Charles Pierce has a quiz for Anti-Trump Conservatives.

[Dawson Leery]

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a19808876/never-trumpers-republican-party-conservatives/

"So, Nicolle, and Steve Schmidt, and Michael Steele, and Rick Wilson, and Joe Scarborough, and Butcher’s Bill Kristol, and Andrew Sullivan, and David Frum, and the rest of you. Please take out your No. 2 pencils, open your test booklets and begin. We start with an easy one.

1) Many of you have expressed your dismay at how Sinclair Broadcasting forced its local anchors to read a canned statement about the curse of “fake news,” divining, correctly, that this was the company’s way of delegitimizing serious coverage of the many and varied corruptions of the current administration*. In 2004, when Sinclair forced its local stations to run a meretricious fake documentary slandering John Kerry’s service in Vietnam, were you as offended as you are today? Were you public with your disapproval? Did you take your concerns to upper echelons in the Bush campaign and the Bush White House? To whom did you take them?"

[mcar]

1. It is a brilliant quiz!

2) Please provide an example of how you pushed back against the entire Swift Boating of Kerry? Did any of you upbraid the people who were peddling Purple Heart Band-Aids at the 2004 Republican Convention?

5) True or False: Ronald Reagan was correct in referring to Michael Dukakis as a “mental patient” from a White House podium.

9) Given your concern about ratfcking in political campaigns, please explain all the steps you took to fight the Republican party’s voter-suppression campaign in Florida in 2000.

11) Please explain in detail how you pushed back against the lies and half-truths lobbed at Al Gore during the 2000 presidential campaign. Please define the salience to the 2000 campaign of the following phrases: Love Canal, Internet, Fairfax Hotel, Love Story.

[Dawson Leery]

2. Steve Schmidt wants to go back to the party of Bush and Buckley.

Why?

Bush was an oaf and war criminal. Buckley will always be the spiritual Father of David Duke.

Trump is not the problem, the conservative movement is.

[erronis]

15. Yes, this "Trump is not the problem, the conservative movement is."

They'll rebrand under different names, some even sounding progressive. But they'll still be there to be toadies for their masters.

[shadowmayor]

30. Typhoon Trump

Gotta hand it to tiny hands. He's managed to stir the pot is ways I would never have imagined. I turn on MSNBC and see Hewitt, and Schmidt, and Wallace and worst of all Kristol. None of these people deserve a voice and some have advocated the murder and massacre of people throughout the Middle East without a trace of remorse. Kristol is especially diabolical and loathsome. An enemy of my enemy ain't automatically a friend and any PNAC NeoCon asshat should never be given a pass, ever.

Sadly, too many democrats and folks on this site welcome their new found aversion to all things Trump. I refuse to be a part of the long running democratic circular firing squad and I give no quarter to those who have dragged this country to the right over the past several decades. It bothers me that many are happy to accept these republicans as allies in the fight against herr drumpf, and willingly forgive the sins of their past which are greatly responsible for the fact that we now have the President we do.

And why is lobbing missiles into Syria acceptable? How can adding more death and destruction to that part of the world be considered a success? President Obama drew a line in the sand, Congress called him on it, he said OK congress critters - you give me the authorization! Congress naturally failed to do so and our President and Putin working together helped remove the chemical weapons stored in Syria. It was probably Obama's greatest foreign policy maneuver and yet the Dems let the "he did nothing" tired saw be played again and again. Why haven't the democratic leaders stood up for our President on this issue? Is it truly terrible to work with Putin to get rid of weapons in Syria? I think donny tiny hands has caused many on our side to lose their friggin' minds, and any semblance of reason or rational thought seem to be the obvious casualties.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

45. this 👍🏾 n/t

[jimlup]

3. Excellent piece!

Yeah, these are just bad weather friends and we need to remember that.

[Dawson Leery]

10. We didn't need them to win in 06'-08', we don't need them now.

Get out the base and pull over the disaffected centrist voters. The Democratic Party is not a conservative party.

[jimlup]

12. Agreed

But I sometimes like listening to Nicole Wallace. Her nativity is fun.

[lunatica]

13. Do you mean navet ?

Maybe you’re posting from an iPhone or iPad which both always try to change the words you use while you’re not paying attention.

[phylny]

24. naivet n/t

[lunatica]

26. I see your iPad/iPhone does the same thing mine did

My iPad even offered up the real word with accents and all, then ignored itself!

Naïveté <——- this is the word I meant to post.

[phylny]

32. LOL, I WISH it was my iPhone - it was my regular laptop.

Anyway, hablo inglés y español, no francés

Yes, that's the word I was trying to help with.

[tblue37]

28. Naivete. nt

[lunatica]

33. Thanks. My iPad corrected me when I wrote that

It even came up with this —-> naïveté

Then when I clicked on that word it ignored itself.

[jimlup]

46. No

actually I said exactly what I meant

[elleng]

4. Glad they're doing what they're doing now.

[Shanti Mama]

5. Great piece, but I'm still a pragmatist right now.

Politics = compromise and, at this particular point in time, I'm willing to compromise and accept these pundits.
We can use there waffling later...

