Things Republicans Can Never Again Complain About

#noRINOnoRINO | #WhatTheyVotedFor​


Maybe a puppet, but not a RINO.​

Syne said:
Unless you've always said Trump was a RINO.
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As it happens, such people would be extraordinarily wrong.

President Donald Trump's job approval rating stands at just 44 percent—a record low for a newly inaugurated commander-in-chief—and half of Americans say that his early challenges suggest unique and systemic problems with his administration, according to a new poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal.

In the poll, conducted February 18-22, 48 percent of Americans said they disapprove of Trump's performance as president and 32 percent said that his first month in office demonstrates that he is not up to the job. Asked about early challenges in the first month of his presidency, 52 percent called the issues "real problems" that are specific to his administration, while 43 percent of Americans attributed them to typical "growing pains" for any new president ....

.... The partisan divisions driven home by the famously contentious 2016 campaign appear to have continued seamlessly into Trump's presidency, the new data shows.

Trump's personal favorability rating stands at 85 percent positive among Republicans, compared to just 34 percent positive among independents and nine percent among Democrats.

(Dann↱)​

Grotesquely wrong. Laughably wrong. Not-supposed-to-think-so-poorly-of-the-neighbors wrong.

No, really it's probably time to put this RINO bit to rest.

Consider Kellyanne Conway. After the 2012 election she registered on political radar denouncing Mitt Romney's failure to push a stronger family values platform. During the 2016 campaign she sat for interviews with Christian publications, describing her faith in the context of her work and family life. And 'twixt then and now she has removed all question about her faith by standing in open defiance of Christ that she might advocate for the president's dishonesty. No, really, open defiance. God might know what is in a man's heart, and Kellyanne Conway thinks we should know what's in Donald Trump's. And perhaps we might guess this or that, but few expect she would be pleased, and, besides, the Lord Jesus Christ did happen to explain that what comes out of a man's mouth is what makes him unclean (Mt. 15.10-11).

And this manner of insincerity is pretty much par for the course.

Seriously: Eighty-five percent job approval. How extraordinary do I need to get? All the "real" Republicans have left, save for the fifteen percent? The whole GOP has rolled over for fifty-million supremacists and lulzies? I mean, holy shit. As much as I want to say I suppose we can all be surprised, no, actually, I don't think that's right; there's not really anything surprising in the poll result, nor need we reach for extraordinary explanations.

Donald Trump is everything Republicans complain about, including when they complain about how liberals describe conservatives. Yet Republicans are giving him a thumbs up at better than five in six.

I think it's time we admit: We've known RINOs. RINOs have been our friends. And Donald Trump is no RINO.

The President of the United States is a Republican, nominated and then raised to victory by Republicans; and as Donald Trump utterly fails to comprehend the presidency, such that even professional hands such as Reince Priebus are revealed to be so utterly ignorant and incompetent as to have no idea what the White House requires—no, really, after all those years lobbing flaming kitchen sinks at the Obama administration, was it too much to ask that Republicans get a fucking clue what it takes to be President of the United States?―and it turns out the rank and file adore their President Baby Batshit↱.

This dangerous, blindly flailing shitshow is pretty much exactly #WhatTheyVotedFor.

I mean, eighty-five percent?

#noRINOnoRINO.
____________________

Notes:

Bors. "President baby-boy". Daily Kos. 22 February 2017. DailyKos.com. 27 February 2017. http://bit.ly/2mFlDFJ

Dann, Carrie. "Trump’s Job Approval Stands at Just 44 Percent as Partisan Splits Reign". NBC News. 26 February 2017. NBCNews.com. 27 February 2017. ://nbcnews.to/2mxPqRu
 
If anyone else is as confused as I was about what RINO stood for - I presume it's the Republican In Name Only acronym.

(just saying that because I had to look it up just now - either I never knew it, or I had completely forgotten it)
 
Tiassa said:
I mean, eighty-five percent?
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And? Maybe your identity politics does not allow you to separate the politician from the policies, but most Republicans tend to think in terms of results. So far, Trump as kept a sufficient number of conservative policy goals in play to buoy his approval rating.
Kittamaru said:
If anyone else is as confused as I was about what RINO stood for - I presume it's the Republican In Name Only acronym.

(just saying that because I had to look it up just now - either I never knew it, or I had completely forgotten it)
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Oh, we have little doubt that you're so unaware of common political terms.
 
Syne said:
And? Maybe your identity politics does not allow you to separate the politician from the policies, but most Republicans tend to think in terms of results. So far, Trump as kept a sufficient number of conservative policy goals in play to buoy his approval rating.

