Peter Sonski and Lauren Onak of the American Solidarity Party.
No. This is simple bullying and cannot be proven logically.
My main issues are these:
Both oppose #1 and Harris wants to legislate directly to the contrary of #1. Trump pays lip service to #2 but isn't interested in doing anything about it. Harris at least aspires to #3. Neither are interested in #4 (though Trump is projected to increase the deficit 2x that of Harris).
My lesser concerns:
Trump
Harris
That is the Trump campaign's project to downplay the worst violation of democratic norms since the Civil War. 140 cops were injured. One rioter was killed at the scene while trying to breach the House chamber, and four officers died of related issues in the aftermath, with two more officers committing suicide within 7 months. It was a conspiracy to cast doubt on the election using fraudulent electors and the three hours of mayhem watched by Trump on TV before he called it off almost succeeded in throwing the country into a constitutional crisis, if not for the bravery of Mike Pence, who, under threat from a knowingly violent mob sent by Trump with the words "if you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore," paid the price for doing what was right with his career. When Kevin McCarthy pleaded with Trump to call off the attack, Trump replied that maybe the rioters are just more upset about the stolen election than Kevin is. We have evidence it was planned weeks or months before the election ended, meaning the results dispute was made in bad faith. Go read a book.
The entire conservative media ecosystem's central priority is that you do not confront the reality of what happened on January 6th, because you cannot morally reconcile everything that transpired with awarding Trump another four years in office. It is not possible. All that can be done to secure your vote is to continue casting aspersions on the people who reported what actually happened.
The George Floyd protests, which were violent and widespread, had no impact on the continuity of our government and our instutions and so it's an apples-to-oranges comparison.
Yes, and Christians are not revolutionaries (Rom. 13, 1 Pet. 2:13-17, John 18:36). We are to live in subjection to the governing system we find ourselves in, and if we are to change it then we must abide by the rules. This is known as reformism or incrementalism. Leave the October Revolution or the Night of the Long Knives to the pagans.
God will deal with them (Rom. 14:12). Many of them believed things that would put them outside of what we know as the orthodox faith anyway. Our job is to be faithful now.
That may be the case but it's ultimately Trump's fault for telling them the lies that put them in the situation to be imprisoned. I hope for a just outcome to their cases.
You're right. We should probably defer to the views of the supremely impartial Tucker, Hannity, or Trump himself for the straight story on what happened. I don't think that disliking someone with objectively poor character ("thrice-divorced adulterer and passenger on Jeffrey Epstein's jet who was found liable for rape in a civil trial" is a factually true statement) is a disqualifier for assessing his crimes.
Liz Cheney voted with Trump 96% of the time. She was in the chamber looking after the wounded while the attack was underway, while sniveling coward Jim Jordan fed Trump phone updates and Josh Hawley further riled up the crowd with fist pumps. Liz paid for her willingness to stand up for what was right with her career. We need to have some deference to our institutions to understand at all things that happened beyond our personal knowledge, and the January 6th Commission provided an abundance of evidence over tens of hours as to what was actually going on.
When the results of an election are contested, we have a legal process to follow to dispute them. The Trump administration filed sixty lawsuits concerning the 2020 election results and won one that failed to overturn the result anyway. What is supposed to happen after that is the candidate accepts the election results and concedes for the unity of the country, as Hillary Clinton did, and as Al Gore did. If you have a problem with this process, ask your congressmen to change the laws.
October Surprises are nothing new and should be expected, and the Hunter Biden laptop became a huge story despite attempted supression because of the Streisand Effect. The votes still came in how they came in and there was no evidence of voter fraud significant enough to change any electoral votes, in spite of America's Mayor's disgusting lies.
I think if you want to talk substantively about the issues with immigration, your opening move should not be an eighth commandment violation that gets schools and hospitals shuttered and *refugees with legal status, not illegal immigrants* harrassed and threatened.
"[Immigrants are] poisoning the blood of the country" is an objectively Hitlerian statement.
Because it didn't actually result in fewer abortions; in fact it resulted in our state constitution protecting them explicitly. Killing Roe was only meant to be a first step in abolishing abortion, not ending up in this "states rights" 14th amendment situation that has weird echoes of Jim Crow and allows our most populus states to continue murdering children by the hundreds of thousands.
First off, I don't if I can help it. I try to read first-party sources if they are linked, like court documents or the testimony of eyewitnesses.
That being said, if you read nothing else linked in this document you need to be aware of the facts considering the Dominion Voting Machines case, the attempted defenses they tried to make, and the revealed actual views of the program hosts compared to what they say to the viewers. Yes, the mainstream media is biased because of the elite education and social circles that elite reporters and news executives operate in. It's unfortunate, but we can't report news without people and money. The answer to a legacy media beholden to neoliberal ideology is not quasi-independent news beholden to one political party, or in the case of the last decade, one man. You are a much, much better informed citizen reading the New York Times and being aware of its slant than you are reading gossip and pablum tailored to your own negative prior assumptions about Hollywood, Democratic politicians, immigrants, woke billionaires, etc. Open FoxNews.com. How many of the headlines you see have a real impact on the world, and how many of them are just cutting down people you've been primed to hate? Now do the same with CBS, NPR, ABC news. You'll see left-biased headlines, sure, but you'll also see international conflicts, disasters, legislative proceedings, and other headlines that at least make an attempt at serving the public interest.
