Tory William Hague: "Trump is no Ronald Reagan — we all need him to lose"

[welch]

William Hague, former leader of the Conservative Party, writes in The Times of London, that "Republican Party that Conservatives knew and admired is captured by a dark cult which threatens freedom everywhere".

For these reasons, it is important we understand that Trump is not Reagan. He isn’t even a conservative. He is against free trade: “tariff” is his favourite word. His plans for tax cuts without spending reductions are reckoned, by the calculations of the impartial Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget — the equivalent of our Institute for Fiscal Studies — to be likely to add $7.5 trillion to America’s deficit, abandoning any fiscal conservatism. His foul diatribes against those who cross him and refusal to accept legitimate election results make him a threat to the functioning of democracy. Reagan would have only contempt for him.

It is hard for British Conservatives to accept that the Republican Party we knew so recently has become inhabited by something quite different, by a cult of personality rather than a political philosophy. It is as if a close friend has died, or at least taken leave of their senses. Those of us who were there, cutting our political teeth in the Reagan-Thatcher days, mourn the disappearance of our old sister party. And it is on matters of global security that this is most alarming.

The article details the Thatcherite critique of MAGA: https://www.thetimes.com/comment/col...tion-m9n620607

[dneal]

If you disagree with this Black person, you're a racist.

I didn't make the rules.

Screenshot 2024-11-05 at 7.57.56 AM.png

[Warbler]

tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips . . .

[724Seney]

tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips . . .

News Flash
Mini-Me wins the FPG "Lightweight of the Year Award" for 2024,

[kazoolaw]

W-
If only you had asked: it’s “skipped” not “slipped.”

[dneal]

tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips . . .

Clearly a racist. Why are you disparaging that black person?

[kazoolaw]

Yup-screwed up.
“skips” not “slips.”

[Warbler]

W-
If only you had asked: it’s “skipped” not “slipped.”

I think you meant said not asked, but good point I will remember that for next time.

[Warbler]

tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips, tds needle slips . . .

Clearly a racist. Why are you disparaging that black person?

Nope, I was not disparaging that black person.

[dneal]

I shared a twitter post of a black person mentioning TDS, and you replied with some string of nonsense that appears to mock him.

Clearly racist.

[Warbler]

I was not mocking him.

[724Seney]

I was not mocking him.

As usual, the Tweetster has some 'splaining to do.
Ol' Mini-Me can't post a thing without some sort of an error in it.
#Lightweight

[dneal]

I was not mocking him.

Why did you post that "broken record" nonsense simply because Zuby offered an opinion on TDS?

Because you agree so strongly that you emphasized it through repetition?

*sigh* indeed.

[Warbler]

It wasn’t because Zuby offered an opinion, nor was it because I agreed with him. In fact I do not agree with him. I also don’t think merely disagreeing with a black person makes you a racist.

[dneal]

It wasn’t because Zuby offered an opinion, nor was it because I agreed with him. In fact I do not agree with him. I also don’t think merely disagreeing with a black person makes you a racist.

I'll send Ibram X Kendi and Robin DiAngelo over to begin your reprogramming, so you can see your subconscious racism.

[Warbler]

I’d rather you not.

[kazoolaw]

W-
If only you had asked: it’s “skipped” not “slipped.”

I think you meant said not asked, but good point I will remember that for next time.

Actually, I meant if you had asked me for the right word I would have told you, being old enough to remember nickels on tone arms to stop skips on records.

[Warbler]

Oh.

[welch]

Clear that Trump is deranged. Just listen to him rave incoherently. Now he shows signs of dementia. For instance, John Bolton wrote that he had to teach Trump some geography when Trump flew to Helsinki to meet Putin. Trump thought that Helsinki was a Russina city in the Russian province of Finland.

But William Hague wrote an article lamenting the collapse of the Republican Party into a dark cult that worships anything Trump says. I posted to remind people that the Republicans once had ideas to match the Tories, while the Labour Party has continued to think with the Democratic Party.

