Posted on 07/23/2022 6:21:35 PM PDT by bitt
The worst line I ever wrote as a pundit — yes, I know, it’s a crowded field — was the first line I ever wrote about the man who would become the 45th president: “If by now you don’t find Donald Trump appalling, you’re appalling.”
This opening salvo, from August 2015, was the first in what would become dozens of columns denouncing Trump as a unique threat to American life, democratic ideals and the world itself. I regret almost nothing of what I said about the man and his close minions. But the broad swipe at his voters caricatured them and blinkered me.
It also probably did more to help than hinder Trump’s candidacy. Telling voters they are moral ignoramuses is a bad way of getting them to change their minds. What were they seeing that I wasn’t?
That ought to have been the first question to ask myself. When I looked at Trump, I saw a bigoted blowhard making one ignorant argument after another. What Trump’s supporters saw was a candidate whose entire being was a proudly raised middle finger at a self-satisfied elite that had produced a failing status quo.
I was blind to this. Though I had spent the years of Barack Obama’s presidency denouncing his policies, my objections were more abstract than personal. I belonged to a social class that my friend Peggy Noonan called “the protected.” My family lived in a safe and pleasant neighborhood. Our kids went to an excellent public school. I was well paid, fully insured, insulated against life’s harsh edges.
Trump’s appeal, according to Noonan, was largely to people she called “the unprotected.” Their neighborhoods weren’t so safe and pleasant. Their schools weren’t so excellent. Their livelihoods weren’t so secure. Their experience of America was often one of cultural and economic
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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Bret Stephens, take a good long look in a mirror.
You are an insufferable douche
snip.....”But I would also approach these voters in a much different spirit than I did the last time. “A drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall,” noted Abraham Lincoln early in his political career. “If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.” Words to live by, particularly for those of us in the business of persuasion.”
(”first convince him that you are his sincere friend.”
....well, I think we’re well beyond that...)
Pathetic attempt, he’s still is contemptuous of traditional Americans.
Bret Stephens speaks well and confesses. This is a good thing.
I’m persuaded he’s sincere.
Bret Stevens is a good example of the truth that the Left isn’t really going after Trump, they’re REALLY going after YOU AND I.
This guy is a snit. Doesn’t understand that smiling at someone while you lie to them doesn’t work with conservatives. We don’t respond to sweet talking libtards. Satan can talk sweet talk and we can tell that it’s still him. You snits don’t have a chance to fool us.
He went to the New York Times to trash conservatives. He lied about Trump.
Is this a lame attempt at an apology?
What really riles up liberals is being disagreed with; the reasons are collateral and secondary, so they are already pissed off before you get to the substance of the disagreement. That’s why they get to the accusations and name calling so quickly.
Get lost blowhard. No takebacks
Drop dead, Bret.
Donald J Trump is the best President this country has had in the last hundred years...IMHO...and I loved Ronald Reagan!!!!
He only means to convince. If he can’t convince you willingly, it’s back to convincing you with force.
You’re right.
Don’t Texans have a saying “You’re all hat boy and no saddle’’.
I think that he should be made to watch his home and possessions burned to the ground, then be stripped naked and driven into the wilderness.
The hook is at the end. This is a trick article designed to pull in gullible people. I bet this guy hates Trump as much as ever.
It won’t work.
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