EZ - I have read "To Kill a Mockingbird" at least three times. "The Virginian", by Owen Wister, I've read twice, as well as "The Cruel Sea" by Nicholas Monsarrat, "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole, John LeCarre's Smiley Trilogy, and (much to my wife's incredulousness), each book in Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commander" canon.
I absolutely loved “A Gentleman in Moscow” and think you missed the boat, giving up so soon. This is a book that leads you at a gentle pace through the story of this gentle, touching life, in which a surprising amount of drama takes place under Towles’ careful microscope. He’s telling us to look closely, to watch for the small things, because those are what drive the big things. It is a book to savor. Admittedly, that can be hard to do in our instantaneous times, where everything happens fast, for better and worse. Towles’ new book, “The Lincoln Highway” is even better. Here’s a book I dropped after the first 75 pages because it seemed to go nowhere: Lonesome Dove. I tried to read it three times, and once I got past the 100 page mark, I couldn’t put it down, and re-read it later because I loved the characters so much. Now I consider it The Great American Novel (as if my opinion means anything, haha!) and it is my first recommendation to anyone looking for a thrilling, absorbing read. I have read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy 5 times: teen years, college, young adult, young parent, and then out loud to my kids. So many critical life lessons in those stories.
Read the Hobbit and the LOTR (my 3rd, her 1st) with my daughter on our morning drive to high school every day over a couple of years. It was a great bonding experience.
True story: my boys were in middle school, and considered themselves too old for read-aloud. After we finished The Hobbit, I wanted to start The Fellowship of the Ring and they objected. I said, “Tell you what: I’ll just read the first page and if you want me to stop, I will.” They were hooked. (Though my oldest got impatient with the read-aloud and went on to read the rest of it himself, my youngest was a cuddler and hung in there with me all the way through.)
Amy - I agree with you on "A Gentleman in Moscow" and was sorry to see Eric's take as I had recommended it to him. You probably did as well. As you note, there are many things going on: eventually a romance, an estrangement, a rescue and a reunification. They are subtle, play out over decades in true Russian novel fashion and come with big doses of Towle's world view. Oh well. To each his or her own.
I agree Amy. I read A Gentleman in Moscow twice. I loved his character's quiet way of getting back at the Russians. I also read To Kill a Mockingbird two or three times.
I also loved "Gentleman" and suggested it to Eric. Oh, well. I agree with you about "Lonesome Dove" as well, although I have only read it once.
Where we part ways is on The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings. Couldn't get 50 pages into The Hobbit, and I once watched the first LOTR movie and found it stupefyingly boring.
It's interesting how folks can both love some works while having opposite opinions on others.
A book I just finished that Eric might like more since stuff happens in it is "Daisy Jones and The Six." It's a fictional oral history of one of the biggest bands of the 70s.
Agreed. I was initially skeptical of the Howard hiring, but became a believer after reading about his emphasis on putting players (and team) first. This seems to me to be an extremely anomalous occurrence for him, which may explain the relatively light punishment.
Having been an athletic coach for nearly 50 years, I am most appalled at the lack of influence the basic premise of "fair play" in sport has had in the political arena among those with a significant background in athletics (I am looking at you, Jim Jordan). For all the generations of American athletics participants having being taught "good sportmanship," all I see in business, politics, and real life today is the reversal of that age old mantra, which now reads "It is NOT how you play the game, it is ONLY whether you win or lose!"
I don't recall ever reading a novel twice. The best novel IMHO I've ever read was Catch 22. It took me well over a week of intense reading to get through it. All the while I was saying to myself, "I hate this book, why can't I put it down?" In the end, though, I loved it. But I can't imagine putting myself through that again.
I also found Gentleman in Moscow tedious, though everyone I know loved it. Don't you find it tiring to be right when everyone else is wrong? I sure do!
