"Today, Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review (the flagship conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley Jr.), published an article claiming that Donald Trump could win the 2024 election 'on character.'”
No, really."
~Tom Nichols
#Trump #Republicans #NewYorkTimes #character #values #morality #principles
/1
"Lowry and others are intelligent people who know better, but their decision to bend the knee to Trump—even if only with a very small curtsy—requires them to take to the pages of America’s national newspapers and say that Trump might be terrible but Democrats are worse. ...
The anti-anti-Trumpers must now define Harris—and all Democrats—as evil beyond words. Otherwise, how would they explain the ghastly compromises they’ve made?"
"Principles are sometimes burdensome things; that’s part of what makes them principles. The behavior of the anti-anti-Trumpers continues to be an inexcusable betrayal of the values they once claimed to hold. Many of them spoke, even passionately, against Trump—and then they shuffled into line. And for what? One more federal judge? A few billion more dollars in the account of a donor?"
#Trump #Republicans #NewYorkTimes #character #values #morality #principles
/3
"It’s one thing to sell your soul cheaply. It’s another to keep taking out second and third mortgages on it until all that’s left is debt and shame."
#Trump #Republicans #NewYorkTimes #character #values #morality #principles
/4
"As of Monday, August 26, 2024, we can safely say that the NYTimes is an 'unserious newspaper.'
The NYT’s Monday edition included a guest essay by Rich Lowry entitled, Trump Can Win on Character. ...
When the Times opens its editorial pages to opinions that are objectively, demonstrably false and misleading, the Times should be viewed as approving of those opinions."
~ Robert B. Hubbell
#Trump #Republicans #NewYorkTimes #character #values #morality #principles
/5
https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/harris-walz-campaign-goes-on-offense
"No responsible editorial board would platform such views unless it believed they were held in good faith and belonged within the realm of public discourse."
#Trump #Republicans #NewYorkTimes #character #values #morality #principles
/6
"Trump has done what no Democrat—not Bill or Hillary Clinton, not Mario Cuomo or John Kerry, not Joe Biden or Barack Obama, not any Democrat—could have done. He has, at the national level, made the Republican Party de facto pro-choice."
~ Peter Wehner
#Trump #abortion #Republicans #ProLife #ProChoice
/7
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/trump-betrays-pro-life-movement/679622/
"Who in the pro-life movement—Al Mohler, Mike Huckabee, Franklin Graham, Eric Metaxas, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins, Robert Jeffress, and countless others—will speak out, publicly and forcefully and relentlessly, against Trump’s about-face?"
"Will they tell the full truth, which is that abortions increased during the Trump presidency, that the pro-life movement is weaker than at almost any time in its history, and that, when it comes to making the Republican Party the home of the pro-life cause, Trump is doing unprecedented damage?
Will they now say of Trump what they say of liberal Democrats, that he supports the murder of innocent unborn children?"
"Once the strategic, logistical, and ideological concerns are resolved, there’s only one thing left to explain the lack of anti-Trump Republican support for Kamala.
These people are chickenshit. ...
To all the GOP politicians who, deep in their heart, know that Trump is too grave a risk."
~ Tim Miller
#Trump #Republicans #character #values #morality #principles
/10
"To the seventeen Republicans who voted to impeach and convict him. To the vice president he would’ve happily left for dead.
Say it loud and proud: Kamala Harris for president.
I promise you it will be a relief to get it off your chest. Because doing the right thing is never the wrong thing."
#Trump #Republicans #character #values #morality #principles
/11
"After over a year in this job, I cannot understand Putin’s hold on Trump.”
~ Retired Army Gen. H.R. McMaster
#Trump #Republicans #character #values #morality #principles #Putin
/12
"So the sun was out and shining as this third-generation draft dodger pretended to care about the soldiers who were suckers and losers enough to get killed during the United States' withdrawal from its Afghanistan adventure. How in the hell this was allowed to happen is beyond me."
~ Charles Pierce
#Trump #Republicans #character #values #morality #principles #veterans
/13
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a61975583/trump-arlington-cemetery-visit/
"Arlington is the country's 'most hallowed ground.' (Just ask the tour guides.) Arlington is profaned by his presence on just an average day. But to allow itself to be used for the purpose propping up one of the Republican Party's most noxious half-truths—as promulgated by its most noxious elements personified by its most noxious candidate—is an insult to the over 400 Medal of Honor awardees buried there."
#Trump #Republicans #character #values #morality #principles #veterans
/14
"As a citizen of the United States, and therefore someone with a stake in places like Arlington, I choose to look upon his presence there as obscene."
#Trump #Republicans #character #values #morality #principles #veterans
/15
"Donald Trump has dominated in polling of people who pay little attention to political news. What do they have to say?"
In a "Letter from the South," Charles Bethea looks at "low-information" voters and hoooboy, if you can bring yourself to read his report, you can just about imagine the nonsense that fills their heads and causes them love them some Trump.
"Education rates are low, and mainstream news does not easily take root."
#Trump #LowInformationVoters
/16
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-south/among-americas-low-information-voters
"How truly stupid can it get: Trump, RFK, and American decline? One loser creep endorsed another loser creep. It's all meaningless drivel, but telling. …
Cue one of the dumbest moments in a remarkably dumb time."
~ Jared Yates Sexton
#Trump #Republicans #principles #values #morality #RFKJr
/17
https://jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/how-truly-stupid-can-it-get-trump
Marlon Weems lives in North Carolina, in a well-heeled community that's not full of diners but pubs and wine bars. But that well-heeled community contains Trump supporters galore, though many of them prefer to pretend that they're "civilized" and "sophisticated" Trump voters, not the common lot. He writes,
"Without fail, these individuals present themselves as pre-2016 conservatives."
#Trump #Republicans
/18
https://thejourneyman.substack.com/p/nothing-to-see-here-just-another
"They attempt to convince me, to the point of desperation, that while they voted for Trump once or perhaps even twice, they do not subscribe to his brand of politics. Their unspoken message is that they will not vote for Trump again. But given that Trump is their party’s nominee for the third time in a row, this is as statistically unlikely as happening upon an Asian unicorn."
#Trump #Republicans
/19
"Like the cloth coat and Rockefeller Republicans before them, the non-MAGA species of their party is all but extinct. So of course they will vote for him.
Even though I know they are lying to my face, I give a bit of grace to Republicans who engage in this deception. After all, discussing one’s support for a candidate surrounded by concentric circles of criminal activity can be an embarrassing conversation outside the safety of a Trump rally."
#Trump #Republicans
/20
"Why did they publish this piece [by Rich Lowry]?
Lowry’s essay isn’t aimed at Times readers. He is not explaining reality. His op-ed does not add any value for the NYT audience.
The piece is little more than a memo to the Trump campaign."
~ Jonathan V. Last
#Trump #Republicans #NewYorkTimes #character #values #morality #principles
/21
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/why-did-the-new-york-times-let-itself
"Lowry thinks he has an insight into how Trump could attack Harris, but because no one at the campaign cares what Rich has to say, he convinced the Times op-ed page to mule his ideas directly to Trump.
Why would America’s paper of record consent to be used like this by a conservative sad-sack?"
#Trump #Republicans #NewYorkTimes #character #values #morality #principles
/22
"The Times isn’t trying to serve its readers by giving them the best factual understanding of reality.
Instead, the Times is trying to serve the op-ed writer, by giving him as much rhetorical leeway as it can countenance. Even if it means that he’s doing sleight of hand with its audience."
#Trump #Republicans #NewYorkTimes #character #values #morality #principles
/23
William Lindsey 
Damkina