Good luck to them. As an unabashed free market capitalist I have things in common with them. I’m not convinced they’re more than 10% of the public but sure why not.
They could theoretically take the California and Texas libertarians and the non Trump cozy Republicans. It depends on their elevator pitch
The American parties are not parties, but simply platforms to run primary elections. The non Trump republicans shall stay latent, vote for the democratic party, sabotage as much as possible now, and wait for Trump sucession later. Anything else is voluntarism.
I can halfway understand why, in previous elections, Principles First sort of people might not have voted for Democrats. But in the current election it should have been glaringly obvious that—to borrow something David Frum once said about Hilary Clinton—flawed though the both were, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were flawed within acceptable boundaries, and that Donald Trump was so far outside of any acceptable norm by any conceivable measure that no one in their right mind should have voted for him. Zubrin and his ilk can go pound sand now, as far as I'm concerned.
Anything to do with the realm of scientific endeavors, I find Zubrin’s analysis first rate. As far as politics, not so sure. I’ll leave it at that. Thanks.
“That said, the Principles First group itself has grown considerably over the same span, as demonstrated by the upcoming summit speakers list which includes such important former and current public officials as Chris Christie, Lisa Murkowski, John Bolton, Asa Hutchinson, Alberto Gonzales, and Adam Kinzinger, as well as an entire pantheon of famed anti-Trump conservative writers including Noah Rothman, David French, Mona Charen, Amanda Carpenter, Bill Kristol, Charlie Sykes, and Steve Hayes, to name just a few.” (Robert Zubrin)
I literally laughed out loud when I read this list. First of all, there’s not a single conservative that Zubrin mentioned; they’re all neoconservatives. Is it really possible that Zubrin doesn’t understand the difference between a conservative and a neoconservative?
More importantly, it’s remarkable that Zubrin doesn’t realize that the politicians and pundits that he admires have been so thoroughly defeated and repudiated that they’re as irrelevant as Macron, Starmer and Scholz. Europe is decaying on the garbage heap of history, just like all of Zubrin’s heroes.
Note to Claire Berlinski, I don’t know whether this applies to your other readers, but I’m looking forward to hearing your take on the Vice President’s speech in Munich.
Agree on awaiting Claire's take on JD's recent whacking the Munich poseurs! Not sure where neocons figure in the mix, but the famous quip that "a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged" doesn't apply to Reagan as he had so transitioned long before he got shot.
I think the essential difference here is not what variations may exist among conservatives (whatever that term really means) but rather in our ongoing ‘conversation’ about what it means to be an American as the Founders envisioned that designation.
My take after nearly 80 years as an American. one who has worn her uniform, and one who has taught her history for over 40 years:
We are both the inheritors of and the participants in the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex experiment in human government ever attempted - citizens of the first nation on earth to define itself at its inception as that in which 'We the People’ might together find enough of the courage, the honesty, the understanding, the tolerance, the compassion, the humility, the wisdom, the humor, the hope, and the sheer common sense to rule ourselves as justly as possible from the bottom up.
What matters here, then, more than party affiliation or whatever variations there are within parties is the degree of those characteristics evident in our leaders, and in both our private lives and in our public discourse. Even the most casual observer would find it hard to find a sufficient level of any of them in our present circumstances.
I don’t disagree with anything that you’ve said. I would merely point out that the politicians and pundits coming to the confab that Zubrin lauds have been profoundly destructive to American peace and prosperity.
Like their fellow neoconservatives, Zubrin’s heroes have bungled us into one war after the next. Because of them, the United States hasn’t won a shooting war since World War II. Thanks to Zubrin’s heroes, thousands of working class American young men have returned from failed foreign adventures in body bags or sans arms and legs. All for nothing.
Thanks to Zubrin’s heroes, huge swaths of the American Midwest have been deindustrialized and devastated. Because of their stupidity, there are towns with as large a population of drug addicts as full-time employees.
