They are turning on Trumpy! About time! Mona Charen just wrote about being escorted out of CPAC

[FM123]

She writes in today's New York Times:

"So you’d think that the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, would be a natural fit. It once was. But on Saturday, after speaking to this year’s gathering, I had to be escorted from the premises by several guards who seemed genuinely concerned for my safety.

What happened to me at CPAC is the perfect illustration of the collective experience of a whole swath of conservatives since Donald Trump became the Republican nominee. We built and organized this party — but now we’re made to feel like interlopers.

I’d been dreading it for days, but when it came, I almost welcomed it. There is nothing more freeing than telling the truth. And it must be done, again and again, by those of us who refuse to be absorbed into this brainless, sinister, clownish thing called Trumpism, by those of us who refuse to overlook the fools, frauds and fascists attempting to glide along in his slipstream into respectability."
(Read more)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/opinion/im-glad-i-got-booed-at-cpac.html

[NCjack]

1. Mona, you can cry, cry, cry -- but you helped get him elected. So. live with it. nt

[pnwmom]

2. I'm happy with every convert. Every Republican who decides to vote for Democrats no matter what

and urges others to do so.

[Ferrets are Cool]

7. It is a personal opinion, but I think you are

very mistaken to believe that they will vote for a democrat. Very mistaken. I would love to be wrong, but I don't believe I am.

[pnwmom]

14. There are a number who are urging it. If they are openly telling others to do so,

why would they not do so themselves?

[louis c]

27. I welcome anyone who criticizes Trump

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

I will argue about our differences on another day. Just as FDR welcomed Stalin to defeat Hitler, I will welcome anyone who stands against Trump, for any reason.

They'll be plenty of time to debate policy. First, we must eliminate the cancer in our body politic.

[certainot]

40. limbaugh will straighten her out on monday

[pangaia]

76. LOL

[Paleologue]

54. The time for "debating" policy is long past

We don't need input from any Republican to know what needs to be done in this country. As long as they are in control anywhere, this country will never be right.

[NCjack]

63. I believe that Mona wants to revise the GOP to be slightly left of Trump. That is, she likes

where the GOP is now, that is why she voted for Trump. She just happens to be embarrassed that an ignorant GOP pig is president. If Trump runs again, she will put a clothespin on her nose and vote for him.

[louis c]

64. First, throw out Trump and his enablers...

...which means we elect more Democrats. Whether life long Republicans, with at least a modicum of decency, vote with us or stay home, while blasting Trump personally, that's what we're going to need to gain control. Right now, we are wondering in the wilderness. We have no branch of government, few state houses or governorships, and can't move our agenda an inch.

Anything that adds to our chance to at least take back the House this year, we should jump at.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

33. It's a positive step when they won't vote for a tRump or a tRump-licker like Paul Ryan. . . . . nt

[Ferrets are Cool]

42. I, too, welcome ANY criticism of the PGIC.

It is my opinion, however, that it will not lead to repugs voting for democrats. I do hope that it will move some so-called "independents" to our side of the aisle.

[grantcart]

47. You are right on the details but wrong on the bigger picture

1) Professional pundits like her will not vote for Democrats but that isn't the issue, we just need for 5% of the Republicans to simply stop voting. With a swing of 10% in Independents and an energized Democratic electorate we can build a wave, it is coming.

2) People like her are a metric for the Republican population, especially women who will vote for Democrats. I have a close relative who has voted Republican for 40 years and told me recently "if the Democrats don't win in a landslide the country is lost".

It isn't just conservatives but the "institutionalists" who work in criminal justice, military, corporations who are not going to vote for Trump who tries to conning people that he is with the pitchfork and shovel crowd.

It is all good for us. Don't have to vote for Democrats, just stop voting for Republicans.

[Cary]

50. If we vote, we win

We are energized so I am sure we don't need any Republicans to win elections. It's a bonus if they don't vote and don't participate.

But we do need two parties. I believe the Republican Party is beyond redemption. If you dance with the devil you don't change the devil, the devil changes you. And so it is. It took 50 full years but they embraced racism even if just in a mealymouthed way, so they are now overtly racist.

They need to start over.

[Blue_true]

69. A former republican congressman, circa 2010-2014.

Has outright come out and said that if republicans trully want problems fixed, they should vote straight democrat. His point was once republican politicians get slapped up side the head, they would come back to the politics of earnestly negotiating with the other side.

