McMullin's NYT Op-Ed

[Anonymous]

Indeed. Of course Democrats care about the Constitution!

I don't understand why you think otherwise. Would be worthy of a new thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Indeed. Of course Democrats care about the Constitution!

I don't understand why you think otherwise. Would be worthy of a new thread.

You would likely agree that the party in power seems to be less sensitive to questionable constitutionality of actions by the executive branch and this applies to both sides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me put it this way and it is an exaggerated analogy: if David Duke wrote an editorial about the hazards of multi-culturalism, I would not give his comments any consideration even if he cited some legitimate arguments.

This is not to compare McMullin to Duke but a critic has to have some basic credibility before one can take the individual's critique seriously.

I get your point, but I don't think it's an accurate analogy. McMullin, as I understand it, entered the race as a spoiler *because* he perceived Trump as a threat to the Constitution. It's not like this is his latest argument in a series of trying to discredit Trump. This op-ed sums up the entire reason he has opposed him from the start. If he were just a generic #NeverTrump-er, I would find your analogy more apt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Indeed. Of course Democrats care about the Constitution!

I don't understand why you think otherwise. Would be worthy of a new thread.

You would likely agree that the party in power seems to be less sensitive to questionable constitutionality of actions by the executive branch and this applies to both sides.

I'm the OP, not PP, and I agree with this statement. But parties are not monolithic. I found Obama's stance on surveillance appalling, particularly for a Constitutional law professor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am heartened that there are people like McMullin willing to speak out. I have considered wether I was simply a "hater", as suggested, but I think not. I don't remember feeling this way in 2000 or 2004.

I think I can see that Trump is not a normal GOP President, and definitely not a Reagan.
I understand the pickle some people found themselves in when having to choose between two flawed candidates, but I hope that, once the euphoria for having gotten rid of one evil wears off, people will be able to see the one we are left with.

I hope it is true that everything falls by its own weight.

Would you have felt the same way if Hillary had won the election?

I did not vote for Trump and have some trepidation about how he will fare but I can tell you that Hillary as president would certainly not have offered any comfort.

Yes, I would have but in a slightly different way. I am going to adapt an analogy somebody- I think O'Malley? - used before: Hillary is a sniper with a gun; Trump is a monkey with a gun. With Hillary I would have been worried about some of her poor judgment but I do agree with her national policies as outlined-which in any case would have had no chance at all with GOP house to the point of making her Presidency useless and possibly even harmful to the long term health of the party.

Also, I would have been cringing every day about her latest flip flop, scandal, bad judgment but I would not have been afraid of a temper tantrum accidentally escalating into a trade war or real war, or disgusted by KKK celebrating, with reason or not- election of what they think is one for them. In the long term, the Democrats will fair better because they got their 'pruning' (and will get some more); I hope the GOP is not made into the party of Trump, as the Democratic party was made into the party of Clinton. I want people like Graham, Collins, McCain, Hogan, Romney, Huntsman, etc...I guess I am dreaming.

I am not hoping for the GOP to fail but I am hoping for Trumpism to fail, in particular the anti-expert, anti-intellectualism that has prevailed. Not just against the intellectual Left, but also against any Intellectual Right that does not agree with Trump on everything (WSJ is bad at math kind of tweet from Trump and Co). I think in the end that's what saddens me the most of all because I believe in studying, and in academic rigor, and not that anyone can do anything well without preparation or practice or real study of the evidence...all decisions made by gut or popularity.... Anti-vaxers anti-GMO crazies on the left, climate change deniers, anti-social science on the right. Sigh...
...But this election showed me I am wrong I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now democrats are suddenly concerned about the Constitution. Well, this is a new wrinkle. I guess their handouts are about to be threatened!

We all carry our talents in the front and our faults in the back.
That's what the opposition party is for. The scary part about Trump is that even some GOP members seem very concerned-which tells me something I would rather not know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me put it this way and it is an exaggerated analogy: if David Duke wrote an editorial about the hazards of multi-culturalism, I would not give his comments any consideration even if he cited some legitimate arguments.

This is not to compare McMullin to Duke but a critic has to have some basic credibility before one can take the individual's critique seriously.

I get your point, but I don't think it's an accurate analogy. McMullin, as I understand it, entered the race as a spoiler *because* he perceived Trump as a threat to the Constitution. It's not like this is his latest argument in a series of trying to discredit Trump. This op-ed sums up the entire reason he has opposed him from the start. If he were just a generic #NeverTrump-er, I would find your analogy more apt.

McMullin and other "never Trump" Republicans fundamental objection to Trump was that he was not a genuine conservative ..... and they are right about this. Trump has no fealty to any ideology which is both a strength and weakness. Their other concern was that he was not beholden to the "establishment" and special interests which made him less pliable.

His adherence or lack of adherence to the constitution was something that surfaced later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now democrats are suddenly concerned about the Constitution. Well, this is a new wrinkle. I guess their handouts are about to be threatened!

We all carry our talents in the front and our faults in the back.
That's what the opposition party is for. The scary part about Trump is that even some GOP members seem very concerned-which tells me something I would rather not know.

Is that better or worse? Because it only seems like three or four GOPers in the public eye have had any backbone and stood up to this insanity. That tells me something I would rather not know.

[Anonymous]

Thank you 19:09. I'm an idealist ... a failing of mine. I see politics as the Avenue by which citizens with different backgrounds, experiences, and beliefs can come together through compromise to hopefully not screw things up too badly. I'm also a cynic. It's depressing to see the entire middle torn out of political life in America. Everyone screams about winners and losers, talking about dem and repub, but I think that we've all lost in Trump's America. I'm with McMullen on this. We are watching a train wreck from the inside. A large part of me is fascinated, but I'd still rather not go through this all the same.