Thanks to Zubrin’s heroes our country has been overrun by unvetted illegal migrants, we have the most expensive health care in the world and interest payments on the federal debt are about to exceed expenditures on defense.
Our country is profoundly broken. It’s working just fine for the politicians, the pundits, the professors, the government apparatchiks and the journalists. It’s not working for millions of Americans who’s lives have been devastated by Zubrin’s heroes.
They should be ashamed, but there’s one thing we know about Zubrin’s heroes; they’re shameless. But I am sure they will all have great fun at the confab.
Blaming these particular people for all that you claim is little more than shouting at the wind. Have conservatives made mistakes. Of course. Have we fought a series of the wrong wars in the wrong places for over half a century? Yes. Have liberals made mistakes? Of course. Have American voters made mistakes? Of course. Have insurance companies made financial hay out of our privatized and profit making medical system? Of course. Have drug manufacturers badly overdone their sales of destructive painkillers? Of course. Have millions of Americans misunderstood the nature of the complex and interconnected world of which we are an inevitable part, and thus falling prey to the oversimplified and incorrect solutions of demagogues? Of course. Does our ossified binary political party system often demand loyalty to party above loyalty to our best interests as a nation? Yes. Does our outdated adherence to the electoral college, that late-night cobbled together attempt to mitigate the passions and parochialism our Founders feared work the way it was intended? No. Does our method of choosing our leaders guarantee that we will get the best ones we can? No. Does the internet make it possible to spread lies, distortions, misinformation, hatred, ignorance, bigotry and violence in the name of the First Amendment but well past anyone’s ability to control it’s destructive power? Yes. Have all sides of our political divide failed to come up with a workable solution to our southern border? Yes. Shall I go on?
I probably have dozens of favorite quotes, but near the top is one from the comic strip, Pogo. “We have met the enemy, and they is us”.
The fact is that we are all in this together, but we simply can’t seem to figure out what that really means. And having one group just shouting at another isn’t helping.
I’m not a Christian, but the Bible, like other sacred texts with the long history of our kind behind them often understand this better than the present generation. “He that troubleth his own house will inherit the wind."
I have always maintained that any real potential for curbing the grotesque excesses of Trumpism would have to come from inside the Republican Party.
However, they threw away their best chance so far with they caved to McConnell and failed to convict Trump following January 6th. They have failed again in confirming his collection of sycophants, election deniers, cranks, liars, Russo-philes, misogynists, barn burners, and drunks, giving him virtually carte blanche to do whatever he wants to until and unless some outside force (the only one left is the courts) is able to curb the most egregious aspects of Trumpmuskovia.
I applaud Principles First, even if I didn’t agree with either Reagan or Buckley in some aspects of their beliefs. We do need at least two strong parties, assuming (and its a big assumption) that both could curb their own inclinations to demand party loyalty above all else - exactly why the Founders feared what they called ‘factionalism’.
Trumpism is, however, deep seated, and human nature makes clear that overcoming such a prolonged depth of belief, even in the face of obviously contradictory facts, is probably among the most difficult goals to achieve. And any movement from within Trumpism which contradicts it will face a firestorm of criticism, threats, legal sanctions (whether earned or not) and quite possibly violence (all of those most violent of Trump supporters having been released by his lawless hands).
The other possibility, of course, is for ‘the enemies within’ to wait until Trump and Musk in their hubris do something or some things so foolish that it makes a substantial proportion of their supporters realize their own oxen are being gored to the same extent that they so delightedly think the ‘socialists’ and ‘communists’ and ‘libs’ oxen are. Then pounce.
Whatever happens, we are in for a rough ride of a kind not previously experienced by American in our short history. Still, it is written in the DNA of any Republic that it will be continually tested in one form or another. Hopefully this is just one more of many so far, but not the one that breaks the camel’s back.
"Principles First" is the makeshift mantra of Kemi Badenoch, leader of the continuity post-Truss UK conservatives.
No further comment.
Good luck to them. As an unabashed free market capitalist I have things in common with them. I’m not convinced they’re more than 10% of the public but sure why not.