[DBoon]

29. Every conservative activist who gives up in disgust is welcome to do so

I don't think many will become Democratic voters

[pnwmom]

32. Have you heard of what Benjamin Wittes is trying to do? n/t

[DBoon]

37. No, sorry

I failed today's pop quiz

[pnwmom]

43. He's a centrist founder of the Lawfare blog, and he's organizing a group of R's to pledge

to vote for Democrats till Trump is gone.

[Blue_true]

67. Yes. I don't think true republican conservatives have any choice but to vote with us.

Bring civility and purpose back to politics. Once they are again ready to go their own way, don't go back to the personal destruction politics that they practiced starting with their personal attacks on Jimmy Carter and his child.

[Zoonart]

3. I agree.

N.O.T. F.O.R.G.I.V.E.N.

That goes for a lot of the Republican weasels now looking for the left to heap laurels on them because they have discovered the monster has escaped the lab.

[spooky3]

44. So far, the only time she speaks out is when Trump says or does something bad about a

group she is a member of. Typical Repub.--no empathy, and no concern for bad behavior or policy unless they believe it affects them directly.

When she branches out to address other issues as well (as have Wallace, Schmidt, Rubin, etc.), I will be more impressed.

[MineralMan]

4. That realization is coming home to lots of more traditional Republicans.

What they'll do with that, I don't know. Their party is shifting hard to the right, rather than in their direction. They're going to have to make some decisions soon. They can toss the right edge of the Republican party or move to the right edge of the Democratic party, which is about the same as the left edge of the Republican Party. Moving leftward to the center is what many will do.

[gibraltar72]

5. They knew he was a snake before they took him in.

[MineralMan]

8. Yes. But people who survive a venomous snake bite

generally are much more careful afterwards. People are capable of learning from their mistakes. I say, let them learn. Some will come our way. Others will not. I welcome those who do, though.

[Hortensis]

17. Absolutely. The Repub congress is much farther right

than the Repub electorate in ideology. This has been proven again and again by examination of voting records against polls. The Repub senate only somewhat overlaps the far right of the conservative electorate, while the Repub house doesn't at all. Bizarre, but there aren't enough ultrawealthy extremists in the electorate to show on graphs, and they're who're driving this.

For some time they've been starting to feel that, and after all, both the tea party and Trump were attempts at rebellion.

Unfortunately, what they have not learned from experience is that Democrats are not their big enemy and most are still intractably opposed to us. The ones who are able to join with us to stop what's happening, though, are national treasures. We're big on hugging here in the South, and if I see one in person I may give in to impulse.

[MineralMan]

20. Yup. If someone is moving in our direction, give them a hand and

help them find their way. Insulting them is a very bad idea. We can use all the votes we can get.

[Hortensis]

21. Yup, yup, yup. Save partisan indulgences for

intractable trumpsters, and then not in the hearing of those who part with friends and relatives to vote their consciences.

A painful time for all, one way or another, and I don't exclude the women living near the corner who practically radiate spite when they see me. They wouldn't be this way if they were happy and confident in their choices.

[Eliot Rosewater]

55. The teapary or freedumb contingent are ignorant racists who got involved to

oppose the black President.

They, like trump, know nothing, about anything. All they know is they hate black people and they think destroying government will save them tax dollars. Beyond those two things, dumbshits, every last one of them

[Hortensis]

57. This from you, Eliot? Nonsense, even for the worst of them.

Disengage anger, engage brain.

[Eliot Rosewater]

60. What?

[Hortensis]

62. Comeon, that's too simplistic for you, surely?

They can't be reached by liberal thought, perhaps, but they can be maneuvered by other concerns.

[volstork]

31. I think this is true.

"There is nothing more freeing than telling the truth. And it must be done, again and again, by those of us who refuse to be absorbed into this brainless, sinister, clownish thing called Trumpism, by those of us who refuse to overlook the fools, frauds and fascists attempting to glide along in his slipstream into respectability."

Part of me says "too little, too late, " as I imagine they voted for him when who and what he was/is was blatantly evident. Another part of me takes heart in the fact that some are finally coming to their senses and turning away.