Oh, we have little doubt that you're so unaware of common political terms.
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I would hardly call a 42% approval with 54% disapproval (3% margin of error) "buoyed"...

http://www.gallup.com/poll/201617/gallup-daily-trump-job-approval.aspx

As to the other comment, how sad that all you have are cheap attempts at ad hominem attacks... But then, that's all you really ever had to begin with.
 
Kittamaru said:
I would hardly call a 42% approval with 54% disapproval (3% margin of error) "buoyed"...

http://www.gallup.com/poll/201617/gallup-daily-trump-job-approval.aspx
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You must have missed Tiassa's 85% Republican approval that was a response to.Please bother to read what you're responding to. Might save some embarrassment.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/201617/gallup-daily-trump-job-approval.aspx
As to the other comment, how sad that all you have are cheap attempts at ad hominem attacks... But then, that's all you really ever had to begin with.
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More poisoning the well...a special case of ad hominem. How hypocritical.
 
#GovernmentDoesntWork | #WhatTheyVotedFor​

​

It is supposed to be a joke; but, them's Republicans, for ye.

At a distance, the White House's personnel problems appear to be a mess. Between withdrawn nominees, forced resignations, and empty offices, Donald Trump's team is clearly not where it needs to be more than a month after the president's inauguration.

But that's not how Trump sees it. Here's how the Republican characterized the issue in a Fox News interview this morning:

“When I see a story about ‘Donald Trump didn't fill hundreds and hundreds of jobs,' it's because, in many cases, we don't want to fill those jobs.

“A lot of those jobs, I don't want to appoint, because they're unnecessary to have. You know, we have so many people in government, even me, I look at some of the jobs and it's people over people over people. I say, ‘What do all these people do?' You don't need all those jobs…. Many of those jobs, I don't want to fill.”​

At a certain level, I can appreciate the thinking behind the knee-jerk reaction. Trump has failed to nominate people for key posts; he's facing criticism; so he instinctively makes the case that his failure is actually an underappreciated success that only looks like a failure.

To acknowledge the problem would be to admit a misstep, which this president isn't inclined to do.

But post-hoc rationalizations notwithstanding, comments like the ones he made this morning suggest Trump still doesn't quite understand how government works.

As of this yesterday, of the 549 top positions in the executive branch that require Senate confirmation, 515 of them don't yet have a nominee. According to the president, many of them never will.

(Benen, "Trump's"↱)​

We should note, it's taken the Trump administration a while to reach this point. I would have to look it up but columnists and bloggers were muttering those numbers a couple weeks ago when someone around the administration was complaining about Democratic obstruction. And given time to think it over, this is what they came up with.

But wait ... there's more!

So, to the one, we get it; the President of the United States asks you to come on board, you think you can do the job, you see the ethics paperwork and decide your family just isn't ready to sever itself from its financial interests. Whatever else is or isn't going on, we can respect the general premise.

But even that sounds wrong: Whatever else is or isn't going on? That's not fair, is it? Because while it's easy enough to speculate that Mr. Bilden and I might not get along as two people in the world, that's really about it.

But this is the larger context, there is something up with this:

Note, a week before Bilden withdrew, Spicer declared on Twitter that reports about Bilden stepping aside are wrong. The press secretary said he'd just spoken to him, and Bilden was “100% commited [sic]” to being the next Secretary of the Navy.

If there are folks trying to pull together a list of the claims Sean Spicer has made that have turned out to be untrue, you have my sympathies. The volume of content must be overwhelming.

Nevertheless, if the circumstances surrounding Bilden's troubles sound familiar, there's a good reason: Vincent Viola, Trump's choice for Army Secretary quietly ended his own nomination late on a Friday night a few weeks ago. In other words, in the same month, Trump's choices for Army and Navy secretaries both had to quit, and in both cases, it's because they struggled to separate themselves from their existing private-sector holdings.

And when it comes to staffing difficulties, that's really just the start of the list. Let's not forget that Trump's Labor Secretary nominee was forced to withdraw; Trump's National Security Advisor was forced to resign; two other National Security Advisor contenders asked not to be considered; several White House staffers were forced from their posts after failing background checks; some administration officials have quit because they don't want anything to do with the president; while other administration officials have been ousted because they criticized Trump during the campaign.

Weak vetting from White House officials has contributed to the problem, but it doesn't help that officials in the West Wing are reluctant to acknowledge that they even have a problem. Spicer, for example, managed to keep a straight face when he said, “I think we're doing a phenomenal job of staffing the government.”

As of this morning, there are 549 key positions in the executive branch that require Senate confirmation. Of those slots, 14 have been filled, and 515 of the positions don't yet have a nominee.

