I really don't give a shit about how credible the US IC is; no part of my identity is invested in how well they do their job. But the attempt to generalize this out to the parties themselves rankles, and is trollish.
I really don't give a shit about how credible the US IC is; no part of my identity is invested in how well they do their job. But the attempt to generalize this out to the parties themselves rankles, and is trollish.
I think where I disagree with rayiner is that I believe she _was_ toxic. Her endorsement is certainly one of my grievances with the party, as a Democratic voter, and we saw the big tent collapse because of, in part, the current hawkishness of that part of the leadership.
"She is a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face."
Trump has a (literal) record of advocating for and perpetrating violence against women and minorities. I don't know of any elected Dems who called it anti-woman (there's a trend of taking any Dem on X as representative, which isn't a good survey), but if they did that's the nicest thing you could say about it.
---
FWIW I agree the Cheney thing was boneheaded, and the defense of "she offered to campaign" is... prrrrrrretty wimpy. Some people argued you needed to shake people in the middle free, but no one in the middle likes Liz Cheney; she's mega conservative.
Trump’s comment is a common way democrats have criticized hawks since the Vietnam war: asking if they’d be singing a different tune if they were the ones in the trenches getting shot at.
The fact that you’d invoke the “women and minorities” card to defend Liz effing Cheney is proof that the CIA has learned how to use wokeness as a psyop to eviscerate the antiwar left.
Cheney comes from a family of chicken hawks and lots of people have had similar quotes about them.
The Cheney thing reminds me of people's attitudes towards John McCain. His history in the GOP: also not great. But in the end, he did have some principles; it's not unreasonable to celebrate them.
None of this is really germane to the thread, I just get irritable when directly partisan Democrat vs. Republican politics end up here.
Most leaders are aware that people might cue off of what they're saying and do something very bad, so they stay far away from rhetoric like this. Trump (deliberately IMO) does the opposite for political gain. So even if I agree this is about combat, what's the difference? He's once again engaging in his pattern of dehumanizing his opponents and advocating violence against them, which has led to actual violence.
Elsewhere you pointed out this is pretty similar to Vietnam War protests. I think generally that's right (again "Fortunate Son"), but there are some differences. First is there isn't a draft; we have an all volunteer force (though there's a big discussion to be had about economic exploitation and multi-generational military families). Second, she wasn't even in Congress during Bush 2 and AFAIK had no policy making power where she was at State.
Do I love Liz Cheney? Hell no; her policy positions are one disaster after the next. I believe she should be vigorously opposed in every election she runs in. But do I think she should be subject to wink wink "sure would be a shame if something happened to Liz Cheney" rhetoric from maybe the most powerful person on Earth? Absolutely not; no one deserves that.
> I don’t blame (Dick Cheney) for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very dumb individual, very dumb. She is a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.
She has a rifle, and there are nine other guns pointed at her. When are people facing a firing squad given their own weapon? The quote is literally a textbook “what if the war hawk’s shoe were on the other foot” trope.
There's a difference between talking like you're an LLM trained by focus groups and endangering your political rivals with your rhetoric. A lot of Democratic senators are/were good at that. Don't make yet another false equivalence here.
Hawks are by no means the majority of democrats, but Romney 2012 types are the margin democrat voter. And while the majority of democrats aren’t hawks, the party’s dominant principle as of late seems to be trusting credentialed experts, which makes them suckers for the intelligence community.
Also, Harris campaigning with Liz Cheney suggests that her campaign thought that Romney 2012 voters were their marginal vote.
Self identifying with a political party erodes critical thinking skills. Unless you can criticize the stupidity of all, including those you vote for, you are limited by your own stupidity.
Self identity ignorance is prominent in religious cultures where the church must be protected. The congregation will protect a priest or pastor that is sexual predator and pretend their actions didn't take place to protect their community. They loose their identity when their church is harmed, same with latching to political parties.
I agree parties shouldn’t be so ideologically rigid, and for the most part they aren’t. Jamie Dimon and AOC are both in the same party, as are Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard. People who refuse to work within a party unless the party agrees on every issue are simply not interested in outcomes. That’s fine too!