No, this is not just two functionally equivalent sides with everyone picking the side that agrees with their views best. This is one side that uses the bias of the other side as an excuse to discard all pretense of ethical behavior or journalistic standards. As incredulous as you are about me "believing the media," I am just as incredulous about the idea that someone who thinks of himself as an arch-skeptic (the Democrats, the media, the academy, the government are all lying to you) would be so willing to take the word of proven liars over and over again. Washington Post says Trump lied 30573 times during his presidency. Let's say 75% of those were politically-motivated stretches to make him look like he was lying. That still means he lied in public over 7600 times in four years!
Your mother probably told you long ago that two wrongs don't make a right, and scripture agrees (Lu. 6:29, Rom. 12:19, Deu. 32:35). "When someone punches you, punch back twice as hard" is anti-biblical (Matt. 5:38-39). We are to forgive as we are forgiven (Eph. 4:32). So because the IRS under Obama, with no evidence he was personally involved, targeted certain groups for audits because of their conservative names, Trump has a free pass to corruptly order the IRS to audit his personal enemies and because Russiagate happened, he may start federal investigations against those who he disfavors. In 2020, he wanted to use the US military to put down protestors if not for the restraint of Bill Barr and others (see his book, along with John Bolton's) and has stated he desires to do so again, this time with lackeys and sycophants rather than responsible members of previous Republican administrations who won't even vote, much less work for him again. He's also overtly said he'll use the state to take revenge on Joe Biden and his administration for prosecuting him (for real things he did corruptly engage in, which is a point that his audience tends to dismiss when he promises this). He also repeatedly used the state to investigate journalists and lawmakers he disfavored.
I do not care if this looks like 'fighting back like a man' to you. Christians should not approve of corruption (Deu. 16:19, Is. 33:15) and using the state to advance your personal interests and take revenge on your enemies is corruption.
Peter Viereck says there are two labels in politics that consistently shift over time: "conservative" and "radical." A "conservative" would have been a Monarchist in revolution-era France. A "radical" 20 years ago might believe in extreme concentration of power in the executive, the majority of the responsibilities of government being accomplished through executive orders and favorable court appointments.
I used to think of myself as some kind of "true conservative," as opposed to a Trumpist, operating on an outdated notion of conservatism from the Reagan/Bush era. The "Dissident Right" is now a misnomer as it is the mainstream of the party. The truth is that Trump and his loyalists have single-handedly redefined conservatism by pushing all those who oppose him out of office and out of America's conservative party. We have to acknowledge when words change in meaning.
You may call me a "Neocon," "NeverTrumper," "Solidarist" (more on that later), or, if you must, "centrist" (though that word doesn't really convey anything).
In my estimation, there are four planks that define the conservative movement today. On all other issues, the parties have gotten closer together or flipped positions, if anything.
How many of those planks do I agree with? I strongly oppose #1 and neither agree nor disagree with #2 and #3, agreeing that there are some excesses that need dealt with but not opposing the topics on the whole. #4 requires me to hate my neighbor and ignore that many bad ideas spring from real problems and concerns rather than personal wickedness. It also requires me to flatten out the whole movement and lump progressive social democrats, neoliberals, teachers, union members like my brother, and public service employees like my mother-in-law in with communists and socialists, which is not intellectually honest.
I think we have some obligation to help those who come to us in need (Prov. 14:31 & 19:17; Ps. 82:3, Ja. 1:17) and I reject the idea that this is only for the church, both in the sense of only helping other Christians and that only the church itself should help the poor rather than the state, as we're called to participate in civil government as Christians in service of our neighbor (AC Art. XVI). Sometimes that looks like taking in immigrants and refugees and sometimes that looks like direct assistance to their distressed homes. Our neighbors explicitly include those of other people groups (Luk. 10:25-37). I also believe a secure border is necessary in service of our more immediate neighbors. Walls are spoken in a positive, secure sense in the Old Testament (Prov. 25:28, Mic. 7:11, Ps. 122:7) and I agree that dropping large amounts of migrants or refugees in one area is likely to result in culture clash, animosity and scapegoating, especially when crimes are committed (as they will inevitably be within any people group). Wisdom and discretion should be in play as far as who to take, when, how many, and where to send them. That's different than 'heck off we're full and your kind is a cancer on our society,' which seems to reflect current conservative attitudes about immigration.
