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Is there any principled conservative position that you will stand for against Donald Trump? Is there any conservative hill you will die on with or without Donald Trump?

Is fiscal sanity an important conservative consideration? Is regular and due constitutional order concerning one of the biggest handouts ever conceived by man a principled position? Massie's opposition to a law which not only plunges the nation deeper into debt but alters the very manner in which we govern ourselves worthy of at least requiring a recorded vote? Is passing a massive law the provisions of which were extorted by an extreme political party and which for all practical purposes can never be repealed in our lifetime, unworthy of protest?

Look at the comments on this thread, how many people favored this bill? Few, most conservatives on this thread are against the bill because they, at least on this issue, are not confused between conservatism and Trumpism. But note carefully, Congressman Massie did not criticize the president personally, rather he criticized Democrats and the outrageous provisions of the bill. It was Pres. Trump who criticized Massie personally. Why?

Is it not fair to ask whether Trump vigorously fought the Democrats hard enough against fiscal insanity? Is it not fair to ask whether Sec. Mnuchin, a transplant from Goldman Sachs, is the proper negotiator to play hardball with the Democrats? Did Mnuchin cave because the president wanted him to cave? Did the president humiliate Massie publicly in order to cover himself and his own profligacy and pusillanimity when he went along with Democrats on this outrageous and dangerous legislation? How better to cover one's tracks than to change the subject? Change the subject by calling a courageous conservative a "grandstander."

You seem to sidestep all of these issues because you think, "entire society is faced with an existential crisis from the nearly complete shutdown of the pre-eminent economy in the world" and, presumably, the crisis justifies the means. But later you say, "This situation is both unprecedented and terminal unless corrected by emergency means...and even then you are only buying time."

These are difficult issues, complex problems with implications for the economy that none of us can say with honesty that we comprehend. Why is it proper for a congressman to object, to express a different honestly held viewpoint? Why is it improper for a congressman who was never asked to come aboard on the takeoff in crafting this legislation to say he will not be part of the landing? This is a deal put together by a Goldman Sachs partner, Nancy Pelosi, Chucky Schumer, and, God help us, Mitch McConnell in secret. Who among these was representing your interests? I say representative Massie represented all our interests, he did so publicly, he did so at great personal cost, he did so honorably.

Why did Donald Trump lash out against him? To save a few hours, Nancy Pelosi had cost the country a week without much comment from the president? Why did this single conservative congressman draw perhaps more flak from the president than the real authors of this situation? Or is the president himself and author of this fiasco? Is this not another example in Washington, and too often on these threads, of the sin being not the sin itself but to expose the sin? To expose that hypocrisy, is that not what Congressman Massie has done? He has committed a grievous Washington sin. So far as I have the power, I forgive him.

In this affair who is the true conservative?

By the same token, why was Massey not proactive / out front screaming bloody murder and threatening to call for a roll call vote the second Pelosi sent the House home? Additionally, it’s not like a lot of the onerous provisions were secret until the bill was made public. At least in a general way a lot of that stuff leaked out. Use the leverage Pelosi gave you from the get-go, not after the fact. Attack the Dems every minute for not focusing solely on the problem at hand. This would also give Pres. Trump a little “cover”.

I think Massie was right and wrong at the same time. He was right on principle in his lonely stand against the inevitable. But he proved himself to be tone deaf against the times he finds himself in.

What did Massie hope to gain? One man tilting at a windmill. It was a grandstand play at best.

“ Is there any principled conservative position that you will stand for against Donald Trump? Is there any conservative hill you will die on with or without Donald Trump?”

This is a ludicrous consideration. When you are surrounded by a raging fire, you are not liberal, conservative, communist or capitalist. You are a survivalist...or you are dead. The economy is slammed shut. The people - the workers, the businesses that drive our entire way of life are within a couple of weeks of losing everything right up to being able to feed themselves. All you pensioners...do you think if this dragged on you’d keep getting your checks? The public sector employees are all getting paid, whether they are working or not...for awhile...a month or two.

Principle conservatism has all the value of a glass of water to a man whose house is burning down around him. It has never been anything but a way of thought written on paper anyway. In reality, no society, no nation anywhere has operated on those principles (with the possible exception of some podunk backwater somewhere in the world that can be dredged up) in well more than 100 years. All the conservative principles you can come up with aren’t worth a roll of toilet paper today. This is - or more likely has been made into - an existential crisis, from the standpoint of the nation right down to the personal level.

“Is it not fair to ask whether Trump vigorously fought the Democrats hard enough against fiscal insanity?”

I am not a pensioner, I am not a business owner or the employee of a shut down business or industry. I have no skin in the game - yet. But I too will be swallowed under like everyone else if the economy is not resuscitated in pretty short order. I’ve said this a hundred times, if the American voter didn’t want to give the Democrats power they wouldn’t have elected so many of them. In an existential crisis, where every day matters, you play the hand you are given, not the your “political principles” say you should have. The engine - the heart - that pumps the blood to everyone living in this country has gone into cardiac arrest. “Principle conservatives” are what - 15%, or I can be Uber generous and say 20% of the people - a faction. If you want to promote your conservative principles in the middle of a raging fire, you (and I’m speaking of Massie here, not you Mr. Forrest) you are beyond foolish, you are completely out of touch with the mass of humanity around you.

Hear! Hear!

Pres Trump called out Massie because he was the one who was grandstanding at the expense of all of those who had worked to construct a bill that could be passed. Massie had the opportunity to get his views out in a variety of ways before the last hour, minute, of being finalized. His was not a patriotic thrust at socialism, liberalism, commie democratism. It was a stupid and insulting, to the President, futile act of self indulgence that undermined the President and the Republican party which needs to replace all RINOS in the coming election. If Pres Trump is expected to view Massie as a super conservative patriot, then Massie needs to get some sense and fire at the enemy when appropriate and useful. Nobody is under any illusion about the depths of depravity and anti Americanism of the commie democrat party leadership. Pres Trump is daily pelted with every insult and obstruction that the media and commie democrats throw at him. An elected Republican using this piece of legislation to grandstand his own priorities deserved the response he got from Pres Trump. No apology needed from the Pres.