They could theoretically take the California and Texas libertarians and the non Trump cozy Republicans. It depends on their elevator pitch
The American parties are not parties, but simply platforms to run primary elections. The non Trump republicans shall stay latent, vote for the democratic party, sabotage as much as possible now, and wait for Trump sucession later. Anything else is voluntarism.
I can halfway understand why, in previous elections, Principles First sort of people might not have voted for Democrats. But in the current election it should have been glaringly obvious that—to borrow something David Frum once said about Hilary Clinton—flawed though the both were, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were flawed within acceptable boundaries, and that Donald Trump was so far outside of any acceptable norm by any conceivable measure that no one in their right mind should have voted for him. Zubrin and his ilk can go pound sand now, as far as I'm concerned.
Anything to do with the realm of scientific endeavors, I find Zubrin’s analysis first rate. As far as politics, not so sure. I’ll leave it at that. Thanks.
“That said, the Principles First group itself has grown considerably over the same span, as demonstrated by the upcoming summit speakers list which includes such important former and current public officials as Chris Christie, Lisa Murkowski, John Bolton, Asa Hutchinson, Alberto Gonzales, and Adam Kinzinger, as well as an entire pantheon of famed anti-Trump conservative writers including Noah Rothman, David French, Mona Charen, Amanda Carpenter, Bill Kristol, Charlie Sykes, and Steve Hayes, to name just a few.” (Robert Zubrin)
I literally laughed out loud when I read this list. First of all, there’s not a single conservative that Zubrin mentioned; they’re all neoconservatives. Is it really possible that Zubrin doesn’t understand the difference between a conservative and a neoconservative?
More importantly, it’s remarkable that Zubrin doesn’t realize that the politicians and pundits that he admires have been so thoroughly defeated and repudiated that they’re as irrelevant as Macron, Starmer and Scholz. Europe is decaying on the garbage heap of history, just like all of Zubrin’s heroes.
Note to Claire Berlinski, I don’t know whether this applies to your other readers, but I’m looking forward to hearing your take on the Vice President’s speech in Munich.
Agree on awaiting Claire's take on JD's recent whacking the Munich poseurs! Not sure where neocons figure in the mix, but the famous quip that "a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged" doesn't apply to Reagan as he had so transitioned long before he got shot.
I think the essential difference here is not what variations may exist among conservatives (whatever that term really means) but rather in our ongoing ‘conversation’ about what it means to be an American as the Founders envisioned that designation.
My take after nearly 80 years as an American. one who has worn her uniform, and one who has taught her history for over 40 years:
We are both the inheritors of and the participants in the most extraordinary, the most crucial, the riskiest, and the most complex experiment in human government ever attempted - citizens of the first nation on earth to define itself at its inception as that in which 'We the People’ might together find enough of the courage, the honesty, the understanding, the tolerance, the compassion, the humility, the wisdom, the humor, the hope, and the sheer common sense to rule ourselves as justly as possible from the bottom up.
What matters here, then, more than party affiliation or whatever variations there are within parties is the degree of those characteristics evident in our leaders, and in both our private lives and in our public discourse. Even the most casual observer would find it hard to find a sufficient level of any of them in our present circumstances.
I don’t disagree with anything that you’ve said. I would merely point out that the politicians and pundits coming to the confab that Zubrin lauds have been profoundly destructive to American peace and prosperity.
Like their fellow neoconservatives, Zubrin’s heroes have bungled us into one war after the next. Because of them, the United States hasn’t won a shooting war since World War II. Thanks to Zubrin’s heroes, thousands of working class American young men have returned from failed foreign adventures in body bags or sans arms and legs. All for nothing.
Thanks to Zubrin’s heroes, huge swaths of the American Midwest have been deindustrialized and devastated. Because of their stupidity, there are towns with as large a population of drug addicts as full-time employees.
Thanks to Zubrin’s heroes our country has been overrun by unvetted illegal migrants, we have the most expensive health care in the world and interest payments on the federal debt are about to exceed expenditures on defense.
