecute the cows.  The problem is that the President we have, right now, of YOUR own party, wants to run roughshod over the Constitution, to impose his will on everyone like an imperious strongman.  Just as you, yourself, predicted he would do.

You may say, even if you had voted yes, it would not have made a difference. That your vote would not have created a veto-proof majority.  That it isn’t worth committing political suicide over a toothless bill that is just meant to send a message and crafted by Democrats just to embarrass your caucus.

But then why have you even bothered to criticize the President at all?  Why burn up political capital with words that don’t actually change anything?  Obviously you thought you had *something* to gain from that.  Fans?  Donations? Book sales?  More appearances on mainstream media?  Or just a reputation for being an independent, principled conservative, willing to speak up against wrongdoing by both parties?

Well, congratulations.  You managed to lose a whole lot of what you have cultivated over the last 4 years of your public life, with one vote.  It’s not just the usual trolls who have taken the opportunity to chastise you in response to your recent Tweets.

And you stand to lose more.  You’ve said one of your priorities is raising your children and I know your family home-schools, that you teach them yourself, that you even bring them to work with you to learn civics.

So do you want to teach them, that keeping your job, one you have said many times is meant to be temporary, is more important than standing up for principle, even if that means they will be seen as total frauds whose stated principles were just cynical play-acting all along?  That’s how a whole lot of people see you now.

Look at your colleagues from Texas and South Carolina who accompanied you to the White House before the vote.  (By the way, I do hope the appetizers were delicious.  Maybe they even had pomegranate seeds on top.) Do you think anyone respects them at all?  Is that the kind of politician you aspire to be? Do you want your children to grow up to be just like them?

Now we are all fallen, all selfish, all sinners. I can’t say honestly that I know, 100%, that if I were in your position, if I would have made the right choice.  It would have taken courage the vast majority of your colleagues didn’t have either. And maybe we were never meant to see politicians in DC as leaders who could make tough choices in tough times. Possessing a spine is not, after all, listed in the US Constitution as a requirement for being in Congress.

But unlike others who used to consider themselves fans and admirers of yours, you are not dead to me.  Not yet.  It all depends on what you do next.

Will you continue to follow the easy path?  Will you sell off not only the small bits of yourself that any politician must, but so much of yourself, that you cease to be what you claim to be?  (That is a paraphrase of a Tweet from your friend Jonah Goldberg, BTW).

I’d like to think I’m not naive. I realize no one in politics — no one on this earth, really, can live out their ideals 100% of the time. But there is only so much sunlight that can peek between what you say and what you do, before no one listens to what you have to say.

You have tweeted riffs on the Distracted Boyfriend meme.  That’s how I’d like to see you now. The boyfriend distracted by the siren of re-election (or just not angering the man in the White House more than you have to), while your neglected constitutional principles glare at you in horror at your betrayal.  Something that is not defensible, but forgivable.

But I fear this vote was more than that for you.  That like the priest in Endo’s “Silence” (a book I’m pretty sure you’ve read, and I hope your daughters have too), this was a moment of apostasy, except that instead of stepping on the face of Jesus (please know I do NOT think you’d ever do that), you stepped on the Constitution.

Jonathan Last and many others have interpreted your vote as a signal that you plan to run for re-election in 2020.  If that is the case and you win, then you will be spending at least a dozen years in public life.  You still have plenty of time to regain your reputation, even start to craft a legacy.

I still think you have the potential to do that.  But I know better now than to believe you will.  If you have decided to become just another partisan hack of a politician, and forsake any positive place in history, so be it. It would be a shame, though.  You could have been a contender.  You could have helped to make America great again.

Ben, if you meant anything in your statement, then please, do indeed try to amend the NEA and have it pass this year.  Not just to check some future Democratic Socialist.  But to check THIS president. Stand up against this President the next time he abuses his power and threatens the Constitution that you swore an oath to.  Because he will.  You know he will.

And if you can’t, if you won’t … then, to quote someone I used to respect …

 “Anyone who can’t handle that should look for a new calling.”

