So overnight my feed filled with people votesplaining to me what are and aren’t the only legitimate reasons for how I should vote. Some friendly, some not. To all of you: Please peddle it somewhere else. 1/
There is no single “only way to decide.” There is no lone consideration — policy, character, sending a message. People have been shouting binary choice at me for five years as if saying it makes it true. It’s not. 2/
They shriek how voting “symbolically” wastes a vote. Well, my vote is definitionally symbolic in DC. And B) it’s only wasted in the sense you think I should use it differently. “Why are you wasting good steak on chili?” Well, its my steak and it’s my f’ing vote. 3/
The thing that bothers me the most about votesplainers is they rarely stop there. Implicit in their view is that if I’m going to vote for X or Y I must then alter what I say and write to fit my partisan choice. Hard pass. Not my job or responsibility. 4/
I never really fully appreciated why the secret ballot is so important in non authoritarian countries too. As I’ve learned, people use the “how’re you going to vote?” Q as a form of bullying and conformity policing. It’s very high school/state of nature. I detest it. 5/
So please, take your heuristics & your ironclad reasoning & your you-just-dont-understand hectoring & your sanctimonious disappointment in me — and pick on someone more pliable. I’m not voting for Trump and I see no reason to vote for Biden. Mitch Daniels 2020 Baby!
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Yawn. Steve, you're at a terrible disadvantage here because people know who you are. This Trumpy tweet is a perfect example. You made your career as a thug-dufus negative campaigner for GOP politicians and somehow think that makes you a man of letters.
I still remember your emails to me whining about how Republicans were being mean to you. I remember your suck-up act to me too. As for my career, I think it speaks for itself and I'm proud of what I've accomplished. How many bestsellers have you written?
You're so intellectually insecure, your first instinct is to fall back on the only skill you ever had: hack attack dog. But your insults aren't a defense for calling two honorable Trump critics Nazi collaborators, it's just that you're so full of shit you can't even see it.
Smart piece from my friend @MatthewJFranck pushing back on the "Make A Deal" cabal (of which I'm a member). I'm saving my responses for a longer piece but 2 quick points.... thedispatch.com/p/vote-on-pres… 1/4
First, I actually don't think McConnell is being a hypocrite (certainly not on the scale of Graham). He was always more careful and surgical in his statements (As far as I know, maybe I'm missing some quote). and .... 2/4
Second, I don't think "fairness to the nominee" is a particularly powerful argument. I'm all for fairness, to be sure. But it can't be the primary determinant in confirmation battles, can it? I mean "fairness to the nominee" isn't in the constitution either. 3/4
I disagree, at least a little. Ethically Woodward was bound to hold this stuff. But morally it’s at least grayer. Woodward’s operation has the ethics worked out. But sometimes ethics and morality don’t align perfectly. 1/
Psychologists, lawyers, priests, et al have carve outs from confidentiality SOP if there’s good reason to believe it will save one life. But Woodward has no such obligation when there might be thousands of lives on the line? I think that’s problematic. 2/
Now I’m not saying it’s obvious that Woodward’s silence cost lives, but it’s really easy to come up with a hypothetical *very* close to this situation in which his silence = death. “If he talked he’d never be able to interview again!” Is some very weak sauce in that context. 3/
Since I’m waiting for my daughter to finish getting ready before we go to dinner, some pics from the road. Fairly random order. Here’s one of dozens of bald eagles we saw in Alaska. This was on Admiralty Island
I don’t disagree that this is partly a consequence of teaching terrible and wrong things about America (and the West and capitalism). My last book was largely on that very point. But I find this wildly unpersuasive 1/
You assume other presidents wld be equally terrible at defending conservative & American principles, as undisciplined, needlessly trolling, & incompetent at governing. Trump creates conditions that unite liberals & leftists. Biden (who I’m not voting for) wouldn’t — for long.2/
Also, Trump defenders can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that Trump has been unique in how unfairly he’s been treated and how uniquely unhinged the media has been and then simultaneously argue everything would play out the same way under any Republican president. 3/
Here’s a thread on one possible post-Parscale path. Let’s assume the new campaign manager, Bill Stepien, does a great job. I mean great. And Trump gets within the margin of error of Biden. What then? 1/
Well, long before it could get that close, Stepien will already have been showered with praise from reporters writing glowing, beat sweetening, profiles of the man assigned to “Save Trump.” Watch for these profiles to start tomorrow. Do we think Trump will like this stuff? 2/
That was a rhetorical q. Bannon was fired in part for ham-fistedly positioning himself as “Trump’s Brain.” The more successful Stepien is — minus some rallies/stunts he could convince Trump are the real drivers of his comeback — the more precarious Stepien’s position will be. 3/