If I'm anywhere near your posts, yes.
Never Trump
- Thread starter colton
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If I'm anywhere near your posts, yes.
Jonah
Well-Known Member
After such an open and honest interview with the Boston Globe, Weld no doubt felt compelled to issue some bromides to settle down the true believers. In the interview Weld intimated he is not likely to be a Libertarian for the long term, only that he wouldn’t “drop" the Party “this year". Weld is a placeholder in the Libertarian Party, not a convert. Once the election is over he said he looks forward to working with Republican leaders such as Mitt Romney and Haley Barbour to help rebuild the Republican Party.
♪alt13
Well-Known Member
Jonah
Well-Known Member
This is a really nice interview. Weld makes a good case why Republicans should support his ticket: Trump isn’t a conservative, American based Libertarians are more fiscally conservative, favor free trade and a sane immigration policy, and have a more traditional, non-intervention, non-neocon based foreign policy. Weld is much more smooth and polished than Johnson. The Libertarian Party would be doing better with him at the top of the ticket. (Romney has said he most likely would have endorsed Weld/Johnson. No chance he endorses Johnson/Weld.)
Still, none of what Weld said to Tapper walks back on anything he said to the Boston Globe. In addition to bashing Trump, he talked about his future with the Globe, not necessarily the most opportune topic when you are in the middle of a campaign, and made it clear his future is with Republicans and not Libertarians. I can understand why that could be disheartening to hear for libertarians of all sorts. This election was their watershed moment. Now it’s all slipping away. No fifteen percent and no debates and if the downward trend in support continues, possibly not even five percent, the threshold for matching federal funds and automatic ballot qualification.
Weld is obviously the more competent of the two and is the only reason the ticket is remotely appealing. Without playing on Johnson's name, he is not very impressive. Clinton blows him away. Either way, I'm not putting an orange *** in the white house, and I'm glad Weld seems to be concentrating on Republicans a bit more. Everything he said about Trump is spot on.
♪alt13
Well-Known Member
You've missed the point entirely. People who call themselves Libertarians have been voting for one of the two parties for a long time. Populism has gripped both parties in this election. It makes it very hard for them to choose either candidate. If weld goes on to drag the GOP toward the left on social issues that's a ****ing win for libertarians and the country. It is the opposite of disheartening it is heartening.
Jonah
Well-Known Member
If you want to talk about who is missing what point, it would probably be helpful to clarify our definitions so we at least understand each other. I would differentiate between the Libertarian Party and libertarians and then again between right-wing, Koch-style libertarians and left-wing, Chomsky-style libertarians. You could probably splinter it off even further but this should work for now.
This election is a major disappointment for the Libertarian Party. At one point Libertarian Party people had delusions that Trump would shatter Republicans to the point that the Republican Party would be destroyed and be replaced by a new coalition led by Johnson under the Libertarian banner. Reality soon hit and it became more about the 15 percent threshold and making the debates and somehow then becoming competative. Now Johnson is out of the debates and the Libertarian Party will be lucky to hit five percent and qualify for matching federal funds and automatic ballot qualification.
For the individuals who call themselves libertarians a lot would depend on how closely they identify with the Libertarian Party as to their level of disappointment as well as what type of libertarian they consider themselves. There are party-oriented libertarians and issue-oriented libertarians. Party people are likely disappointed whereas some issue people might be fine with the GOP co-opting their issues. Still other issue oriented libertarians would never be satisfied with a GOP version of libertarianism because it would be Koch influenced, which to them is the antithesis of true libertarianism and not a win for themselves or for the country.
Red
Well-Known Member
Actually, I think there is something to be said for your point of view. Perhaps the best example in recent years goes something like this:
Please, please, please tell me Obama is not really an American! He's a black man!! Please, please, please tell me he was not born here. Please, please, please tell me he's not one of us! I don't need good evidence, really I don't. I'll accept anything ya got, just please tell me this black man could not possibly be an American.....
Red
Well-Known Member
And ya know what? I think your computer has been Hacked.....
Red
Well-Known Member
My goodness, what a braindead observation. Deciding whether someone you don't even know is capable of being objective or not. Silly man, I have an absolute wealth of primary material to draw upon. Not simply the opinions of political pundants to whom I might agree. I do enjoy reading their spin. Very much so. But, since I know the value of unfiltered primary sources, and since, in Trump's case, they are so easy to access, I have been doing so all along. You really should not draw generalizations from your own subjective approach and apply it to others, such as myself in this instance, without actual evidence.
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCoswYMTz68KlHKn3oEzTm4A
Red
Well-Known Member
At the most general level, your observation seemed to amount to: people believe what they want to believe, and often depends on others to support those beliefs. This seemed so obvious as to not need to even be said. Very common I would say. I felt the birther mythology was a perfect example of that dynamic in action.
However, you also applied that observation to myself directly, claiming I could somehow not be honest and simply admit that it applies to me as well. And, from that perspective, you are mistaken. Where my beliefs regarding Donald Trump is concerned, what material could be more primary then the man's own words? Not the words of pundants interpreting his words, which are secondary sources, but Trump's own words-primary sources, in other words.
As for my living, I was an historian, now retired. And thus I am accustomed to doing research that deals with primary sources. Thus, if I were doing research on the American Revolution for instance, and say perhaps the role of the Committees of Correspondence for instance, the primary sources would be the writings of the members of that Committee. It's possible you don't know the difference between primary and secondary sources. In the case of determining the ideas of Donald Trump, his own words are a primary source, in that respect. Hence, I do not simply believe what I want to believe, or depend on the political pundants as secondary sources. Get it? You applied to me an assumption, on your part, that was not based in the reality of the situation.
I provided you with the same primary material I have used in judging Trump. His own words, in the form of his rally speeches. They have all been available to watch and listen to. I may despise the man, but I prefer to do so based on what sick ideas he himself has espoused. Right there, in the public record, and a primary source for researchers to draw upon. And since this is a Trump thread, I think he is a good example for me to use in describing what the primary sources on in this subject-the man's own words.