[Dawson Leery]

14. Every right winger, including the anti-Trump ones are retweeting Nate Silver this morning.

Nate tweeted an article from the New Yorker regarding Chick-Fil-A in NYC.
Nate said this is the reason why Trump "won".



Again, blaming the left for everything.

Link to tweet

?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

[radius777]

34. But Trump didn't win, he lost by 3m votes,

even with Russia/Wikileaks/Comey meddling.

The divide in the country is clearly between blue/metro values and red/retro values.

Dems have the votes, we just need to stand up more for blue values, and the votes will turn out. Stop pandering to red values (and their apologists like Silver) and start fighting them loudly - like the Parkland students are doing.

[druidity33]

37. I hate this argument and i see it everywhere...

Drumph lost CA by 3.5 million votes. He was going to lose CA anyway. Quibbling over the margin is just silly IMO.

[radius777]

47. But his margins in states like TX should've made up

for that, where Hillary actually came fairly close by recent standards.

The problem overall with our political system is rural/red/whiter/older areas have way too much power compared to metro/blue/diverse/younger areas.

Hillary was correct when saying she won all of the dynamic areas in the country, the ones that account for most of the country's growth and wealth (that the red areas are draining).

[CrispyQ]

6. Outstanding!

[rainin]

7. It seems liberals and progressives must take a back seat to the anti trump Republicans

As if there is a belief that they are more convincing. We believe our argument is stronger if we can point to the speaker and say "he / she is a Republican so it isn't political therefore it's truth.

This is so dangerous ! I don't want my two choices to be an establishment Republican and a freedom caucus Republican. Neither group knows how to govern.

[Dawson Leery]

11. We didn't need them to win in 06'-08', we don't need them now.

This appeasement of the right has to end.

[democrank]

8. Let's add Max Cleland.

Great quiz, Mr. Pierce.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Ultimately tRump is a symptom, not the cause, even if he is at the sharp end of the spear. . nt

[dalton99a]

16. It is a great quiz

[Paladin]

17. God bless Charlie Pierce for this. (nt)

[Pepsidog]

18. Yea but, I hate yea but people but I love the way Schmidt goes after them now. Hes a pit bull.

[spanone]

19. K&R...

[thbobby]

20. The reason anti-trump conservatives complain

is not because trump is changing GOP methods and beliefs. It is because trump is exposing them.

[hibbing]

21. Never ever forget

They all promoted the Iraq war.

Peace

[mountain grammy]

22. Never consequences, never an acknowledgment of the hypocrisy

I love Charle Pierce. His memory is as long as his commitment to truth. I remember his great commentary about the Alabama election last year on Stephanie Miller's show. He ended by saying, "now I think I'll go take a walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge." Always on top of it, Charlie.

[Dawson Leery]

23. Cons make a mess and then fault the Liberals for not cleaning it up fast enough.

[northoftheborder]

25. Excellent. Read and save.

[Texin]

27. Well, I'll take any ally against Shitler any day of the week.

All things considered, we need more and more people voicing their disgust at the horror that's descended on Washington D.C. I realize, of course, that if a more reasoned and honorable (as if) rethuglican were inserted in Shitler's place, they'd all be back on Team Rethuglican in a New York second, but the more true conservative GOP party members and anyone else who is in favor of blasting this orange shitstain into orbit, the better.

[Faux pas]

29. Yeah

I love Charles!

[Raster]

31. Add to that list:

(15) What actions did you take when Comrade, I mean, Senator McConnell stopped President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court of the United States, which was his legal right?

[radius777]

35. I love Pierce, but politics is cynical/ugly,

and people change over time.

I see this with Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt, they clearly see things about their party that maybe they glossed over before as long as their "team" could win (which is human nature and the nature of politics itself).

And from our side's perspective, being overly judgemental about people who are genuinely trying to see the light is not smart politics, we need them, in a real politik sense.

[mcar]

36. I agree with Pierce, though

As soon as Trump and his minions are out of office, Wallace, Scmidt, et al, will go back to siding with their party as if all problems are solved.

[Dawson Leery]

40. They will roll over for President Pence...

and nothing will be solved.

[mcar]

41. Trump speaks for the Republican party

He is no different than the rest of them, just cruder.

[Hekate]

38. Jaw-droppingly good. The esteemed Chaz Pierce suffers no fools.

Altho I really do like Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt.

[Nitram]

39. Wow.

[Blue_true]

42. I thought Andrew Sullivan was not a conservative.

Maybe I am thinking of the wrong Andrew Sullivan, the one that I am thinking about came out as gay over a decade ago and was a regular on MSNBC.

[wryter2000]

43. OMG his best piece ever.

Although I'm grateful for these conservative anti-Trumpers, I have to assume they'll go back to their dishonest ways when a more acceptable "conservative" appears. And as much as I've been enjoying Richard Painter, I have to wonder where he was when Bush was torturing people.

[BobTheSubgenius]

44. It's incredble to consider just how successful they've been.

Their agenda and mindset is awful, a lot of the central characters are caricatures of bad actors, more along the lines of Boris Badunov than Machiavelli.

[blake2012]

48. This is why I get tired of conservative loudmouths

And their so-called ragging on Trump