Signed,

a former Ben Sasse fan.

This omits all the introductory stuff I wrote about what happened in “Mollygate” and my overall experience on Twitter so far.  So if you know what “Mollygate” is, jump in!

So… the many Twitter fights over Mollygate reminded me of something.  Not to do with prior fights on abortion, Donald Trump, or electoral politics at all.  No. What this reminded me of, were the VICIOUS office politics that ensued at a place I worked once, when the place expanded enough they decided they needed more middle management types and hired new people who tried to micromanage everything.

And while I am not privy to what exactly happened to the Weekly Standard when it closed; I am sure some of the sniping I have seen even pre-Mollygate, between TWS alumni and WEx staff (as many at WEx are far from rabid Trumpers) is more due to this kind of office politics, than because there is a large ideological divide between them.

Now, many pundits have opined on the recent state of political polarization in this country.  Many have suggested one reason is that the Federal Government is too powerful and overreaching, and that returning more power to state and local governments will help defuse this.

Certainly, one problem is that it’s easy to depersonalize one side of the political spectrum when there are so many of them and you have never met them!  Rural conservatives write off urban city dwellers as morally degenerate worshippers of Baal. And liberal blue state coasties dismiss the plight of red state farmers suffering from trade wars.  “Who cares!  They were stupid enough to vote for Trump.  Let them lie in their own bed now.”

But disagreements within a smaller, more intimate circle such as the Never Trump / Trump skeptical tribe (as hard core MAGAts have really not been the main participants), are not necessarily more civil.  They can be MORE uncivil due to the deeply personal nature of them.

Now, I don’t particularly care what some random Tweeter thinks of me.  When trolls pop up, I laugh at them.  But do I care what my followers think of me?  Yes.  If someone I find much agreement on were to attack me on something we DO disagree on (and this applies to real life as well), would I feel personally hurt in a way I wouldn’t if a stranger did?  Of course.

So there’s more to this problem of civility than government overreach, or even the loneliness epidemic that’s getting much press these days.  I’m starting to think personal character (or lack thereof) MIGHT have something to do with it.  That is one traditionally conservative value, after all.

And that it’s not just the deplorable MAGAts who are due for some self-introspection here.  Many of those on the Trump critical conservative side who have come to presume we are morally superior to Trump supporters, may be due for a look in the mirror. (And yes, I do include myself in that).

 

BTW, if you tend to type “TL:DR” a lot and are familiar with “Mollygate”, please feel free to read my condensed version of this, that I will post separately.

But if you DO feel like reading all my rantings:

First of all, if you are coming from my Twitter feed, today marks a milestone in my Twitter existence,  50 Followers, including two TWS alumni, Andrew Egger and Jim Swift (now writing for the Bulwark) and Andrea Ruth writer for ArcDigi (who happens to be engaged to Washington Examiner’s Jay Caruso). It’s also been 3 months and change since I joined Twitter to begin with.

Now, much of what I’ve seen so far is insane trolling, akin to a segment Sean Hannity used to have at the end of his radio show (this was when Hannity was more than just a Trumpist outrage monger) when he let his call screener “put his feet up” and have calls go through without any screening.  Most of them were from haters who spewed the most creative insults … although, looking back on this, the fact no one actually used profanity makes me doubt this segment was totally authentic.

But on the positive side, I have also had the opportunity to converse with various conservative pundits in a way I could not have imagined before the advent of Twitter.  It seems to me that the relatively small population of the “Trump critical conservatives” also allows for this to happen.

I’d not even bother to engage with, say Hannity on Twitter, or expect him to ever take personal notice of me. (Though I did engage in some rubbernecking through the replies during the Sasse-Hannity feud in the fall of 2018.)

So I wish I could post something more positive than what I will, but what happened on “Trump critical” Twitter this weekend showed the worst of Twitter.