Speaking of the insufferable left, it's rubbing off on the Democratic brand in a major way. Politico recently reported on internal DCCC polling that seems to confirm what we already knew: battleground voters find Democrats "preachy," "judgmental" and "focused on culture wars," and GOP culture war attacks are "alarmingly potent." Democrats easily lose center-left, Hispanic, and independent voters to such perceptions unless they forcefully counter them. They suggest that Democrats "reiterate their support for police," for example, and emphasize "efforts to keep the border safe." They think Democrats have to connect with voters' concerns while not "stoking divisive cultural debates." (Basically, they should be more like Bill Clinton.) What's more, voters like Democratic policies; the problem, they suggest, really is one of messaging -- specifically, not countering or responding effectively to right-wing culture war attacks.
To which my first reaction was, "Duh." When Bill Maher presented these findings to Katrina Vanden Heuvel on last Friday's show, she rolled her eyes and decried this perception as a "caricature." Yes! It's a caricature! It's worse than a caricature! It's barely true at all! That doesn't matter! Democrats are wearing this stuff and they have to shed it. Why couldn't she see that? Does she believe in the "we just need to excite the base" theory? I don't see that working.
Democrats shouldn't be whining about how to punish Joe Rogan, for example. They should go on his show! (I think Buttigieg, for example, would do well.) Why aren't they speaking at first responder union meetings -- we support you, they want to destroy your union, and, by the way, thank you for your service. Who really wants to "defund the police"? They do, when the criminals are superrich scammers and tax cheats. And so on. I don't know, I'm not good at this. Surely there are people who are who could turn their messaging around. They don't even seem to be trying!
I was officially a teenager, but effectively wholly a child, when in eighth grade I first read Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land." As a fan of his science fiction "juvenile" adventure novels, I just didn't fathom "Stranger's" adult characters' motivations. But by the time I got to high school, presumably more hormones had kicked in and I gave my favorite author's popular work a second chance. Bingo! Ever since, "Stranger in a Strange Land" has remained my favorite novel.
Interesting how we seem to have one criteria for sports and one for the classroom. What would have happened to the law professor who put the N word on a test question if he yelled at the students or god forbid made contact with them.
Juwan - with a previous ejection in his past not only yells but makes contact - slapping an assistant coach??? This because he does not like how the opposing coach calls time outs???
I suggest Michigan immediately keep Juwan away from the team for at least a month. They should then interview all his players, coaches, assistants to see if he has abused any of them.
If he slaps opposing coaches in public - seems likely he abuses his own coaches and players in private when things do not go his way. Worth at least checking out.
Yeah, I kinda can't believe this outrageous conduct is tolerated even a little in authority figures at supposed "schools" -- such are the high stakes of NCAA sports.
As a conservative, I love the widespread epidemic of Trump Derangement Syndrome on the left, as it causes people to obsess about Trump, instead of putting their efforts into working to further their preferred policies. (Eric - I was very impressed with the world-class collection of pejorative adjectives that you used to describe Trump - highly entertaining, but please be careful of your blood pressure!)
For the record, I am not at all an admirer of the Trump persona, as I found his bellicose manner and intemperate language in tweets and statements to be dumb and self-defeating. However, I absolutely loved most all of his policies which brought us an incredible economy that benefited all sectors with historic low unemployment for most every demographic group, his security and order on our Southern border, our nation becoming energy independent (as opposed to the one quarter million barrels of oil that Biden purchased and imported from Russia last year), and his unqualified love of our country, our military and support for law enforcement.
Having said that, I strongly hope that he does not run again in 2024 as he is the one thing that can unify many disparate factions of the Democratic party from the far radical left to the public employee unions, big business liberals and the wealthy elite who overwhelmingly vote Democratic. Trump's ability to stow his massive ego and stay off the center stage was a winning strategy for Governor Younkin in Virginia as it doomed the Democrats attempts to portray Younkin as Trump lite.
I saw a recent national poll in which a clear majority of self-identified Republicans also stated a preference that Trump does not run again, but the problem is that if he does run, the opposition to him will be splintered and he could win the nomination with the fervent support of his base. I am convinced that if the GOP is able to nominate one of our rising conservative stars - Ambassador Haley, Governor DeSantis, Senator Scott, etc, it will be a cakewalk over Biden, Harris, Buttigiege or whoever the Democrats run.