Our country is profoundly broken. It’s working just fine for the politicians, the pundits, the professors, the government apparatchiks and the journalists. It’s not working for millions of Americans who’s lives have been devastated by Zubrin’s heroes.
They should be ashamed, but there’s one thing we know about Zubrin’s heroes; they’re shameless. But I am sure they will all have great fun at the confab.
Blaming these particular people for all that you claim is little more than shouting at the wind. Have conservatives made mistakes. Of course. Have we fought a series of the wrong wars in the wrong places for over half a century? Yes. Have liberals made mistakes? Of course. Have American voters made mistakes? Of course. Have insurance companies made financial hay out of our privatized and profit making medical system? Of course. Have drug manufacturers badly overdone their sales of destructive painkillers? Of course. Have millions of Americans misunderstood the nature of the complex and interconnected world of which we are an inevitable part, and thus falling prey to the oversimplified and incorrect solutions of demagogues? Of course. Does our ossified binary political party system often demand loyalty to party above loyalty to our best interests as a nation? Yes. Does our outdated adherence to the electoral college, that late-night cobbled together attempt to mitigate the passions and parochialism our Founders feared work the way it was intended? No. Does our method of choosing our leaders guarantee that we will get the best ones we can? No. Does the internet make it possible to spread lies, distortions, misinformation, hatred, ignorance, bigotry and violence in the name of the First Amendment but well past anyone’s ability to control it’s destructive power? Yes. Have all sides of our political divide failed to come up with a workable solution to our southern border? Yes. Shall I go on?
I probably have dozens of favorite quotes, but near the top is one from the comic strip, Pogo. “We have met the enemy, and they is us”.
The fact is that we are all in this together, but we simply can’t seem to figure out what that really means. And having one group just shouting at another isn’t helping.
I’m not a Christian, but the Bible, like other sacred texts with the long history of our kind behind them often understand this better than the present generation. “He that troubleth his own house will inherit the wind."
I have always maintained that any real potential for curbing the grotesque excesses of Trumpism would have to come from inside the Republican Party.
However, they threw away their best chance so far with they caved to McConnell and failed to convict Trump following January 6th. They have failed again in confirming his collection of sycophants, election deniers, cranks, liars, Russo-philes, misogynists, barn burners, and drunks, giving him virtually carte blanche to do whatever he wants to until and unless some outside force (the only one left is the courts) is able to curb the most egregious aspects of Trumpmuskovia.
I applaud Principles First, even if I didn’t agree with either Reagan or Buckley in some aspects of their beliefs. We do need at least two strong parties, assuming (and its a big assumption) that both could curb their own inclinations to demand party loyalty above all else - exactly why the Founders feared what they called ‘factionalism’.
Trumpism is, however, deep seated, and human nature makes clear that overcoming such a prolonged depth of belief, even in the face of obviously contradictory facts, is probably among the most difficult goals to achieve. And any movement from within Trumpism which contradicts it will face a firestorm of criticism, threats, legal sanctions (whether earned or not) and quite possibly violence (all of those most violent of Trump supporters having been released by his lawless hands).
The other possibility, of course, is for ‘the enemies within’ to wait until Trump and Musk in their hubris do something or some things so foolish that it makes a substantial proportion of their supporters realize their own oxen are being gored to the same extent that they so delightedly think the ‘socialists’ and ‘communists’ and ‘libs’ oxen are. Then pounce.
Whatever happens, we are in for a rough ride of a kind not previously experienced by American in our short history. Still, it is written in the DNA of any Republic that it will be continually tested in one form or another. Hopefully this is just one more of many so far, but not the one that breaks the camel’s back.
Nearly time to just pull the plug terminally on Claire Berlinski and all her clones?
I'm looking forward to you backpedaling to the Motte and pretending that we're misinterpreting the Bailey on this one.
Shit, did I just leak the script?
Good luck. I'm no conservative, but I miss you monsters for what you were.