It seems to have overshadowed the best of Twitter, which is how a joking Tweet by Heath Mayo on getting together for drinks instead of attending the Conservative Comi-Con (aka CPAC) morphed over just a few weeks into a widespread effort for conservative meet-ups in several cities as alternatives to CPAC.  This appears to have been, for such a short planning period, very successful with hundreds turning out, even the appearance of (in)famous Never Trumper Bill Kristol and Bulwark Editor in Chief Charlie Sykes (formerly of TWS) at the DC Event.

But to bring this back to “MollyGate”: In a nutshell; The Bulwark, founded by the two above men, sent a known progressive writer, Molly Jong-Fast, to CPAC as an official press correspondent.  (They also sent Egger and Swift).

All live-tweeted from the event, and Jong-Fast wrote 2 articles that were certainly caustic and satirical in tone.  She also posted 3 very controversial Tweets.  One referred to a “scary” panel she attended on the abortion issue featuring “anti-choice” people.  Another mocked the appearance of John Batchelor as “400 years old”. When informed Batchelor was afflicted with Cancer, Jong-Fast did apologize and delete the tweet.

The Tweets triggered a firestorm and even a hashtag, #Mollygate.  Many conservative Tweeters, chief among them Stephen Miller (no, not Trump’s anti-immigration advisor), berated the Bulwark for betraying it’s own “conservatism conserved” motto by “sending a leftist to mock pro-lifers”.

Many Twitter fights ensued.  And they reminded me of something.  Not to do with prior fights on abortion, Donald Trump, or electoral politics at all.  No. What this reminded me of, were the VICIOUS office politics that ensued at a place I worked once, when the place expanded enough they decided they needed more middle management types and hired new people who tried to micromanage everything.

And while I am not privy to what exactly happened to the Weekly Standard when it closed; I am sure some of the sniping I have seen even pre-Mollygate, between TWS alumni and WEx staff (as many at WEx are far from rabid Trumpers) is more due to this kind of office politics, than because there is a large ideological divide between them.

Now, many pundits have opined on the recent state of political polarization in this country.  Many have suggested one reason is that the Federal Government is too powerful and overreaching, and that returning more power to state and local governments will help defuse this.

Certainly, one problem is that it’s easy to depersonalize one side of the political spectrum when there are so many of them and you have never met them!  Rural conservatives write off urban city dwellers as morally degenerate worshippers of Baal. And liberal blue state coasties dismiss the plight of red state farmers suffering from trade wars.  “Who cares!  They were stupid enough to vote for Trump.  Let them lie in their own bed now.”

But disagreements within a smaller, more intimate circle such as the Never Trump / Trump skeptical tribe (as hard core MAGAts have really not been the main participants), are not necessarily more civil.  They can be MORE uncivil due to the deeply personal nature of them.

Now, I don’t particularly care what some random Tweeter thinks of me.  When trolls pop up, I laugh at them.  But do I care what my followers think of me?  Yes.  If someone I find much agreement on were to attack me on something we DO disagree on (and this applies to real life as well), would I feel personally hurt in a way I wouldn’t if a stranger did?  Of course.

So there’s more to this problem of civility than government overreach, or even the loneliness epidemic that’s getting much press these days.  I’m starting to think personal character (or lack thereof) MIGHT have something to do with it.  That is one traditionally conservative value, after all.

And that it’s not just the deplorable MAGAts who are due for some self-introspection here.  Many of those on the Trump critical conservative side who have come to presume we are morally superior to Trump supporters, may be due for a look in the mirror. (And yes, I do include myself in that).

 

 

 

I’d been thinking about this topic for a while, but a #NeverTrump Twitter poster inspired me to make a post about my take on “Trumpists” and “anti-Trumpists”.  It is not just a binary divide.

This is the Twitter exchange that inspired this:

So I do agree there is a difference between the Trump Cult and the Trump Voter.  I actually came up with 8 degrees of Trumpism and anti-Trumpism.  Of course totally subjective and based on my own experiences both in RL and on Twitter.  Here goes, my Stages of Trumpism countdown:

This actually starts with ANTI-Trumpism:

8. #TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome):  Someone afflicted with TDS is so anti-Trump that they are obsessed with him and his misdeeds.  They eagerly jump on any news or gossip item that portrays him in the worst possible light.  They think everything in the Steele Dossier is true, that there is a pee tape out there, that Stormy Daniels did spank Trump with a copy of Forbes magazine (and that her comparison of a certain something to a mushroom was accurate), that he has sworn an oath of fealty to Vladimir Putin, etc.

