My Buddy prefers to send me Op Ed pieces that challenge my point of view rather than make his own arguments. That leaves me to argue with his Op Ed experts. Here’s a computer prof begging voters in the Wall Street Journal to vote for Trump with their noses pinched shut. I’m having none of it:
From: [Your Buddy]
Sent: 16-Oct-2016 03:43:39 +0000
Subject: Trump and the Emasculated Voter
Again, I am only the messenger; and what does a professor of computer science at Yale, know?
From http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-and-the-emasculated-voter-1476484865:
“Trump voters have noticed that, not just over Mr. Obama’s term but in recent decades, their own opinions have grown increasingly irrelevant. It’s something you feel, like encroaching numbness. Since when has the American public endorsed affirmative action? Yet it’s a major factor in the lives of every student and many workers. Since when did we decide that men and women are interchangeable in hand-to-hand combat on the front lines? Why do we insist on women in combat but not in the NFL? Because we take football seriously. That’s no joke; it’s the sad truth”.
And
“Enter Mr. Trump. People say he became a star because he just happened to mention an issue that just happened to catch on. But immigration is the central issue of our time. Trump voters zeroed in because they saw what most intellectuals didn’t. What is our nation and what will it be? Will America go on being America or turn into something else? That depends on who lives here—especially given our schools, which no longer condescend to teach Americanism.
The liberal theory is that, other things being equal, all human beings have an equal right to settle in America. For liberals this is too obvious to spell out. But it is also too ludicrous to defend. Does all mankind have a right to camp in your backyard, eat in your kitchen, work at your office and borrow your best jogging outfit? We fail in our duty if we don’t think carefully whom we want in this country, who would be best for America.”
My Reply:
Buddy,
Yale? Big deal. W went to Yale and that left us with the War on Terror, Dick Cheney and No Child Left Behind.
Yeah, I’m just saying that as a smart ass but its your question that prompts it and your disclaimer that you are only the messenger. No, the WSJ is the messenger. Frankly tons of profs are full of themselves, liberals and conservatives alike. This guy is no different.
He makes a cunning argument for voters who don’t want to vote for Hillary to move them to the Trump column even if doing so makes their skins crawl. Trump, for all his drawbacks will bring common sense back or risk impeachment and a sane Pence replacement presidency. Is it just me or is this Computer Science expert awfully glib wading into political prognostication?
Obama worthy of impeachment? Shades of Rush Limbaugh.
Clinton a sociopathic liar? Simple minded tosh.
Trump risk of impeachment? Grossly overestimated with Pence as our savior…….the guv who is shutting down voting registration efforts in Indiana…….I know. Its too early to get the big picture on that story but it fits right in with 30 GOP states efforts to suppress minority voters.
I do think the prof has a point about large swaths of the American blue collar public feeling trampled upon and blithely ignored by the elites. I don’t particularly blame them. Republicans, for their part, have been happy to title loan them to financial ruin and dilute measures to mitigate job losses when factories move overseas. Perhaps being from Yale your professor doesn’t notice that kind of minutia
On the other hand, so called “conservative” voices like Rush Limbaugh have been part of the problem. Rush and his ilk have done their best to turn the Republican party into a cartoon by primarying any moderate or “liberal” Republican out of the Party. One of the hallmarks of democracy, compromise, has been made to seem like prostitution. Where was this guy when all this was happening? Fussing with algorithms I guess. Maybe he is my “conservative” alter ego with his penchant for the apocalyptic. We are on the eve of destruction……..Trump’s that is. Not America’s.
Harry