(Benen, "Navy"↱)​

That was yesterday.

And it should be noted, all that is the framework for the joke about Sean Spicer saying last week the Trump administration is "doing a phenomenal job of staffing the government".

Six days later, the President Trump is redefining what constitutes a phenomenal job.

And if e'er we needed such proof that the Republican lament about how government just doesn't work is actually a threat—you know, if the vacant benches and trashing of the Supreme Court of the United States weren't obvious enough exhibits—it should seem difficult to surpass the transformation from complaining of obstruction to boasting of a phenomenal job to possibly leaving those jobs unattended.

I heard a joke, yesterday, sometime on msnbc, about how the State Department caf is as busy as it's ever been because the people who work there have no clue what they're supposed to be doing. President Trump might want to appoint a few of those positions as soon as possible.

Otherwise, it really is starting to look like Republicans have just won their chance to wreck the place and intend to take it.

And don't get me wrong; there are a few around here who will snort and wonder if I'm just coming to ... right, we can brush them aside, because the point is that we're just about at the threshold where the even lame-assed conservative poseurs with their half-assed puffery in lieu of a functional political thesis will run out of room.

At some point the rest of us must consider the last of the, "We get it", thresholds. As much as I might disdain certain assertions of political logic, for instance, it just seems impossible that all sixty-three million Trump voters are openly corrupt; it's far too deep an indictment of American society and the human endeavor. So at some point, yes, we get it, whatever reason this or that voter had to endorse all the bad stuff they don't want to be associated with but were okay empowering because there was something else that was worth it, there comes a point at which the rest of us just plain don't get it.

And that's the problem; neither do the folks wallowing in it. And they have no interest. They have no care. They are an American societal enactment of the Aristocrats sketch.

Think of it this way: Yes, we know that's not you.

You know, when I was a kid, there were a couple of bizarre ideas swirling around my church circles, and I think part of it was the eternal quest to make Christian nicety somehow hip and attractive to the younger generations, that Jesus was kind of a rebellious punk, and we ought to respect his smirking, confident subversion.

For comparison, I once had a dispute with a respected friend who is not Christian, about a certain Christian obligation, and in the wake of a particular tragedy.

• These days, I might start in a similar place: Jesus says to turn the other cheek. "But master," says the Disciple, "he is going to shoot us all to death, one by one." And Christ called Jesus said, "Yeah, and? Have faith, dude."

And, later, when the parents wailed and wondered how the lambs could be so slaughtered, the the Son of Man reminded, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Rejoice and be glad, for this is the day He hath made. Besides, turning the other cheek doesn't mean you can't fucking run! Your fuckin' kids are dead because you fuckin' raised them stupid, you dumbfucks! The Lord helps those who help themselves! You teach your kids to be lambs for the slaughter, well, at least my Daddy has a use for 'em. And now you know what you're for, since basic fucking decency was just too much for your sorry, fake assees to deal with. And yeah, the Lord knows what's in your heart, and given the bullshit you just showed My Father, I can tell you it's gonna take some serious sacrificing to dig your fat, donut-frying ass out of the shithole you've managed to dig for yourself your whole fucking useless life that the Lord would repent of except for fuck-all sake he gave me the absolutely wasted job of making sure He can't give the fuck up on your sorry, fuck-all failure of an existence! Your kids are better off dead!"

Yeah, that sounds about like the Jesus we hear so much about, these days. You know, from Republicans.​

And, sure, maybe that's not you.

But you sure as Hell fell for it.

All love to Charlie Dent, but he ain't stoppin' this disaster.
____________________

Notes:

Benen, Steve. "As Navy nominee withdraws, Trump's personnel troubles get worse". msnbc. 27 February 2017. msnbc.com. 28 February 2017. http://on.msnbc.com/2mmX97W

—————. "Trump's new personnel plan: leave parts of his administration empty". msnbc. 28 February 2017. msnbc.com. 28 February 2017. http://on.msnbc.com/2mIp2U1
 
Tiassa said:
Seriously: Eighty-five percent job approval.
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Except "Personal Favorability" is not job approval and he's the United States President, not just for the people who voted for him.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/fir...tands-just-44-percent-partisan-splits-n725621

Personal Favorability is Q9 of the poll of 1000 people.
Now I'm going to read you the names of several public figures, groups, and organizations and I'd like you to rate your feelings toward each one as very positive, somewhat positive, neutral, somewhat negative, or very negative.
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Job Approval is Q5
In general, do you approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president.
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http://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/17057NBCWSJFebruary2017Poll.pdf
 
rpenner said:
Except "Personal Favorability" is not job approval and he's the United States President, not just for the people who voted for him.
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I stand corrected, though it appears there are no crosstabs for party affiliation and job approval. That's just weird, and part of how I missed it. Thank you for making the point.