So by all means, please continue to wallow in Trump Derangement Syndrome looking backward while the Republicans lead the country forward out of our national decline from the disastrous Biden Democrat policies.
Hi, Trump is actually uniquely horrible, and your failure to cop to that -- beyond recognition of a style you find more "bellicose" than ideal -- speaks to your own derangement. You sound like a Democrat apologizing for Blagojevich, except, wait, there aren't any of those. It took kindred spirit Trump to get him out of the pokey.
Trump challenged the outcome of the election he lost without any good faith basis, even after badly losing every case in court (including at the hands of judges he nominated), insisting on the destructive delusion of massive voter fraud and fueling and acquiescing to the appalling and shocking Jan. 6 riot that saw a mob of his maniacal followers violently break into the Capitol and seek to prevent the formal, constitutional transfer of power -- just about screaming "shithole country." That behavior is beyond contemptible all on its own and proves conclusively that he doesn't give a rat's ass about the country you claim he loves.
As for the economy, every metric more-or-less simply continued along a straight line since the beginning of the post-Great Recession expansion in 2009, until, obviously, the pandemic, which he criminally downplayed and allowed to become a partisan issue. Indeed, he made no attempt, as nearly all other presidents have done (beyond his not-so-bad little speech on election night, when he was like the proverbial deer in the headlights), to be a leader for the entire country, to bring people together, because, well, he's a small, terrible, terribly limited guy, a con man, all self-serving bluster and hurt feelings, a thuggish would-be gangster at heart who cares not a whit for any principle or American value.
Republicans got a whopping three Supreme Court justices out of him and a 6-3 majority, and I can see why many in the GOP might have thought that was worth it. (I find it interesting to ponder whether I would have voted for a Democratic Trump.) But let's not pretend he was anywhere in the ballpark of a plausible president. It's a testament to our institutions that they withstood his election, tenure, and pre-departure hissy fit before (almost) peacefully seeing him off the stage to, one hopes, face consequences for being a massive fraud and tax cheat his entire life.
Hi Jake - I'm sorry that my posting obviously triggered you. Again, I am not making any excuses for Trump the man, but I do endorse virtually all of his policies which I believe resulted in a safer and stronger America.
But you are a great example of people who continue to obsess and channel their focus and energy on Trump as opposed to the issues of present and future. I could respond with my own diatribe and a litany of complaints and insults about Biden, Pelosi, etc, but I would rather focus on promoting my candidates and issues in the midterms and 2024. And that's precisely why the ongoing widespread manifestation of TRD on the left delights me.
Are you happy about all the fawning over Putin by the traitorous wretches in your beloved GOP and Trump’s embrace of dictators and autocrats? Where you’re plainly wrong is that Trump energizes the Democrats and the left, which ought to dismay rather than delight you. If anything will get lazy D’s to the polls in November it will be the continued presence of Trump as the head of your seditious party. So delight away!
Hi Eric - I am very disappointed that you obviously misread and did not understand the central point of my posting. Yes, I do enjoy the widespread TDS among the left because as I said, it takes their focus off of fighting for the here and now. I readily acknowledged that Trump would energize the left if he is the candidate again in 2024, which is why I am strongly opposed to that, and a recent National poll found that is the majority view among self-identified Republicans. Trump staying on the sidelines was a wonderfully winning formula in Virginia, and I believe will continue to do well for us in purple and even some blueish states, while he can take a more central stage role in red states. To summarize in one sentence, TDS works very well for the GOP so long as Trump does not become a candidate.
Eric thinks focusing on Trump will help Team Blue; I'm less convinced. I tend to agree with you that Democrats should focus on selling their policies and running away from lefty elements, and I too find constant Trump talk on the left tiresome and perhaps counterproductive. That wasn't my point. I was responding to your minimization of his faults, your little defense of his record, your refusal to recognize as I mentioned that he's uniquely horrible. I think you probably know he's uniquely horrible -- well beyond a mere distaste for "the man" or his style, mere misdemeanors -- but you won't admit it.
