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So ... the 2016 election was rigged against your guy, but he was so massively popular he won anyway. The 2020 election was rigged so much worse, despite your guy's having had four years as president to do something about it, that he officially lost. That seems to mean your guy is awfully ineffectual.
I mean, what do all those Trumpers (who I see via Rod Dreher) who like him because he's willing to fight as dirty as the Democrats make of this? Do they accept that his claiming that he lost because the Democrats fought dirty and he didn't is fighting dirty? (Just how many Trumpers are committed to some QAnon-style narrative about what he's really up to, for which what he appears to be up to is always only a cover?) How does this mesh with (a disjoint set of?) Trumpers' liking him because he isn't hypocritical, but is straightforwardly and unashamedly an asshole?
Which reminds me, back when the sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden were sort of a thing, I was meaning to write something about how there's an argument to be made that Joe Biden is a better person if he denies the allegations, even if they're true--supposing that he denies them because he is so ashamed of what he did, that what he did is so contrary to his self-image, that he can't admit, even to himself, that he did it. (And I think of Jimmy Gator saying "I don't know" when his wife asks if he touched their daughter. "You should know better!") There is a different kind of argument to be made that it's better for him to deny the allegations, even if they're true, supposing that his admitting to the allegations would destroy him as an ethical role model--i.e., Artie Ziff would have a point, if he wasn't such a dweeb. (This to me is the bottom line about Donald Trump: the president of the United States is possibly the most important ethical role model in the world. You just can't have someone who is openly an ethical monster in that position. Ethical monsters can be president only if they are hypocrites.) I'm not saying that these reasons are persuasive, separately or together (or together with the more obvious, less interesting, utilitarian reason (something like which seems certainly to have motivated the refusal, in many quarters, to take the allegations seriously): the risks of harms being done if Biden effectively disqualified himself from the presidency ethically prohibit him from doing so), only that there is something to them.
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Currently under my porch: 7.1. Currently at Belmont Lake: 7.1, huh. High there today: 11.2. Back on the upswing of the roller coaster. Some snow on the ground a couple of days ago, which seemed like the first snow of the fall, but there was snow on the ground three weeks ago already.
I mean, what do all those Trumpers (who I see via Rod Dreher) who like him because he's willing to fight as dirty as the Democrats make of this? Do they accept that his claiming that he lost because the Democrats fought dirty and he didn't is fighting dirty? (Just how many Trumpers are committed to some QAnon-style narrative about what he's really up to, for which what he appears to be up to is always only a cover?) How does this mesh with (a disjoint set of?) Trumpers' liking him because he isn't hypocritical, but is straightforwardly and unashamedly an asshole?
Which reminds me, back when the sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden were sort of a thing, I was meaning to write something about how there's an argument to be made that Joe Biden is a better person if he denies the allegations, even if they're true--supposing that he denies them because he is so ashamed of what he did, that what he did is so contrary to his self-image, that he can't admit, even to himself, that he did it. (And I think of Jimmy Gator saying "I don't know" when his wife asks if he touched their daughter. "You should know better!") There is a different kind of argument to be made that it's better for him to deny the allegations, even if they're true, supposing that his admitting to the allegations would destroy him as an ethical role model--i.e., Artie Ziff would have a point, if he wasn't such a dweeb. (This to me is the bottom line about Donald Trump: the president of the United States is possibly the most important ethical role model in the world. You just can't have someone who is openly an ethical monster in that position. Ethical monsters can be president only if they are hypocrites.) I'm not saying that these reasons are persuasive, separately or together (or together with the more obvious, less interesting, utilitarian reason (something like which seems certainly to have motivated the refusal, in many quarters, to take the allegations seriously): the risks of harms being done if Biden effectively disqualified himself from the presidency ethically prohibit him from doing so), only that there is something to them.
--
Currently under my porch: 7.1. Currently at Belmont Lake: 7.1, huh. High there today: 11.2. Back on the upswing of the roller coaster. Some snow on the ground a couple of days ago, which seemed like the first snow of the fall, but there was snow on the ground three weeks ago already.