[Blue_true]

71. A lot of republicans who had concerns about Trump

voted for him hoping that he would change to be better. They were wrong and I think democratic candidates vastly overperforming in heavily republican areas and outright winning most is the real life illustration of what is starting to dawn on the uneasy republican voters.

[volstork]

73. I so hope you are correct.

I think the nation's future depends upon it.

[Blue_true]

75. I hope that I am correct to, but we can't let voting get to a case where our backs are

against the wall and we are counting on the republicans who now feel bad about how they voted in 2016 to come through. We need to get the 43% of voters that either did not vote or wrote in bullshit on their ballots, to realize that the country is headed off a cliff and they need to get off their asses and help democrats pull the country back to safety.

[volstork]

80. Absolutely.

GOTV is the surest, truest way to victory.

[Pope George Ringo II]

56. I still have trouble thinking of their current drive as being to the "Right" as we know it.

I tend to think of "Right," in American terms at least, as being about regulations and market freedom, about "that government governs best which governs least," and as championed by guys like Goldwater and Friedman. They're actually interested in helping the poor, but believe the government doesn't do it efficiently and helps best by getting out of the way of job creation. I'm okay with calling those guys wrong, but they had an actual vision on how to improve the lives of Americans and they had some respect for individual freedoms. History does not appear to be on their side, but I could respect their motives and their love of country in a way I just can't do for the Mike Pences of the world.

What we're seeing today isn't something I can truly call an extension of those principles, though. We're talking about a party driven by hatred of gays, fear of being in the same bathroom as a transwoman (they appear ignorant of transmen existing), and a simply pathological obsession with preventing abortions. Aside from a handful notably including Rand Paul, they're not even paying lip service to keeping a lid on spending--and when Rand Paul is trying to keep you tethered to integrity and sanity, you're pretty far gone. There's just not enough intellectual grounding there for me to comfortably place their current screed on the political spectrum. I'd rather place it in a diaper bag where it belongs.

I don't know what else to call it if not "right," but it pains me to see the honorable American Right of the past associated with these baboons, whatever mistakes the old Right may have made.

[Blue_true]

70. A lot of republicans have long family histories of being republican.

Yes, some were republican for the wrong reasons, like pushing business rights over society rights, but their positions were understandable and you could debate them. The dominant wing of the Republican Party today is flat out hate driven and has a mindset that anyone that debate them must be destroyed.

[Ferrets are Cool]

6. She wants her conservatives to be crazy, just not bat-shit crazy. nm

[madinmaryland]

9. Sorry, but for her just figuring this out now is beyond rediculous.

Trump has been a seriously fucked up person for most of his adult life. To think anything different means you have had your head stuck up your ass for the entire time.

Fuck her and BTW, FUCK THE NRA.

[sharedvalues]

10. She is in denial. Conservatives have used hate and identity politics for decades

It’s always so cute when supposed conservative “intellectuals” wring their hands about the hate in the GOP.


Honestly it comes down to the fact that smart people today are Democrats. There are few or no really intelligent people that serve as GOP public intellectuals. The “best” are talking point spewers, or trolls, at best: McArdle, Douthat, Domenech, Stephens. (Jennifer Rubin and Kristol and Frum have basically left the GOP.) Those people are fools and morons compared to people like Krugman or Josh Marshall or EJ Dionne or Norm Orstein or Frank Foer.


So because GOP “intellectuals” are limited and not educated about history, they have no idea about the long history of GOP billionaires using hate and identity politics to get votes. Southern Strategy. Reagan at Neshoba County. Marriage referenda. Swift Boating. GOP billionaires built a propaganda machine to stir up hate against minorities, gay people, immigrants, universities, advocates of reasonable gun control, and liberals. And now they’re suprised that the GOP base is full of hate! What pearl clutching. GOP billionaires built that hateful base via propaganda. It elected Trump. The hateful base IS the GOP. You can’t separate them.

[gibraltar72]

11. Kinda like Michael Steele being shocked shocked that CPAC was racist.

[sharedvalues]

12. Its really a sign conservatives are just more poorly educated

The only excuses for Steele not seeing it earlier are a poor intellect, or a severe lack of education.

Anti intellectualism catches up to a party after a while.