They will change long-held political views if they find out Trump supports them.  They will dismiss any elected official who isn’t bashing Trump on a daily basis as #Complicit. They are convinced anyone wearing a #MAGA hat is Evil Incarnate.  I wouldn’t be surprised if some atheists who have contracted TDS have converted to some kind of religion just so they can console themselves with the idea of Trump eventually burning in hell.

But I must admit TDS is more a syndrome than a group, as I’ve noticed it in both those who identify as #Resist and as #NeverTrump.

7. #Resist: Some who identifies as a member of the Resistance likely also identifies as Liberal or Progressive or Left-Leaning.  But there are Centrists and Moderates and some Right-Leaning Independents to. Some may be libertarians or apostate conservatives.  Most, but not all, are members of the Democratic party or are Independents who usually vote Blue.

They obviously did not vote for Trump. They oppose most of Trump’s policies, want him out of office ASAP, and oppose the Republican Party either because they would have anyway no matter who was POTUS, or because they think Trumpism has totally corrupted it and it is beyond saving, even if they do think it’s overall good for the country to have a center-right party balancing a center-left one.  They find Trump to have terrible character but they’d likely want him gone even if he were to have a sudden “Saul/Paul on the road to Damascus” conversion moment.

6. #NeverTrump: Those who identify as #NeverTrump likely also identify as Conservative or Right-Leaning.  Some are members of the Republican party, others used to be then left, or are Independent but usually vote Republican.  They never supported Trump, either in the Republican primaries or the general election.  Some may even have voted for Clinton in the general, though most voted for a third-party or write-in candidate, or didn’t vote at all.

While they oppose Trump and have spent the last 2 years hoping he will self-destruct enough to either resign, be removed, give up on running in 2020 or even be abandoned by his party, they do agree with some of his decisions that could be justified as “most R presidents would have done the same thing” such as his SCOTUS picks.

They likely disagree on foreign and trade policy more than domestic policy.  They find Trump to have terrible character and rage over his Tweets and public gaffes.  Some of them have shifted their policy positions reasoning that if Trump supports something, then maybe it’s not as great as they once thought it was.

One issue dividing the #NeverTrump camp is whether to repudiate the Republican party.  Many have, either permanently or as a strategy.  There was much debate over whether a “vote against all Rs” strategy in mid-term elections was warranted in order to put Democrats in power to check Trump, or not.  Many of them would consider voting for a centrist Democrat in 2020, but would likely draw the line at a Bernie Sanders (or worse) and then consider third party, write-in, or not voting for POTUS at all, again.

5. #TrumpSkeptic or TrumpCritic: To me the big difference between this group and #NeverTrump is a matter of semantics.  I’d not count someone as #NeverTrump if they actually did vote for Trump, even if they did so holding their noses and reasoning he couldn’t be worse than HRC.  Or if, after he won the election, they decided to give Trump a chance to prove he wouldn’t totally disgrace the office of POTUS.

I have to count myself in this group in order to be honest.  No I didn’t vote for Trump but I figured, maybe he won’t be a total disaster and at least put together a good Cabinet and implement some good policies.  I did this for a year (I also had a lot going on my personal life that made me put politics on the back burner anyway).  Then I gave up.

4. “Balls and Strikes” or “Good Trump / Bad Trump”:  I like to call this group “Trumpires” but I don’t think that’s a trending Twitter hashtag.  People in this camp are either Republicans or Independents who usually vote R, and identify politically as conservatives or center-right. They will likely claim not to be supporters of Trump himself in terms of his character, and express disapproval of the way he conducts himself in office, his Tweets, etc.

