Quote:
Originally Posted by DVaut1
Right. And one of the tragic things is that the right uses this to blunt criticism of their increasingly extreme political behaviors. So a whole industry of journalists and other apologists will note SOME combination of partisanship plus civic duty that explains why right-wingers vote for Moore, just as they did for Trump. Hey, we gotta vote, and Democrats are terrible for us, so a sex predator it is. You voted for Bill Clinton, no different! blah blah.
No one should expect any different. Partisanship IS strong. For everyone. We've had some people admit they would vote for Sex Predator Democrat over Trump and I dunno, fair enough I guess? We'd all be put to a tough decision. But it's obviously a weird thought construction since the parties and the primary process exists primarily so that doesn't happen.
The right wing pundit class, et al wins some people to this way of thinking -- that poor Republicans are just leafs in the wind and the one and only political action the right winger ever takes is voting in the general election, forgive them, they cared so much about abortion and judges they just have to vote for sex predator creeps and racist, too bad.
The strongest condemnation of the right, imo, isn't that they vote for Trumps and Moores when it's time for the general election. It's shameful but we can appreciate how game theory works.
The biggest blight on the right is that guys like Trump and Moore, who it should be reminded wants to exclude Muslims from public office and criminalize homosexuality, get through the primaries over more mainstream candidates.
That is the truly heinous thing. You can clearly identify the increasingly reactionary, angry, fascisting thinking taking over the right not by their general election behaviors but by the authoritarian deplorables getting through their primaries. In no healthy party are Donald Trump and Roy Moore candidates for anything. The Access Hollywood tapes and sexual assault of minors revelations highlight what everyone else already knew about these types of people. That the right has no filter and these guys are on ballots for the general election is their true, principle failing as a party and a movement dedicated to any decency whatsoever.
Not sure if anyone here is a listener to the 538 podcast and I'm not active on Twitter and so too lazy to tweet @NateSilver538, but he basically caped for right-wingers in just this way -- tut-tuting at woke liberals for indicating that this has anything to do with Alabama and conservative values, partisanship is strong and it's completely rational to vote for Moore. He even did the whole "well, if they had a choice..."
But they had a normal deplorable choice: Luther Strange
But the incredibly deplorable Moore won.
Surprising how much traction this apologetic gets. As I said, it's first or second level thinking. True enough on its face. But when do Republicans, the right, conservative Christians, etc. have their reckoning for
nominating someone like Moore? The whole primary fight was about how brazenly unfit Moore was -- temperamentally, philosophically, politically -- for office. A bunch of elites in his own party said that (granted those 'elites' are basically now disrespected swamp creatures; also the point).
As has been documented: Roy Moore ignores SCOTUS orders, thinks gays should be prosecuted, thinks Muslims can't hold office. Then we find out he did what you might predict people with incredibly loathsome mindsets that dehumanize wide swaths of humanity and disrespect legal boundaries might do, and then we ...finger-wag at liberals for drawing any systemic conclusions about collective moral rot from this kind of **** parade. IF ONLY REPUBLICANS HAD A CHOICE. WHATAABOUT YOUR PARTISANSHIP
sigh