[tptacek]

You've been a proud Republican since you were a student, and openly so here. That's fine, of course, but it's odd to see you talking about "real" Democrats. Democrats broadly opposed the Republican party; whether or not the Republicans responsible for the Iraq War fled the party post-Trump, they do not characterize the Democratic party today.

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.

[kasey_junk]

The Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, this year, used Cheney on the campaign trail. When Trump called her ‘war hawk’, rather than trying to defend that very legitimate condemnation, they attacked it as anti-woman.

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.

[rayiner]

I would clarify that there’s a disconnect between what the party leadership thinks (Schumer with his “we’ll pick up two moderate republicans for every working class white we lose”) and the base. My dad is a straight ticket Dem voter and he stayed home this year, and Cheney and Blinken were part of the reason. But I also think the base is a little in denial about how many Romney 2012 folks are now in their coalition. Obama-Trump voters were 13% of Trump’s coalition in 2016. They were obviously replaced by a bunch of Romney-Clinton voters because the race was close overall.

[camgunz]

Here's the full quote:

"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.

[kasey_junk]

No. That’s not the full quote. The full quote was minutes long and rambling. But you removed this for instance that was near that quote “You know they're all war hawks when they're sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, 'Oh, gee, let's send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy”.

Cheney comes from a family of chicken hawks and lots of people have had similar quotes about them.

[tptacek]

I don't think this was as boneheaded as you both do. I think the Cheney political legacy overall is odious, but none of Liz Cheney's recent supporters are there for her foreign policy; it's because she sacrificed her political career to stand up to Donald Trump, which is admirable, and because Trump took the bait and cast her as an enemy of the party, which raised her profile. The idea was that there was some material faction of the GOP that was persuadable by dint of Liz Cheney's mistreatment by GOP nominee.

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.

[camgunz]

I'll mea culpa: I try pretty hard to not backseat campaign manage. My defense is I was posting after midnight and wine and I'm trying to find a balance between not suffering right wing talking points and offering olive branches. I do agree we should celebrate the kind of courage Cheney showed, especially given the kinds of threats she's experienced since.

[camgunz]

I mean, you can't expect me to paste multiple paragraphs as a quote here. If you think Trump's clumsy ersatz nod to "Fortunate Son" contextualizes putting Liz Cheney in front of a firing squad, OK then. If you can find elected officials threatening to execute other electeds who were pro-Iraq War (so, so many people), go ahead and post it.

[rayiner]

But the quote is clearly referring to a theater of war, not a “firing squad.” Why misrepresent the quote?

[camgunz]

I think reasonable people can disagree about this. Trump is pretty good with the "flimsy excuse", like "look I said 'stand back' as well as 'stand by'" or "hey I said 'peacefully and patriotically'". Probably whether you're willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on these kinds of things is some kind of political ink blot test, but to me, he definitely has the instinct and pattern of "say it without saying it".

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.

[rayiner]

> perpetrating violence against women and minorities

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.

[tptacek]

Isn't this practically an American election tradition at this point? The designated Republican at the DNC, and Democrat at the RNC?

[kasey_junk]

Yes. And they chose a war hawk instead of all the others they could have grabbed.

[tptacek]

It seems to me they chose the highest-profile Republican who would serve the role.

[rayiner]

I understand democrats have kicked all the social conservatives out of the party but I didn’t think it was retroactive! I was a registered Democrat until 2017. I went to Wingdings in Iowa in 2019 as a Tulsi Gabbard supporter.

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.

[tptacek]

Romney 2012 types are obviously not the marginal Democratic voter.

[rayiner]

The Harris 2024 coalition is a lot closer to the Romney 2012 coalition than democrats want to admit: https://x.com/patrickjfl/status/1854645395856482568. There’s been a huge swing of college educated whites, who Romney won decisively, to Democrats.

Also, Harris campaigning with Liz Cheney suggests that her campaign thought that Romney 2012 voters were their marginal vote.

[yndoendo]

A truly intelligent person is independent and not attached to a political part. By doing so, this latches to the "Yes men" mentally where those in power are always right even when wrong and probable through the most simplistic means. [0] Polarization leads to stupidity and ignorance to real world statistics and out comes, even in medical treatment.

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.

[0] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2216179120

[rayiner]

Majoritarian democratic systems require group coordination to achieve desires outcomes. Political parties are just a vehicle for doing that. If you care about outcomes, you should have some party identity, because that facilitates compromising less important goals for more important ones to achieve a coalition that can carry a majority.

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!