As to the second part, though: "he's the United States President, not just for the people who voted for him"? Would you please tell me what you think that means?
 
Kittamaru said:
Can't poison that which is already toxic (or, perhaps in this case simply already dry.)
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Justifying your own forum rules violations.
  • Do not engage in ad hominem attacks (i.e. attack the argument, not the person).
 
Syne said:
Justifying your own forum rules violations.
  • Do not engage in ad hominem attacks (i.e. attack the argument, not the person).
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The laddie doth protest too much, methinks.

Here's another one:

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Anyway, enjoy your reprieve - I've decided to give up SciForums during Lent - figure it'll be good for my blood pressure (now if only we could give up Heir Trump for Lent!)
 
Tiassa said:
As to the second part, though: "he's the United States President, not just for the people who voted for him"? Would you please tell me what you think that means?
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Statements made by Trump and some Republican legislators make it clear that they don't feel a duty to represent the needs of those of their constituents who did not happen to vote for them. These "losers", in the opinion given should "shut up" which is a view which somehow manages to ignore both the history of the US Revolution and the Constitution which is odd for folks who call themselves "conservatives."

These statements and actions might explain why Trump's favorability is so polarized.
 
rpenner said:
Statements made by Trump and some Republican legislators make it clear that they don't feel a duty to represent the needs of those of their constituents who did not happen to vote for them. These "losers", in the opinion given should "shut up" which is a view which somehow manages to ignore both the history of the US Revolution and the Constitution which is odd for folks who call themselves "conservatives."

These statements and actions might explain why Trump's favorability is so polarized.
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Ah ... I just figure I missed something about your context.

Thank ye.
 
Polling is controlled by the media in the sense they help to create the perceptions behind public opinion. They do this with fake news, with the omission of certain facts and by making mountains out of mole hills. The herd assumes this is the whole truth and goes along with the consensus. The leftist media, with the help of PC, makes it harder for people to answer polls in the contrary way, less you be brow beaten by the left. This happened in the election, where the brow beaten people told the polls one thing, but voted differently in private, to avoid the social stigma game.

If every news agency harped on the unhinged left, who are acting out, irrationality, because they have been rendered impotent, they could make the polling numbers go the opposite way. Most of the news will not do this, since only partial truth benefits the left. They need to created the illusion of strength and not unhinged impotence bordering on criminal. That would be go fake news that can harp on partial truth and be entertaining.

President Obama was a good example. The media fawned over him and made excuses. If there was any problems is was Bush's fault. How many times did Obama go to that well. Ho many times did the media challenged Obama for the blame game, over seven years. On the other hand, how much of the media is blaming Obama for the hand of cards that Trump inherited? Trump is not getting the same manipulation of public opinion boost they offered Obama.

As another example, the Seal Team death that occurred recently was blamed on Trump, even though it was planned under Obama weeks before the election. Bush would have been blamed if it went south under Obama. Many people look at the news and don't add the extra work of fact checking to make sure all the data is presented. Had the Seal Team been 100% successful, Obama would have gotten the credit to diminish the role of Trump. There is no consistent standard when reporting both sides of the political divide; fake news.

Trump made a comment about Obama being responsible for a shadow government, who was leaking classified information to create problems for him. How much of the media will investigate this story? It is very plausible, considering the games being played, and Obama decide got remain in Washington. If the shoe was on the other foot; Obama/Bush, they would do this for Obama, and blame Bush to take the heat off failures. The media has fixated on the Russian allegation, and continues to do so even, with no proof. Selective news is fake news. It has an impact on the polling numbers, which has always been the cheating strategy of the left.

If you heard Trump's speech to Congress, last night, all the fake news did not change his resolve to his campaign promises. What I thought was interesting, was the camera angle for showing congress; from the Democratic side of the chamber. It wa chosen to made it look like there were more Democrats; fake news.

You can see the shock on the faces of liberal leadership, via the camera pan, but not as many times, as I expected; fake news. The left was ready for the game of self righteousness but was too unhinged. The left thought their manipulation tactics were very affective and they were patting each other on the back, before the speech. But Trump doubled down and describe a bunch of accomplishments, that were never reported by the media. Omission of facts is fake news. The swamp includes the liberal media. As the swamp drains, the media will double down for survival. If you blow hot air into the swamp water, the scum will rise, where it can be skimmed off the top.
 
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