Coda: Neither side has a monopoly on presidential overreach into unconstitutional behavior ... see torture as policy and killing of American citizens without trial. It isn't helpful to turn these things into, "Well Johnny did X!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me put it this way and it is an exaggerated analogy: if David Duke wrote an editorial about the hazards of multi-culturalism, I would not give his comments any consideration even if he cited some legitimate arguments.

This is not to compare McMullin to Duke but a critic has to have some basic credibility before one can take the individual's critique seriously.

I get your point, but I don't think it's an accurate analogy. McMullin, as I understand it, entered the race as a spoiler *because* he perceived Trump as a threat to the Constitution. It's not like this is his latest argument in a series of trying to discredit Trump. This op-ed sums up the entire reason he has opposed him from the start. If he were just a generic #NeverTrump-er, I would find your analogy more apt.

McMullin and other "never Trump" Republicans fundamental objection to Trump was that he was not a genuine conservative ..... and they are right about this. Trump has no fealty to any ideology which is both a strength and weakness. Their other concern was that he was not beholden to the "establishment" and special interests which made him less pliable.

His adherence or lack of adherence to the constitution was something that surfaced later.

I dunno. This August 2016 critique of him in the National Review discredits him for exactly the things he stated in his op-ed:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438951/evan-mcmullin-republican-party-establishment-third-party-candidate-conservatives

You have to read pretty far down to get to the multi-point critique of him, but it's consistent with the viewpoint he shared in NYT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, I would have but in a slightly different way. I am going to adapt an analogy somebody- I think O'Malley? - used before: Hillary is a sniper with a gun; Trump is a monkey with a gun. With Hillary I would have been worried about some of her poor judgment but I do agree with her national policies as outlined-which in any case would have had no chance at all with GOP house to the point of making her Presidency useless and possibly even harmful to the long term health of the party.

I am not really too worried about Trump as a "monkey with a gun". The guy is not a dumb person. What concerns me more is that he is a "disrupter" - something that is needed - but I am not sure if his process of disruption is likely to lead to unintended consequences.

As for Hillary and "her national policies", I had zero confidence that she would adhere to any of those policies. She is the ultimate opportunist and lacks any fundamental convictions because for her everything is a matter of expediency which is why we have seen her change her mind repeatedly over the years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes, I would have but in a slightly different way. I am going to adapt an analogy somebody- I think O'Malley? - used before: Hillary is a sniper with a gun; Trump is a monkey with a gun. With Hillary I would have been worried about some of her poor judgment but I do agree with her national policies as outlined-which in any case would have had no chance at all with GOP house to the point of making her Presidency useless and possibly even harmful to the long term health of the party.

I am not really too worried about Trump as a "monkey with a gun". The guy is not a dumb person. What concerns me more is that he is a "disrupter" - something that is needed - but I am not sure if his process of disruption is likely to lead to unintended consequences.

As for Hillary and "her national policies", I had zero confidence that she would adhere to any of those policies. She is the ultimate opportunist and lacks any fundamental convictions because for her everything is a matter of expediency which is why we have seen her change her mind repeatedly over the years.

OP, not PP. I'm going to leave the Clinton stuff alone, because I think it's a distraction at this point.

But I think the "disrupter" issue is even more frightening and speaks to the silly way in which that concept has been idealized. When the concept was introduced, it was as a way of explaining certain technologies/business models that had taken ahold by fundamentally changing the landscape of how people did things. The end goal wasn't disruption, it was whatever the new widget was trying to do. The disruption was simply the effect. People seem to have elected Trump without any end goal in mind simply to have him shake things up. Maybe because I'm a physicist who's studied entropy, but this seems ludicrous to me. It's pretty much a fundamental tenet of the universe that it's insufficient to simply blow up a crumbling building and hope when the pieces land they form the Taj Mahal. You will instead end up with no shelter at all.

[Anonymous]

Evan is irrelevant.

He and Glen Beck can rub their face into bowls of crushed cheetos together and whine on the daily, nobody cares. If it weren't for his op-ed against Trump nobody would give a tinker's damn about him now.

[Anonymous]

It's refreshing to see the take of McMullin and he does give a voice to the never Trump conservatives, whose numbers I suspect will only get larger as time goes on.

He also make very valid points regarding authoritarianism. He has seen it, I have seen it. If you choose to bury your head in the sand, your choice. It's still happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tough to take seriously someone whose expressed goal was to stop Trump.

Exactly.

Why is it so hard to read his words and respond to them. It doesn't necessarily matter what his motivations are. You can also read what he says and decide if you agree.

I'm assuming you both voted Trump, and so you don't see the problems with his Presidency. But many of us do. Dismiss us as haters if you will, it will not change the fact that Trump is not a typical candidate or politician. And that the underlying premise of McMillin's op-ed is true. No one knows what Trump will do, and so he is not accountable to anyone.

I am the first pp and I did not vote for Trump or Hillary - but when someone makes it their expressed goal to stop Trump it questions their basic objectivity.

You aren't making any sense. He isn't claiming to be neutral toward trump. He has a perspective and he is stating it. He thinks trump is dangerous and he makes a good case for why. You can't rebut his points so you dismiss him because he's anti-Trump. That makes zero sense. It would be like dismissing a person's critique of Hillary because they're anti-Hillary. You have to actually rebut their reasons.