No worries

[aadler]

Some months ago, pretty much immediately after Joe Biden’s disastrous debate with Trump, one of my wife’s friends called her in a panic. The lady has been in a long-term lesbian relationship, and — since she knew of Susan’s conservative background, though they’ve remained on very good terms — she wanted to know if Trump’s people would come after her and her partner if he was elected.

I think back on that now that I hear all the dire predictions of the fascist tyranny about to descend on the United States now that a popular and electoral majority have decided that Trump was preferable to the available alternative. And I keep thinking of what I wanted to tell the poor woman, if she had asked me instead of my wife.

It runs something like this.

Before we get into anything else, you need to understand: Trump is not a conservative.

I’m serious. I look at the man and still see a comfortable urban liberal who, because he was in businesses that required that he achieve measurable, practical results, had his reflexive cultural liberalism modified and kept in contact with reality. This, by the way, is quite a bit more approving toward him than was my original impression. When I knew he had the Republican nomination for the 2016 election, that it would be between him and Hillary, I groused, “So basically we get to decide which liberal New York Democrat we want in the White House?” Even now, he’s enormously more easy-going on the issue of abortion (for instance) than I believe an attentively moral man ought to be, and that’s not the only area where he doesn’t measure up to ‘my standards’.

I was, in fact, surprised by how more-toward-conservative his presidential record turned out to be. Frankly, I suspect he would have taken a more moderate approach (in this context, ‘moderate’ is not something I see as a good thing) if the liberal/progressive establishment hadn’t gone after him with everything they had, nudging him in the opposite direction purely in reaction. I may be doing him an injustice there, it may be that the same unflinching stubbornness kept him doggedly on the course he had originally chosen, refusing to deviate by so much as an inch. Either way, I still see him as a liberally-inclined guy who wound up behaving in a manner more gratifyingly conservative than I had expected of him.

Now, whether or not you agree with any of the above, the point of all that is this:

My own political beliefs are SO conservative that I view the current global avatar of reactionary right-wing extremism as not-really-conservative. In other words, if I had the power of the Presidency, I would push a LOT farther than Trump has done or appears ready to do.

And, even that being so, I wouldn’t be going after that poor woman and her life partner.

Why would I? Why would I want to? I don’t want porn taught in K‑12 schools, I don’t want men in women’s locker rooms (or fraudulently stealing sports trophies from women and girls) because they lie about being women, I don’t want pedophilia to be legitimized and legalized, but none of that has anything to do with individual people making their own private choices. I am MUCH MORE EXTREME in my beliefs and positions than Trump is ever likely to be, and she’s still safe from me … because I have no desire to force other people to do what I want, I just want to stop them from forcing ME to do what they want.

And if I wouldn’t be inclined to kick off the next wave of right-wing tyranny, how much less likely is the guy who’s substantially more moderate than I am?

Comments

Polite disagreement.

[vantiri.livejournal.com]

I don't agree with your assessment on Donald Trump, but I would be very interested in why *you* think of him that way; especially as he's been pushing for a return to the writing inside the USA Constitution.
As for me; I'd move to revoke the illicit ruling of the courts that allowed that fake "marriage", as it has proven to be a distinct anti-American viewpoint that the courts pushed.
Yet the Founding Fathers showed how to solve this: they said to simply ignore these rulings of the courts, and if they send the police after you: then the police are terrorists who have to be ended, so that's what you do; as Tom Paine laid out.

Re: Polite disagreement.

[aadler]

As I said, I’ve already been surprised (and heartened) by how his actions have been more conservatively inclined than his apparent attitudes. The basic point is that whatever he’s doing — in terms of conservative measures — I’d be wanting to do more.

I do indeed hope that Obergefell winds up being overturned as thoroughly as was Roe v. Wade (though I would prefer it not take as long as happened with Roe).

Finally, the fact that the Left has been so comprehensively rejected at the ballot box that even massive electoral fraud couldn’t prevent Trump’s return to the White House (and that they appear to STILL not really understand that it’s their message that was unwelcome, not just the messaging) should serve to tell us that the ‘ultimate’ solution — direct rebellion against tyranny — may have been rendered unnecessary by electoral rebellion.

Re: Polite disagreement.

[vantiri.livejournal.com]

I'm in agreement with you, but in the end analysis, the end of the day; it is NOT the courts at all that defend or even determine the Constitution, not according to the Founding Fathers; no, it is the *average USA citizen* on whom the soverign authority really rests; as their other writings confirm... "Tenth Amendment Center" on youtube has laid that out abundantly, and proven his case.
I mean, yeah, they have, and that's what is their undoing.
Plus, that's the *essence* of our republic: electoral rebellion against tyranny; rather than direct violent revolt; it is really a marvelous form of organized review of officials, and I *think* it was James Madison who laid out that, even *as* a judge on the supreme court of his day, that the premise of how to regard unlawful rulings, even those with the weight of law enforcement behind them, is simple: they are null and void the *instant* they are uttered: obeying them, even peaceful or passive resistance, is expressly forbidden.
Weirdly enough, it was Tom Paine who laid out solid restraints on this movement against government overreach; he said that you do NOT act as the aggressor, that'd be *murder* he said, but if they do act as aggressors, even by having been decieved, you eradicate them totally and utterly if they come after you or your family: you do NOT take prisoners from the government if they are acting in any way that's outside the bounds of natural law concept found in morality: you eradicate them as the terrorists they are!