No, you could say nothing close about Biden and Pelosi, who are ordinary politicians whose policy agenda you disagree with. (Well, Pelosi isn't ordinary; she's excellent at her job, a rock star, in contrast to, I'm sorry to say, Biden, who's been a disappointment in my view.) I'm not trying to score points like some Twitter troll. I'm looking for honesty. As I mentioned, I might have voted for a Democratic Trump given the stakes involved (e.g., the Supreme Court), but I hope I'd have enough integrity not to defend him as a great patriot as you did. How those words could come out of your fingers, I don't know....
Hi Jake - thanks, you get my central point, that TDS is a great distraction for the left, but only so long as Trump is not a candidate where he would undoubtedly energize the left voters.
But we will have to continue to respectfully disagree on my ability to find similarly offensive and repugnant aspects of Biden and Pelosi from proven lies, crooked business dealings and compromises of national security (and of course, the very real senility issue). But I regard an exchange of diatribes on these to be a total waste of time and energy. I much prefer to debate issues wherein I believe I can use reason to demonstrate the superiority of conservative policies, and in doing so convince independent voters to vote for those candidates.
From Juwan Howard's verbal outbursts and physical altercation to Jim Harbaugh's running up the score when he can, Michigan's athletic department appears lacking when it comes to choosing coaches of character. (I still root for them when they play OSU, though.)
I finished Lonesome Dove on the train heading home from work. I sat still for five minutes or so then went to page one and started it again
Me too!!! I LOVED that book!
Black Beauty. Forever impressing on me the need to treat all animals with kindness and care.
EZ - I have read "To Kill a Mockingbird" at least three times. "The Virginian", by Owen Wister, I've read twice, as well as "The Cruel Sea" by Nicholas Monsarrat, "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole, John LeCarre's Smiley Trilogy, and (much to my wife's incredulousness), each book in Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commander" canon.
“Cat’s Cradle,” in high school. Blew my mind. Then I read a handful of others by Vonnegut in short order and haven’t touched anything by him since.
Huckleberry Finn at least every 5 years, Dandelion Wine about the same.
I absolutely loved “A Gentleman in Moscow” and think you missed the boat, giving up so soon. This is a book that leads you at a gentle pace through the story of this gentle, touching life, in which a surprising amount of drama takes place under Towles’ careful microscope. He’s telling us to look closely, to watch for the small things, because those are what drive the big things. It is a book to savor. Admittedly, that can be hard to do in our instantaneous times, where everything happens fast, for better and worse. Towles’ new book, “The Lincoln Highway” is even better. Here’s a book I dropped after the first 75 pages because it seemed to go nowhere: Lonesome Dove. I tried to read it three times, and once I got past the 100 page mark, I couldn’t put it down, and re-read it later because I loved the characters so much. Now I consider it The Great American Novel (as if my opinion means anything, haha!) and it is my first recommendation to anyone looking for a thrilling, absorbing read. I have read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy 5 times: teen years, college, young adult, young parent, and then out loud to my kids. So many critical life lessons in those stories.
Read the Hobbit and the LOTR (my 3rd, her 1st) with my daughter on our morning drive to high school every day over a couple of years. It was a great bonding experience.
True story: my boys were in middle school, and considered themselves too old for read-aloud. After we finished The Hobbit, I wanted to start The Fellowship of the Ring and they objected. I said, “Tell you what: I’ll just read the first page and if you want me to stop, I will.” They were hooked. (Though my oldest got impatient with the read-aloud and went on to read the rest of it himself, my youngest was a cuddler and hung in there with me all the way through.)
Amy - I agree with you on "A Gentleman in Moscow" and was sorry to see Eric's take as I had recommended it to him. You probably did as well. As you note, there are many things going on: eventually a romance, an estrangement, a rescue and a reunification. They are subtle, play out over decades in true Russian novel fashion and come with big doses of Towle's world view. Oh well. To each his or her own.