[OnDoutside]

22. Yet Steele backed Ed Gillespie, and didn't criticize him when he went down the racist road.

[peggysue2]

13. At this point in time . .

we should applaud every convert to speak out, speak loudly and keep it up until we crush Trumpism. Trumpism is the enemy threatening every facet of our Constitutional Republic. We can take up the liberal/conservative barn cat yowling after the barn is cleaned out, the toxic muck removed.

But for now? The Never-Trumpers are on our side. Whatever it takes to remove the traitors, the criminals, the grifters.

Strange times create strange bedfellows. Benjamin Wittes, a bona fide conservative, has called for all like-minded conservatives to crush Republican candidates in November, purge every position right down to dogcatcher. Because it's the only way that the GOP will wake up from the mindless stupor of Trump and the Alt-right.

And that is something I can absolutely support.

[pnwmom]

15. +1000. n/t

[OnDoutside]

26. That is true, but I would like MSM to push them on what exactly "Conservatism" is. If Trump wasn't

president, but say, Pence, would they have been happy if they gave a Trillion dollar tax cut to the rich ? Or the gutting of Health services ? At the moment they all participated in where Republicans are today, because it gave them power, and that's all they cared about.

[peggysue2]

35. I don't like Pence or

any of the policy issues Republican/conservatives generally support. But that is not the primary issue at the moment.

The primary issue is surviving as a Republic.

If Trumpism is not defeated it won't matter how right or wrong any of us are on the issues. Beating our chests over Democratic virtue will not upend Trump and his criminal enterprise.

The danger is real. As in, scary as Hell. The only way to neuter Trump and his sickening cabal is to win in November, win massively. Meuller is working his end of the field and I wish him God speed in his investigations. American citizens have work on our end of the field--GOTV for November. We win when we stick together. In this fight, we'll win sticking together and joining hands with like-minded voters--regardless of political affiliation--to stamp out the criminals, traitors and grifters.

[OnDoutside]

59. No argument on that score.

[Silver1]

34. Totally agree.

If republicans are re-examining their commitment to what's happening with their leadership, the last thing we should do is ridicule them or reject their attempts. It takes courage to speak out these days in the R party, and that should be respected. Those who do speak out, will encourage and influence others to do so. And that is really, really important right now.

[RandomAccess]

68. Well said.

And welcome to DU.

[Silver1]

78. Thanks.

I'm nervous about this kind of quasi private quasi public communication. But I guess I'm more nervous about where all this could go, so I'll speak up.

[RandomAccess]

79. I don't think anyone will recognize you,

Silver1.

[FM123]

16. I hope they ALL turn on Trumpy and soon!

I just don't know if Charen is the first of more to come, or just a blip?

[BSdetect]

18. So you are a republican conservative?

What about the fiscal hypocracy. Tax hypocracy? Budget hypocracy? Debt hypocracy?


HRC would have dealt with Putin.

Why did you expect the trumpistas to react in any other way?

[sharedvalues]

23. Sad truth

If you’re a GOP conservative today, you are either dumb or poorly educated.

Anyone intelligent is leaving the GOP behind. (The really smart people - Dems - were never in the party at all

[lindysalsagal]

19. They didn't "out" him while campaigning because they ALL took russian dirty money.

They now get the blame for allwing him to run at all.

[sharedvalues]

24. Cit U and dark money are the root problem Nm

[riversedge]

25. Thank you Mona Charen. You are on the right side of History today.

[JHB]

28. There is no "Trumpism", Mona. Your party is doing exactly what you built it to do.

You and your fellow conservatives built and organized a party that would brook not compromise, no backsliding, on the road to The Way Things Ought To Be.

What happened to Rockefeller Republicans, Mona? They'd built and organized the Party of Lincoln... until a pack of, as you put it, "fools, frauds and fascists attempting to glide along ... into respectability" undermined them and cast them out. You were fine with you and your fellow conservatives purging liberal Republicans from your party.

The last Republican president who did anything close to "fiscal responsibility" was George H. W. Bush when he went back on his "Read my lips, no new taxes" line. Your fellow conservatives crucified him for it.

It has been 23 years and about 4 months since Newt Gingrich decided the way for the Republicans to take the house was by characterizing the Democrats as "the enemy of normal Americans." And was successful, so it became the operating system of your party, the one you built and organized. Everything they've done since has been doubling-down on that basic presumption. After all, an enemy needs to be stopped at all costs, and stomped on when the opportunity presents itself.

