Being conservative or republican has always been “cringe” and that's okay

The writer formerly known as Allahpundit , Nick Catoggio, led to the conservative website Dispatch the question “Aren’t you ashamed?”[com Trump abraçando a bandeira]

He is referring to the Trump-era Republican Party and belonging in some way to a political party or movement associated with Trump, which last week associated with Kanye West — the rapper[na edição de 2007, um participante apareceu vestido de golfinho para criticar o republicano Mitt Romney, o nome Flipper soa como um trocadilho com “vira-casacas”] tycoon obviously needy mental treatment turned anti-Semitic in recent weeks—and Nick Fuentes, a far-right anti-Semitic provocateur.2021[em 1983, envolvendo dois representantes republicanos que seduziram adolescentes]My answer: I’m not more embarrassed now than I’m used to.

[em 1983, envolvendo dois representantes republicanos que seduziram adolescentes]To be honest, the question is kind of weird. For starters, I’m not ashamed of sins I didn’t commit—just the ones I did. I never voted for Trump, although I considered voting for 2012. I remained critical of him during his presidency, as I remained critical of George W. Bush and Barack Obama during their terms. Catoggio makes a list of embarrassing things, including Mike Lindell [empresário fabricante de travesseiros, notório defensor de Trump] complaining about the voting machines and advertising his pillows, and Sean Spicer [ex-porta-voz de Trump] boasting large fake crowds at the Trump Inauguration, and the vulgarity of Turning Point USA [ONG que mandou sete ônibus para a manifestação de 6 de janeiro de 2021 que terminou na invasão do Capitólio — o diretor da ONG apagou tweets chamando pela manifestação]. All in support of his thesis that “it has become extremely embarrassing to be a conservative in the United States”.2021

Which brings me to the second problem. Why the present tense? It was always embarrassing. My likely first political memory is of the vice president of the “Idiot Party” misspelling the word “potato” in front of schoolboys. [O autor se refere a Dan Quayle, vice-presidente do Bush sênior entre 1989 e 1993. Em 1992, ele corrigiu um estudante de 12 anos que escreveu “potato” e colocou no lugar “potatoe”. N. do T.]2021[Literalmente, “senador Postura Larga”. Vem de um escândalo envolvendo o senador republicano Larry Craig, preso em 2007 por atentado ao pudor por tentar seduzir um homem em um banheiro de um aeroporto. O registro policial diz que Craig tentou tocar um homem na divisória ao lado com um pé, fazendo uma postura larga. O caso foi parar em um musical da Broadway. N. do T.]Where were you before 2016, Nick? Didn’t you agonize over the Clint Eastwood [que em 2012 na Convenção Nacional Republicana ficou discursando para uma cadeira vazia que representava Barack Obama para uma audiência de 30 milhões de pessoas] thing? Weren’t you ashamed of Senator Wide Stance? [de Washington, associada a grupos de lobby] From the K Street gang [Conferência Conservadora de Ação Política, evento anual realizado há quase 50 anos] making money on both sides of casino scams? The sex scandal with congressional apprentices [em 1983, envolvendo dois representantes republicanos que seduziram adolescentes]? Note that before Tucker Carlson was on Fox News — a man who, no matter what you think of his political beliefs, seems to actually read books — he was preceded by Bill O’Reilly, an author of bestsellers

which gives the impression of not having read the books he claims to have written. In the years before Trump, the conservative media was already swamped with dirty ads—selling impotence pills, gold, or reverse mortgages. )

I assure you that anything humiliating about Turning Point USA was already clear behind the scenes at CPAC [Conferência Conservadora de Ação Política, evento anual realizado há quase 50 anos], somewhere between the Flipper Dolphin [com Trump abraçando a bandeira] and the Commemorative Coin People [com Trump abraçando a bandeira]. You know all those horrendous embarrassing fundraising emails you’ve been getting? Well, it was conservative fundraisers who pioneered this paranoid, overly intimate, hands-in-your-pocket style direct message. I’ve always found this inelegant in the extreme.2021