I agree Amy. I read A Gentleman in Moscow twice. I loved his character's quiet way of getting back at the Russians. I also read To Kill a Mockingbird two or three times.
I also loved "Gentleman" and suggested it to Eric. Oh, well. I agree with you about "Lonesome Dove" as well, although I have only read it once.
Where we part ways is on The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings. Couldn't get 50 pages into The Hobbit, and I once watched the first LOTR movie and found it stupefyingly boring.
It's interesting how folks can both love some works while having opposite opinions on others.
A book I just finished that Eric might like more since stuff happens in it is "Daisy Jones and The Six." It's a fictional oral history of one of the biggest bands of the 70s.
I'm with you Eric-a Michigan alumni who is embarrassed and disappointed that good sportsmanship was not modeled.
Agreed. I was initially skeptical of the Howard hiring, but became a believer after reading about his emphasis on putting players (and team) first. This seems to me to be an extremely anomalous occurrence for him, which may explain the relatively light punishment.
Well, not totally anomalous— he got into it last year with the Maryland coach, but it was just an ugly shouting match.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance ... still re-read it from time to time
Having been an athletic coach for nearly 50 years, I am most appalled at the lack of influence the basic premise of "fair play" in sport has had in the political arena among those with a significant background in athletics (I am looking at you, Jim Jordan). For all the generations of American athletics participants having being taught "good sportmanship," all I see in business, politics, and real life today is the reversal of that age old mantra, which now reads "It is NOT how you play the game, it is ONLY whether you win or lose!"
I don't recall ever reading a novel twice. The best novel IMHO I've ever read was Catch 22. It took me well over a week of intense reading to get through it. All the while I was saying to myself, "I hate this book, why can't I put it down?" In the end, though, I loved it. But I can't imagine putting myself through that again.
I also found Gentleman in Moscow tedious, though everyone I know loved it. Don't you find it tiring to be right when everyone else is wrong? I sure do!
Speaking of the insufferable left, it's rubbing off on the Democratic brand in a major way. Politico recently reported on internal DCCC polling that seems to confirm what we already knew: battleground voters find Democrats "preachy," "judgmental" and "focused on culture wars," and GOP culture war attacks are "alarmingly potent." Democrats easily lose center-left, Hispanic, and independent voters to such perceptions unless they forcefully counter them. They suggest that Democrats "reiterate their support for police," for example, and emphasize "efforts to keep the border safe." They think Democrats have to connect with voters' concerns while not "stoking divisive cultural debates." (Basically, they should be more like Bill Clinton.) What's more, voters like Democratic policies; the problem, they suggest, really is one of messaging -- specifically, not countering or responding effectively to right-wing culture war attacks.
To which my first reaction was, "Duh." When Bill Maher presented these findings to Katrina Vanden Heuvel on last Friday's show, she rolled her eyes and decried this perception as a "caricature." Yes! It's a caricature! It's worse than a caricature! It's barely true at all! That doesn't matter! Democrats are wearing this stuff and they have to shed it. Why couldn't she see that? Does she believe in the "we just need to excite the base" theory? I don't see that working.
Democrats shouldn't be whining about how to punish Joe Rogan, for example. They should go on his show! (I think Buttigieg, for example, would do well.) Why aren't they speaking at first responder union meetings -- we support you, they want to destroy your union, and, by the way, thank you for your service. Who really wants to "defund the police"? They do, when the criminals are superrich scammers and tax cheats. And so on. I don't know, I'm not good at this. Surely there are people who are who could turn their messaging around. They don't even seem to be trying!
Do you have a link for that Politico story on the DCCC?
Yep, sorry: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/15/gop-culture-war-attacks-alarmingly-potent-dccc-warns-00009265
I was officially a teenager, but effectively wholly a child, when in eighth grade I first read Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land." As a fan of his science fiction "juvenile" adventure novels, I just didn't fathom "Stranger's" adult characters' motivations. But by the time I got to high school, presumably more hormones had kicked in and I gave my favorite author's popular work a second chance. Bingo! Ever since, "Stranger in a Strange Land" has remained my favorite novel.