As Hague observes, the Trump Party clings to the pseudo-thought that a giant tariff will return so much money that the US will not need taxes. That the money will allow the government o pay for anything that need to be patched. Public education? Tariff will pay for that. Universal daycare? Tariffs will pay for that. Defense? Tariffs will pay for that, too. Psychology calls that "magical thinking".

Hague writes from a review of Max Boot's biography of Ronald Reagan:

Nevertheless, Boot is clear that Trump is no Ronald Reagan. The latter was pro-immigration, pro-free trade, pro-democracy and pro-Nato. He was a “consummate gentleman”, did not bear grudges, glossed over or forgot his defeats, worked constructively with Democrat legislators as well as his own Republicans and “would never have dreamed of instigating an insurrection” against the constitution. He was pragmatic, even agreeing to large increases in many taxes when his initial wave of tax cuts produced a ballooning budget deficit.

Reagan, in other words, was a real conservative, and the Republicans then were a true sister party of the British Tories. I remember going to political conferences in Washington in the Reagan years and finding an abundance of kindred spirits, just as Labour colleagues have always built links with the Democrats. It should be no surprise that dozens of Labour activists have gone to help Kamala Harris this week, although the embarrassing online post from party HQ giving them their instructions was a foolish gift to the Trump campaign, who jumped at the chance to depict a customary show of support as illegal foreign interference.

For decades, Tories have linked arms with Republicans in the same way. I used to discuss election tactics with George W Bush, and chaired the international programme at the Republican convention in 2004. For 20 years I never passed through Washington without conferring with the great Senator John McCain. While neither he nor Mitt Romney became president, the Republicans, until a decade ago, were in the safe hands of such men. The transatlantic bonds of conservatism held fast.

For these reasons, it is important we understand that Trump is not Reagan. He isn’t even a conservative. He is against free trade: “tariff” is his favourite word. His plans for tax cuts without spending reductions are reckoned, by the calculations of the impartial Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget — the equivalent of our Institute for Fiscal Studies — to be likely to add $7.5 trillion to America’s deficit, abandoning any fiscal conservatism. His foul diatribes against those who cross him and refusal to accept legitimate election results make him a threat to the functioning of democracy. Reagan would have only contempt for him.

It is hard for British Conservatives to accept that the Republican Party we knew so recently has become inhabited by something quite different, by a cult of personality rather than a political philosophy. It is as if a close friend has died, or at least taken leave of their senses. Those of us who were there, cutting our political teeth in the Reagan-Thatcher days, mourn the disappearance of our old sister party. And it is on matters of global security that this is most alarming.

But Reagan did not help win the Cold War by being unpredictable: his commitment to the freedom of other nations was never in doubt. The trouble with Trump is that he is more unpredictable in his behaviour to those defending democracy than to its assailants. To sit in a trench as a Ukrainian soldier, or fight Russian election interference in Moldova or Georgia, or be a Taiwanese citizen who relies entirely on the steadfast friendship of America, and know only that the next president of the United States is unpredictable would be the end of hope. The return to office of Trump, in a far more turbulent world than when he last arrived there, heralds disaster — through uncertainty alone — for all those fighting at the frontiers of freedom. Unpredictability in the White House is fatal for them.

It matters what we think about the election in America — to our own political ideas and to the security of our allies. We knew Reagan wasn’t following the details, but we also knew he was generous to opponents and steadfast for freedom. In words also applied to Franklin D Roosevelt, he was a “second-class intellect with a first-class temperament”. That would never be a description of Trump. He is a serious danger. If Reagan stood for “morning in America”, Trump is the approach of midnight. Whatever our past affiliations, we should all be Democrats.

Me? I disagreed with Reagan, but Republicans proposed and partly enacted policies that I could grip. Trying to grip Trumpism is like trying to grasp fog.

[724Seney]

Clear that Trump is deranged. Just listen to him rave incoherently. Now he shows signs of dementia.

It always cracks me up when buffoons like this far left hypocrite completely deny the presence of Biden's florid dementia yet are so quick to assign the dementia diagnosis to Trump.