They like many of his policies, though not all, and will admit he has botched the execution of many of them. They will support Trump when he does good but express disapproval when he does bad.  But they expect to vote for him in 2020 unless he implements some really catastrophic policy, or some “smoking gun” is found in the Mueller report or elsewhere.

IMHO this group has suffered a lot of attrition in the last 2 years at least where professional pundits and politicians are concerned, and most have become Trump supporters for all intents and purposes.  A few have gone the other way into Trump critical mode.

3. Trump supporter / MAGA-lite:  Republicans who agree with the vast majority of Trump’s policies and don’t have that much problem with his personal character, and overlook evidence of his corruption as “no different than any other politician”, but they may at times roll their eyes at an especially incoherent Tweet or statement.   On the rare occasions they do disagree with Trump on policy, they tend to blame his advisors for giving bad advice to him.

While they support Trump, would say they “approve” of his job performance if asked by a pollster, and plan to vote for him again in 2020, they’re not especially attached to him as a heroic figure who’s engaged in creative political destruction, or that particularly focused on “owning the libs” or rooting out all dissent in the party.  They would pass up an invite to a MAGA rally as they’re too busy actually living their lives outside of politics.

2. #MAGA: Now we get to the red hat-wearers, the ones who not only support the overwhelming number of his policies but DO see him as a heroic figure. They would love to attend a MAGA rally, own a lot of MAGA gear, and would faint with excitement if they got a chance to actually meet Trump in person.

They have and will change long-held (or short-held, considering how often Trump modifies his positions) views based on what Trump says and does.

However, they also don’t spend every waking minute thinking about Trump, they have other non-political interests. They watch FOX News but they don’t have it on 24/7.  They want certain people in the FBI investigated and/or fired, were on board with impeaching Rod Rosenstein, would join a “lock her up” chant at a MAGA rally, but don’t really spend too much time hating on HRC.

But they are still very protective of Trump and are quick to defend him from any accusations.  They agree with him that the media is the “Enemy of the People” and that the Mueller investigation is a “Witch Hunt”.  They cheer when he does something that “owns the libs”, such a suddenly refusing to let Pelosi’s Congressional Delegation use military transport, right after they had already boarded a bus to the airport.  They’d cheer if he declared a State of Emergency to build The Wall. And if attacked by Trump critics, they will fire back, calling them RINOS and worse, but they’re not quite as enthusiastic as…

1. #Cult45: Some would not make a distinction between this group and #MAGA but I do.  These are the real Trump cultists mentioned in the Tweet that started this all.  Much like their counterparts with TDS, they are obsessively obsessed with Trump but in the positive direction.  Not only that, they are obsessed with hatred for Trump’s enemies. If anyone dares disagree with or disparage him, they want them destroyed and will attack them with all sorts of obscene insults.

They want the FBI disbanded.  They think of illegal immigrants as invaders and wouldn’t shed any tears if they starved to death or got shot by a border guard trying to cross into the US.  Some might even cheer the “defeat of the enemy invader”.

Many find FNC or even Fox Business Channel “too liberal” and watch OANN instead.  They eagerly embrace conspiracy theories regarding the “Deep State”, George Soros, FISAgate, etc. Their first thought when the pipe bomb story broke was that it must be a false flag conspiracy.  They think there is actual cause to arrest HRC and will happily rant about her e-mails and Benghazi and uranium and…

Most disturbingly to me, some actually truly believe that Trump was chosen by God to be the POTUS, and that it is not only treason, but a sin worthy of damnation to disparage their Dear Leader in any way.   That truly makes #Cult45 a cult indeed.

So first of all, crazier members of #Resist, (I know not all of you are that way), I am very annoyed that you are making me defend Lindsey Graham.  I think he’s a cowardly flip-flopping sellout to Trump, I’ve called him a follower not a leader, a “political remora” who opportunistically attached himself to Trump as soon as McCain passed, and I could say even worse about him.

But the ridiculous rumors on Twitter regarding his (1) possible sexual orientation and (2) possible blackmail-ability are not only ridiculous, but homophobic.

