way this Russia friendly, this interested in skewing foreign relations away from and insulting traditional allies, all while cuddling up to Putin. Yes, there was a subset that claimed to be right wingers and swooned like sex addicts at a gay night club over the world’s top oligarch, especially when his shirt was off. Not really all that many.
Imagine the reaction from them if Barack Obama went behind closed doors with Putin like he was a married man having an illicit affair? I suppose some of this could be explained by “trust,” even if just the slogan “Trust Trump” wasn’t such a laughable, provable, oxymoron. (Trump Steaks, Trump U., not paying employees, constant shifting of talking points, bonking Russian porcupines… wait, I kind of made that last one up. Maybe. Who knows for sure? Quill… never know for sure.)
But this isn’t about Russia, nor Putin.
No matter what you think of tariffs there can be no doubt pretty much all Republicans running, Conservatives, Republicans in general, were for free trade. Right or wrong, it was mostly a subset of the left who were pro-tariffs.
But this isn’t about tariffs, or free trade.
No matter what you think of illegals crossing the border one would expect the very idea of how we have been taking children away from those who did what they were supposed to: come to the border and ask for asylum, would have been placed in the same dogmatic negative column as abortion by most on the right. Taking away the barely born away, sending them to state facilities; some of them prisons, where they can’t be touched: worse. Really, do you think sending pregnant women back for abortions performed by kicking, clubbing and murder would have been more acceptable? (Well, maybe. Inconsistency thy name sometimes is also known as “Pro-Life.”) Having the very young dragged into court to be judged by the state would have been considered revolting by those whose rhetoric has leaned towards anti-government for many, many years.
But this isn’t about immigration, those who are very anti-governmental, murdering pregnant women, or judgment passed down on the barely born: those who can’t defend themselves.
Just a year and a half and, my, how things have changed. One thing is clear: if any side of this somewhat artificial two party divide can be classified as deep into political correctness it’s not the left. All the pancakes flipped this summer alone haven’t flipped as much as the right has for Donald Trump.
Apparently far too many on the right are perfectly willing to support whatever as long as it gives them more power, more influence. Their reasoning makes leftist naiveté look like well informed wisdom…
”Anything that pisses off liberals…”
”He’s making people on the left and right mad, that must mean he’s doing something right.”
Yeah, you know who else did that? Stalin pissed off communists and capitalists. Hitler pissed off Nazis and anti-Nazis. The Khmer Rouge pissed off almost everyone. Jimmy Jones pissed off his critics and those who really didn’t want to drink the tainted Flavor Aid. According to this rationale they must have all been good guys! Our heroes!!!????
OR… like a certain leader whose movement eventually might qualify as an evil cult.
A great example of political correctness pancake-like flipping was in Alabama where a known racist was running and supported by Trump. The party pushed to have screenshots: essentially pictures taken of votes, thrown away post election before there could be a recount. The purpose of the screenshots was in case there was a recount. Closing in like a Porsche 928 at 168mph on the final moments of the election Republicans were in court claiming it couldn’t be proven that there would be any problems with the original count. It’s like a lawyer demanding the gun be thrown away a murderer used to kill his wife because, without examining it, you couldn’t prove his fingerprints were on it.
OK, I understand: very convenient reasoning, though beyond idiotic. (It’s amazing some of the things highly partisan judges will agree to these days.) Yet after they lost these same advocates demanded a recount. One wonders, did they then sing…
”Oh where, oh where, did our screenshots go…”
Like any form of political correctness there are certain things not to be said anymore, often spouted once by the same advocates, like our impending new justice who was all for the pejoratives tossed at a former president, and pursuing him to the ends of the earth for offending what was considered politically correct behavior at the time. Something that now no longer applies when the… balls… are in their court. For the right now, apparently, there really are no standards, no ethics, no real firm ground they claimed for so long to stand upon. No soul. No Conscience of a Conservative. All that’s left is whatever is politically convenient, therefore politically correct at the moment; “political correctness” defined as; “Whatever puts us in power and keeps us there.”
Democrats and the left have more than their share of problems: no doubt. But damn I’m glad I left the other party, seemingly as fast as that 928, closing in on 50 years ago.
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Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 40 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks, and into the unseen cracks and crevasses, that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
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