“Unwritten rules are an important lubricant for a civil society, and sports is one venue where we learn that, or should learn that.” --Zorn.
I agree.
Interesting how we seem to have one criteria for sports and one for the classroom. What would have happened to the law professor who put the N word on a test question if he yelled at the students or god forbid made contact with them.
Juwan - with a previous ejection in his past not only yells but makes contact - slapping an assistant coach??? This because he does not like how the opposing coach calls time outs???
I suggest Michigan immediately keep Juwan away from the team for at least a month. They should then interview all his players, coaches, assistants to see if he has abused any of them.
If he slaps opposing coaches in public - seems likely he abuses his own coaches and players in private when things do not go his way. Worth at least checking out.
Yeah, I kinda can't believe this outrageous conduct is tolerated even a little in authority figures at supposed "schools" -- such are the high stakes of NCAA sports.
As a conservative, I love the widespread epidemic of Trump Derangement Syndrome on the left, as it causes people to obsess about Trump, instead of putting their efforts into working to further their preferred policies. (Eric - I was very impressed with the world-class collection of pejorative adjectives that you used to describe Trump - highly entertaining, but please be careful of your blood pressure!)
For the record, I am not at all an admirer of the Trump persona, as I found his bellicose manner and intemperate language in tweets and statements to be dumb and self-defeating. However, I absolutely loved most all of his policies which brought us an incredible economy that benefited all sectors with historic low unemployment for most every demographic group, his security and order on our Southern border, our nation becoming energy independent (as opposed to the one quarter million barrels of oil that Biden purchased and imported from Russia last year), and his unqualified love of our country, our military and support for law enforcement.
Having said that, I strongly hope that he does not run again in 2024 as he is the one thing that can unify many disparate factions of the Democratic party from the far radical left to the public employee unions, big business liberals and the wealthy elite who overwhelmingly vote Democratic. Trump's ability to stow his massive ego and stay off the center stage was a winning strategy for Governor Younkin in Virginia as it doomed the Democrats attempts to portray Younkin as Trump lite.
I saw a recent national poll in which a clear majority of self-identified Republicans also stated a preference that Trump does not run again, but the problem is that if he does run, the opposition to him will be splintered and he could win the nomination with the fervent support of his base. I am convinced that if the GOP is able to nominate one of our rising conservative stars - Ambassador Haley, Governor DeSantis, Senator Scott, etc, it will be a cakewalk over Biden, Harris, Buttigiege or whoever the Democrats run.
So by all means, please continue to wallow in Trump Derangement Syndrome looking backward while the Republicans lead the country forward out of our national decline from the disastrous Biden Democrat policies.
Hi, Trump is actually uniquely horrible, and your failure to cop to that -- beyond recognition of a style you find more "bellicose" than ideal -- speaks to your own derangement. You sound like a Democrat apologizing for Blagojevich, except, wait, there aren't any of those. It took kindred spirit Trump to get him out of the pokey.
Trump challenged the outcome of the election he lost without any good faith basis, even after badly losing every case in court (including at the hands of judges he nominated), insisting on the destructive delusion of massive voter fraud and fueling and acquiescing to the appalling and shocking Jan. 6 riot that saw a mob of his maniacal followers violently break into the Capitol and seek to prevent the formal, constitutional transfer of power -- just about screaming "shithole country." That behavior is beyond contemptible all on its own and proves conclusively that he doesn't give a rat's ass about the country you claim he loves.
As for the economy, every metric more-or-less simply continued along a straight line since the beginning of the post-Great Recession expansion in 2009, until, obviously, the pandemic, which he criminally downplayed and allowed to become a partisan issue. Indeed, he made no attempt, as nearly all other presidents have done (beyond his not-so-bad little speech on election night, when he was like the proverbial deer in the headlights), to be a leader for the entire country, to bring people together, because, well, he's a small, terrible, terribly limited guy, a con man, all self-serving bluster and hurt feelings, a thuggish would-be gangster at heart who cares not a whit for any principle or American value.