In order not to provide such jerks with actual Twitter traffic let me start with this educational screenshot from the @ReaganBattalion account:

https://news.yahoo.com/msnbc-stephanie-ruhle-implies-trump-193314863.html

Stephanie Ruhle (supposedly an objective news anchor not some Democratic operative) also got into it on MSNBC, stating:

“It could be that Donald Trump or somebody knows something pretty extreme about Lindsey Graham”.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/msnbcs-stephanie-ruhle-implies-trump-is-blackmailing-lindsey-graham-over-something-pretty-extreme

This is not even the first time public figures have accused LG of being gay.  This happened on National Coming Out Day 2018:

https://dailycaller.com/2018/10/11/chelsea-handler-lindsey-graham-closeted

Graham was asked about this at the time and stated, “To the extent that it matters, I’m not gay”.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/10/12/senator-lindsey-graham-chelsea-handler-tweet-national-coming-out-day/

Handler also suggested Trump had some compromising video of Graham in January 2018. I won’t post that Tweet as it is NSFW but here is a link to WaEx article on it:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/chelsea-handler-attacks-lindsey-grahams-sexuality-suggests-trump-has-blackmail-video

The article also mentions Graham has dealt with, and laughed off, rumors of being gay for years, including this quote from a 2010 NYT article:

“I know it’s really gonna upset a lot of gay men — I’m sure hundreds of ’em are gonna be jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge — but I ain’t available. I ain’t gay. Sorry,” the 62-year-old bachelor told New York Times Magazine in 2010.”

(The profile is also a very fascinating glimpse into the 2010 version of Graham when he was known as a moderate Republican happy to work with Democrats both in Congress and the Obama Administration.  Gay rumors back then were actually coming from the Tea Party hard-core conservatives. Obviously things have changed. Though it can be argued that Graham’s willingness to work with / suck up to the POTUS in power despite disagreeing on much policy matters, has not.)

In any case I agree with the point Graham himself made. The homophobic nature of the attacks are what they are, it does not matter whether Graham is actually gay or not.  The point is that some people think he is, AND that some of those same people are floating “Graham is being blackmailed for being gay” or even worse  “Graham is being blackmailed for being even worse than just being gay” rumors.

It is homophobic to speculate Graham is being blackmailed but not other Republicans who have gone from Trump critics to Trump allies, but are not perceived as gay. IMHO Ted Cruz has performed even more of a 180 maneuver in prostrating himself before Trump than Graham has. (Graham is still willing to publicly disagree with Trump regarding Syria and military / foreign policy). However, no one is seriously speculating that Trump has any compromising videos of him to blackmail him with.

It gets even worse. Cooper mentioned a “serious sexual kink” even more worthy of blackmail than just being gay.  His replies openly postulated that Graham was a pedophile and I suspect Cooper knew people would jump to that conclusion.  This of course plays into one of the worst homophobic stereotypes out there about gay people.

Now I should mention that Cooper himself is gay, but…IMHO this doesn’t get him off the hook.  I have the same opinion of the Black talking heads on CNN used openly racist language against Kanye West when he voiced support for Trump and visited the WH.

Okay I have finished defending Graham for now.  I don’t even particularly like or respect him at this point (I used to) but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to stoop this low in attacking him.  There is plenty of material out there to justifiably critique him on.

Hi! Those who got here from my Twitter Bio, this is @AyleneWright.  As also mentioned on my Twitter Bio, I’m a ” Right-leaning centrist Independent Trump skeptic”.

In my time on Twitter I’ve found out that I have a real problem containing my racing thoughts to the 280 character limit. So for 2019 I’ve started this blog to contain them instead.

Why am I calling this blog The Cistern?  A cistern is, historically, a structure made to hold excess water for drinking or farming purposes.  This cistern is meant to hold, instead, my thoughts that overflow the 280 character Twitter limit.

Also, while my Twitter account focuses on politics, I hope I can use this blog to discuss not so political issues as well.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton