EAllusion wrote:I don't know if I'd describe the prospect of maybe possibly losing a job and having to settle for a cushy private sector job that's always available as quite an "Abrahamic test."honorentheos wrote:Jeff Flake was on a radio program this last week essentially making this point. When asked if he should have attempted to win another term as he admitted he would be more influential on the inside than outside of the Senate, he acknowledged his decision to not run again came down to his not being able to stomache doing what it would take to avoid being primaried. To survive a pro-Trump primary challenger would have meant standing next to Trump on a stage, singing his praises, and smiling at the crowd as Trump inevitably bashed away as the crowd shouted lock her up...in 2018.
To be a Republican politician right now is a test of, cough, Abrahamic proportions. Well, except this test is real.
It is amusing when you think about the narrative in the conservative self-imagination of Republicans as tough-guys who are unafraid to say politically incorrect things unlike those liberal pussies.
Donald Trump might mean-tweet them if they criticize him and cause them to face tougher reelection battle? Oh noes. Better keep their mouth shut while the country is pillaged by President Crimes.
There's more than a little feigned swooning involved of course. In the same interview, Flake expressed concern over Trump's castigating the Democrats as being treasonous or evil, with Flake espousing a need to recognize ones political opponents as "loyal opposition". It's an interesting comment given he was more than happy in the past to profit from the Fox News and other conservative media's vilifying Democrats and even so-called RINOs as essentially representing everything going wrong in the world. The Mormon opposition to Trump isn't exactly grown out of a commitment to multi-culturalism and tolerance of diverse voices in society.
But the times we're in suggest however one finds their conscience, and however convenient it may seem that they are doing so now, at least they are finding it.
I have had a running conversation with a senior manager where I work who is an unashamed Trump supporter. The conversation has been about economics, and his entrenched belief that Trump turned the switch on for the economy basically from the day he was announced as the winner to today. He sincerely views any news about potential economic issues as the media attempting to throw a wet blanket on the good Trump is doing. After the jobs report came out last week, he asked if I thought there was reason to be concerned if unemployment was at a 50 year low? My comment to him was I viewed much of the talk around economics as a football analogy - that if two people only engage in talking about how great their team is and how much the other team sucks they aren't talking about actual football, just cheerleading. He agreed, so I asked what he thought was behind the slow down in manufacturing that has been going on for over a year? Or that most economists view consumer spending as propping up the economy right now as many fundamentals are lagging? He didn't believe consumer confidence was a major factor or that there was actual softness in manufacturing. The latter was just skewed media reporting and the former conflicted with his belief that consumers were down on the economy due to reporting that we were heading for a crash any day now. Go team!
Point being, I'm inclined to overlook motives for coming around to the possibility Trump is not the guy Republicans should be supporting because it has to start somewhere to get past the partisan team loyalty and actually look at the fundamentals of what is going on.