Republicans got a whopping three Supreme Court justices out of him and a 6-3 majority, and I can see why many in the GOP might have thought that was worth it. (I find it interesting to ponder whether I would have voted for a Democratic Trump.) But let's not pretend he was anywhere in the ballpark of a plausible president. It's a testament to our institutions that they withstood his election, tenure, and pre-departure hissy fit before (almost) peacefully seeing him off the stage to, one hopes, face consequences for being a massive fraud and tax cheat his entire life.
Hi Jake - I'm sorry that my posting obviously triggered you. Again, I am not making any excuses for Trump the man, but I do endorse virtually all of his policies which I believe resulted in a safer and stronger America.
But you are a great example of people who continue to obsess and channel their focus and energy on Trump as opposed to the issues of present and future. I could respond with my own diatribe and a litany of complaints and insults about Biden, Pelosi, etc, but I would rather focus on promoting my candidates and issues in the midterms and 2024. And that's precisely why the ongoing widespread manifestation of TRD on the left delights me.
Are you happy about all the fawning over Putin by the traitorous wretches in your beloved GOP and Trump’s embrace of dictators and autocrats? Where you’re plainly wrong is that Trump energizes the Democrats and the left, which ought to dismay rather than delight you. If anything will get lazy D’s to the polls in November it will be the continued presence of Trump as the head of your seditious party. So delight away!
Hi Eric - I am very disappointed that you obviously misread and did not understand the central point of my posting. Yes, I do enjoy the widespread TDS among the left because as I said, it takes their focus off of fighting for the here and now. I readily acknowledged that Trump would energize the left if he is the candidate again in 2024, which is why I am strongly opposed to that, and a recent National poll found that is the majority view among self-identified Republicans. Trump staying on the sidelines was a wonderfully winning formula in Virginia, and I believe will continue to do well for us in purple and even some blueish states, while he can take a more central stage role in red states. To summarize in one sentence, TDS works very well for the GOP so long as Trump does not become a candidate.
Eric thinks focusing on Trump will help Team Blue; I'm less convinced. I tend to agree with you that Democrats should focus on selling their policies and running away from lefty elements, and I too find constant Trump talk on the left tiresome and perhaps counterproductive. That wasn't my point. I was responding to your minimization of his faults, your little defense of his record, your refusal to recognize as I mentioned that he's uniquely horrible. I think you probably know he's uniquely horrible -- well beyond a mere distaste for "the man" or his style, mere misdemeanors -- but you won't admit it.
No, you could say nothing close about Biden and Pelosi, who are ordinary politicians whose policy agenda you disagree with. (Well, Pelosi isn't ordinary; she's excellent at her job, a rock star, in contrast to, I'm sorry to say, Biden, who's been a disappointment in my view.) I'm not trying to score points like some Twitter troll. I'm looking for honesty. As I mentioned, I might have voted for a Democratic Trump given the stakes involved (e.g., the Supreme Court), but I hope I'd have enough integrity not to defend him as a great patriot as you did. How those words could come out of your fingers, I don't know....
Hi Jake - thanks, you get my central point, that TDS is a great distraction for the left, but only so long as Trump is not a candidate where he would undoubtedly energize the left voters.
But we will have to continue to respectfully disagree on my ability to find similarly offensive and repugnant aspects of Biden and Pelosi from proven lies, crooked business dealings and compromises of national security (and of course, the very real senility issue). But I regard an exchange of diatribes on these to be a total waste of time and energy. I much prefer to debate issues wherein I believe I can use reason to demonstrate the superiority of conservative policies, and in doing so convince independent voters to vote for those candidates.
From Juwan Howard's verbal outbursts and physical altercation to Jim Harbaugh's running up the score when he can, Michigan's athletic department appears lacking when it comes to choosing coaches of character. (I still root for them when they play OSU, though.)