An Op-Ed in today's LA Times, with my own comments included in italics at the end.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-08-25/op-ed-heres-why-as-a-republican-im-heartened-by-the-convention-so-far

By Scott Jennings

~snip~

Watching the first night of the Republican National Convention had me thinking about Donald Trump’s presidency, a four-year journey by a man who New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman says “spent his career as a salesman concerned about surviving the next ten-minute increment of time in front of him.”

Trump’s tendency to fly by the seat of his pants has left even loyal Republicans exhausted. And it has created a dense political fog, making it hard for Americans to fully comprehend where we are going as a nation.

But after everything that has happened during Trump’s first term, including his administration being unfairly bogged down by a fiercely disloyal opposition, I have been heartened to see Trump and the party focus sharply on the main reason to give the president another four years: that Joe Biden will raise taxes, stand aside for the rioters and open a Pandora’s box of bad, liberal policy.

Unfairly bogged down by a fiercely disloyal opposition? This is BS. Trump’s party are in it only for themselves, and not for the people they supposedly represent. Of course Biden will raise taxes. First of all, the 1% got the majority of those tax breaks, and they do not deserve or need any of that. And Biden will not stand aside for the rioters. The systemic persistence of attacking people of color has brought them to the brink of exhaustion and despair. Rioting is the result.

We know where Trump wants to take us: straight into proto-fascism. He has shown us this by the ways he cozies up to dictators and pushes away the leaders who used to respect us.

Make America Normal Again? Back to the 1950's? The era where white men ruled, women and people of color and the LGBTQ communities were firmly all relegated to second place, at best. Calling this time a normal one is grossly disconnected from the reality of those days. Entitled white men have been running the country right into the ground for at least decades. We are now reaping their mistakes. Normalization is a perverted view from white privileged males who want to stay in power so they can continue to profit hugely at the expense of the rest of the populace.


Trump does an excellent job all by himself of keeping himself bogged down in scandal. He needs no help from us. He is not proceeding towards normalization. His view of that is completely skewed towards white male supremacy.

The post office. The Democrats have not turned this into a conspiracy theory about voter suppression. Trump himself said that voting by mail would hand the victory to the Democrats and would be completely invalid. He claimed there would be rampant cheating. As for out of control costs, those have been promoted by the Republicans hoping to make the Post Office fail so that they can privatize it, thus enriching their already-rich friends and stiffing the American people once again.

He doesn’t know when to shut up, and thank goodness for that. He clearly reveals stuff that a more devious person would have kept hidden. He is is his own worst enemy.


Yes, the Democrats want to raise taxes, because the 1% did not need, and do not deserve the cut they got. We are now over our heads in red ink, because the Republicans are hypocrites on that score.

Scott Jenning’s view of normal is anything but. The hole Trump is in is because of his own extremely abnormal behavior towards our Constitution and the people of America. It is a hole that will prove to be too deep for him.

When I wrote this post, I wove my comments into the text by Jennings. Since we cannot post more than 4 paragraphs, I left those out and wrote my comments into the post itself. I couldn't think of any other way to show my thinking about this insane op-ed.

[Atticus]

1. Well done. nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Scott Jennings is a real piece of work - former adviser to Moscow Mitch.

No wonder he doesn't care about anything but tax cuts.

[livetohike]

3. "Stand aside for the rioters." More fear and loathing and

that’s all they have. Nothing to hold Trump accountable for his inaction on everything, or when he does take action it’s either incompetent, or criminal or both.

[gratuitous]

12. Odd how there weren't any rioters during the Obama administration

Someone really should point out to Scott Jennings and the rest of the fear mongers that all the things they're wetting their pants over in today's America have come into existence during the Trump administration. Cause: Trump. Effect: Riots.

[unblock]

4. Voting for Donnie based on taxes is like voting for hitler based on the train schedule

I mean seriously people, piss off about a few percentage points in taxes. Look around, there's way too much at stake!

If you're willing to be a racist if you're paid in the form of a tax cut, they you're a racist. We're just quibbling about price.

[Eliot Rosewater]

5. Whoever wrote that is a traitor and accomplice to mass murder.

Thank you for fighting back for us!

Anyone who gives him any excuses is guilty.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

6. Thank you so much. I forgot to include his name. Will correct it now. n/t

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Scott Jennings, former Moscow Mitch adviser.

[ornotna]

8. Don't know if this will help

When I post quotes from an article/opinion I use the excerpt button. Click the excerpt button, post the c&p quote, then click the excerpt button again. Then it looks like this.

Watching the first night of the Republican National Convention had me thinking about Donald Trump’s presidency, a four-year journey by a man who New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman says “spent his career as a salesman concerned about surviving the next ten-minute increment of time in front of him.”

Trump’s tendency to fly by the seat of his pants has left even loyal Republicans exhausted. And it has created a dense political fog, making it hard for Americans to fully comprehend where we are going as a nation.

But after everything that has happened during Trump’s first term, including his administration being unfairly bogged down by a fiercely disloyal opposition, I have been heartened to see Trump and the party focus sharply on the main reason to give the president another four years: that Joe Biden will raise taxes, stand aside for the rioters and open a Pandora’s box of bad, liberal policy.

Then I can add my words after and they're clearly separated. Apologies if you were already aware of this and just choose not to do this.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

10. Thank you for this! I was not aware that I could do that.

The problem with this op-ed was that it's way more than 4 paragraphs long, so I could not post the whole thing.

So that's why I did what I did with my remarks at the end of the op-ed.

[dhill926]

9. outside of anything Jonah Goldberg writes....

this was the worst piece of shit article I've ever read in the Times...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

11. I have to agree.

I was so incensed by it that I felt compelled to post it along with my remarks.

[JimGinPA]

13. Nice Job!

[struggle4progress]

14. People like Scott Jennings work hard to derail factual conversations into arguments about opinion

If we respond to their carefully-crafted opinions, often stated in self-assured moderate-sounding words, with opinions of our own, we merely preach to our own choir and lose the battle for the movable center

The proper trick is to respond in a purely fact-based way, with an absolute minimum of interpretive material, with the facts organized in a way that allows the reader/listener to reach the natural conclusions, without pushing them too hard

Then we sound informed and non-judgmental

[flamin lib]

15. Can I get an AMEN! here?