Where was your dread then? What have you and your fellow "real" Republicans done to change course?

You built a party where ever-more extreme rhetoric flourished, where norms of behavior were increasingly cast aside, where sheer brazenness was accepted as "genius". And it apparently slipped your mind that a machine like that does not have an "off" switch.

There is no "Trumpism", Mona. Those "fools, frauds and fascists" are the same people who gave you the numbers to take power, and now they're treating you the same way you treated the Rockefeller Republicans.

You and your people turned the Party of Lincoln into the Party of Ahab. You Built That.

[DBoon]

30. There is a direct line from Nixon to Trump

What we are seeing is the logical conclusion of Nixon/Agnew - Southern strategy (picking up reactionary segregationists), attacks on intellectuals and the media, overt racism and anti-semitism, power hungry corruption.

It was all there in 1969

[JHB]

39. There's a direct line from 1952 conservatives..

...who were all butthurt that their guy Taft lost out to Eisenhower (who was supported by northeastern Republicans who were ok with accepting the basic framework of the New Deal rather than go on a crusade to dismantle it) to Trump.

Every step of the way "respectable" conservatives used bigots, conspiracy nuts, and plain old deplorables to pad out their numbers while sidelining the same from being the public face of their movement. And now they're upset the beast they fed has rounded on them.

[paleotn]

48. Precisely!

The logical extension of the Rethuglican revolutions of 1980 and 1994. And each time, they become more and more brazen in publicly saying exactly what Rethugs have thought and whispered to each other for nearly 40 years.

[Marcuse]

36. Mona appears to be at Step 1 of 12. She acknowledges her political life has become unmanageable.

[nolabels]

66. I'll drink to that!

[czarjak]

38. Who built that fire, Mona?

[LAS14]

41. I've been waiting and waiting for this. nt

[Beartracks]

45. "So you'd think."

Yeah, so you'd think Republicans who voted for Trump "just because" he was their candidate WOULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING. But they're too blinded by denial, groupthink, and right wing media bullshit to see straight, apparently.

===============

[paleotn]

46. She's upset....

that the current crop of goose steppers have the gumption to actually say what most of them think.

[spanone]

49. K&R...

[ehrnst]

51. She's a woman, so it will be easier for them to dismiss her as easily corruptable

and flawed.

[William Seger]

52. "fools, frauds and fascists" and felons

[Paladin]

53. Mona Charen, exposing some decent instincts. That's how bad trump has made things. (nt)

[Paleologue]

58. Boo freaking hoo to all of the right wing lunatics like Charen

Who suddenly find Trump too impolitic for their comfort. He is exactly the kind of person they were told he was when they voted for him, and there is nothing he is doing that has not been on the Republican agenda since Reagan, and they haven't been supporting wholeheartedly ever since then. They knew perfectly well what they were getting with him, and what kind of supporters he was bringing to the party.

Bottom line, this is not about policy. This is about Trump being too embarrassing for them to admit they support him, and they can't enjoy themselves at the best Washington parties where their privileged liberal friends normally kiss up to them.

[dembotoz]

61. you planted the seeds..you own the fruit

[JHB]

74. She and her fellow conservatives turned the GOP from the party of...

into the party of...

[Blue_true]

65. She and other conservatives.

Are getting their reward for playing footsie with rightwing evangelicals. The evangelicals want absolute power, conservatives helped them gain significant power. Now the rightwing evangelicals do not need them.

True conservatives have one logical choice, vote for democrats until rightwing evangelicals are put back into their slimy dungeons. There is no other way out for conservatives.

[mnmoderatedem]

72. of course she got booed and escorted out. She had an extremely rare bout of brief truth telling

and it was CPAC after all.

We can't have truth telling here. Truth telling here is bad mmmmk?

[Cha]

77. Well said, Mona.. too bad you don't tell the truth

on everything.

I’d been dreading it for days, but when it came, I almost welcomed it. There is nothing more freeing than telling the truth. And it must be done, again and again, by those of us who refuse to be absorbed into this brainless, sinister, clownish thing called Trumpism, by those of us who refuse to overlook the fools, frauds and fascists attempting to glide along in his slipstream into respectability."