Do you want to cringe

[agonia, gastura, vergonha alheia]? I’ve been a reporter and commentator on this side for a few decades now. Have you been to the Christians United for Israel conferences in Washington DC? Have you ever seen one republican after another fawning over the most disgusting televangelists while Pentecostal musicians vilify Jewish shofars [agonia, gastura, vergonha alheia].[Conferência Conservadora de Ação Política, evento anual realizado há quase 50 anos] [em 1983, envolvendo dois representantes republicanos que seduziram adolescentes]The conservative movement was home to men like radio host Rush Limbaugh, who called the president’s teenage daughter a “bitch” [nos Estados Unidos, no passado recente, a comparação de mulheres a cães era uma forma de chamá-las de feias, como fazia a comediante Joan Rivers], and a large part of the organized right that has too much whining to deal with Donald Trump called that user maniac a pills with an “intellectual” microphone. Yes, it is ugly that Trump sat at the table with those guys. It was also ugly when Ronald Reagan made Nixon laugh by joking that African delegations to the United Nations were “monkeys” without the custom of wearing shoes.

But there were greater shames. As bad as Trump was — and it was pretty bad — nothing he did, not even his infamous Thanksgiving dinner with anti-Semites, was as mind-boggling as watching George W. Bush make a joke at a White House Correspondents’ Dinner in about forgetting where he put the weapons of mass destruction, the [de Washington, associada a grupos de lobby]casus belli[agonia, gastura, vergonha alheia] for the Iraq war. “No, they are not here!” I don’t care what anonymous intelligence officials claim about what Donald Trump said about veterans when no one was listening — nothing short of spitting or vandalizing their graves could equal the disgrace Bush junior committed. at that night.

Were you ashamed when a political party theoretically dedicated to eternal things became possessed by a utopian crusade impulse for global democracy and then, almost instantly, hit the ground running with the reality of having become an apologist for the reintroduction of torture as a weapon? of war?

I don’t say all this to demoralize anyone. Quite the contrary. The Republican Party has been a disgrace to itself from the beginning, when Lincoln was so saturated with the seat-seekers his campaign had spawned that he threw up his hands and declared there were “too many piglets for too little teat.” Trump is no Lincoln, I agree. He’s no Reagan either; Reagan’s three Supreme Court nominees weren’t ready to reverse [a descriminalização do aborto no caso] 1993 Roe[em 1983, envolvendo dois representantes republicanos que seduziram adolescentes].[Conferência Conservadora de Ação Política, evento anual realizado há quase 50 anos]

I am conservative because my convictions and intellectual predispositions group me with the right — at least a certain strain within it. In a democracy, that means being in the awkward company of millions of people, many of whom find each other intolerable bores, sources of shame, or otherwise weird.

[em 1983, envolvendo dois representantes republicanos que seduziram adolescentes]You can’t get away from it by going the other way. You can run away from the closet pastor/megachurch lobbyist with a foot fetish, only to fall into the arms of some transbureaucratic bully who steal luxury suitcases. [O autor se refere a um funcionário do setor de lixo nuclear do governo Biden, que usa gênero neutro e foi pego meses depois de ser efetivado em seu cargo roubando uma mala para vestir as roupas da dona.] This is the glory and shame of democracy. If you want to feel good about your political associates, look for some august court of aristocrats. Until then, America will still be the country of border freaks, religiously enthusiastic and indomitable, smooth-talking opportunists, apocalyptic alarmists who sell gold and gold merchants who sell the apocalypse.[em 1983, envolvendo dois representantes republicanos que seduziram adolescentes]It would be cool if the right was cool. But she never was. Either way, I don’t need her to be.2021

[Conferência Conservadora de Ação Política, evento anual realizado há quase 50 anos]Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer for National Review Online[Conferência Conservadora de Ação Política, evento anual realizado há quase 50 anos].[com Trump abraçando a bandeira][a descriminalização do aborto no caso]©2022 National Review. Published with permission. Original in English.30

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