Paul mentions at least ten women in his books that were teachers and/or coworkers in his ministry, and Phoebe was mentioned as a Deacon (Rom. 16:1-2), indicating Paul didn't oppose women holding some kind of a leadership role. Regarding race, the Apostles were sent to every tribe, tongue and nation (Matt. 28:19). Women and minorities who feel like an excluded underclass are more likely to protest and rebel, and they should have an equal opportunity to provide for their families in this time where families are more fractured than ever before. The modern neomasculine reactionary view that aims to put women in particular back in subservient roles has very weak to no scriptural support, even less popular support, and the coopting of biblical language and themes in this movement irritates me to no end. The white nationalist view has zero biblical support and most leaders in this movement admit it doesn't work well in a Christian context. Of course, I don't believe that someone's gender or race is the defining qualification for a leadership position, preferring merit and competence but not excluding diversity concerns altogether. The idea of women or minorities in leadership roles does not trouble me as I don't consider them deficient, and I oppose the gross abuse of 1 Tim. 2:12, 1 Cor. 11:3 and others to exclude women from leadership roles everywhere at all times rather than from teaching roles over a man during Christian fellowship or a woman's relation to her husband in marriage. I greatly oppose the "DEI" conservative social media rhetoric that attempts to find a woman or minority to blame whenever something goes wrong.
I disagree on a philosophical and theological level with transgenderism as a rebellion against the created order (Gen 5:2, Deut. 22:5 (though admitting this is OT law it's consistent), Col. 1:16, Rom. 1 generally) but they are my neighbors, as are plenty of other groups who believe in wrong things, and I think that the backlash against such people has been far too strong, often crossing over into outright hatred and insisting using anecdotal or no evidence that such people are going to molest children (Ex. 20:16). I support testosterone level requirements as a peaceable (Rom. 12:18) way to resolve the issue of transgender people in women's sports, and family bathrooms or private stalls to address concerns about the privacy of girls' locker rooms and restrooms. I think the Equality Act's mandates go too far in treading on religious conscience. I do think surgery and drugs should be limited to adults. I support limiting children's access to sexually explicit events and materials, LGBT, drag or otherwise.
Why is there a causal link here? What's stopping this from happening now? I'm in this to be salt and light, not to win an unwinnable culture war between two sides that I don't consider purely righteous and purely evil. Remember: the righteousness of Christ is God's alone to give (John 6:44), and righteousness before man is filthy rags (Is. 64:6). Conversely, transgender people still bear the Imago Dei (Gen 1:27) and are sinners in need of grace (Rom. 3:23). Abortion and transgenderism are fundamentally different: One involves destroying a life, one involves the marring of oneself. Do you think there's a way to un-open the transgenderism Pandora's Box and 'convert' all its adherents back to 'normal,' or wipe them out? Is that your job, or is your job to share the Gospel just as with any other unbelieving person? Do you think that Christians can avoid hardship if the Right retains cultural power, or that by supressing outward expressions of sin God will bless the country? Has God calls you to that task? Who among you, by owning the libs, can add a single hour to his life?
Lutherans are a two-kingdom people, refusing to mix the left-hand kingdom of the state with the right-hand kingdom of the church (AC XXVII:12). God is over all (Eph. 4:6), and we certainly bring our religious beliefs to bear on civic life, but a confessional Christian state in modern-day America, as ridiculously far-fetched as it is, is going to result in the crappiest, dumbest megachurch version of Christianity in power over the state, the likes of Kenneth Copeland or Joel Osteen. It's complete nonsense, demonstrates incredible ignorance of the reasons people fled to this country in the first place, and is headed by slimy grifters like Nick Fuentes, Andrew Torba and Stephen Wolfe. Love your neighbors as yourselves; don't wield the sword against them for believing different things than you do.
Nationalism is like progressivism in that it's a Hegelian view (Volksgeist) of the ascendance of a particular people to greatness and self-determination by seizing control of the state. It really can't be extracted from right-wing populism, the idea of the people's will vs the illegitimate elites, which I hate and is class conflict by another name. I prefer localism very much to nationalism. This is different from saying I don't find nations and borders useful. They are.
I truly believe Trump is corrupting the church. Under Trump's kingship of American Christianity, political attitudes, conspiracy theories and opinions are being elevated to the level of doctrine. The pulpit is becoming a place to talk in an entertaining fashion about the issues of the day rather than to call hearers to repentance and faith. Patriotism is being preached, the Constitution is being elevated to scripture, and America is being exalted as God's chosen means to bring about the new Israel rather than the pit of debauchery and greed that we should know it to be. (For the best example of that as well as a great modern illustration of the money changers at the temple, see the Lee Greenwood Bible, which is now being purchased by the state of Oklahoma as the only Bible to meet their new public school Bible requirements, in a shameless play to use state funds to enrich Trump and curry favor with him.) Sin, hypocrisy, cruelty, and especially lies are being excused because the laity sees it in leadership. Love of neighbor is being discarded in exchange for fear of the other. Core concerns like life are devalued for convenience's sake. Christendom will survive the collapse of America, but the souls that exchange the love of Christ for the idolatry of temporal political power may never be recovered.
I have special contempt for Charlie Kirk and others from the pundit class who make attempts to MAGAfy the church directly rather than just preaching to its people on days that aren't Sunday.
Secular Progressives are basically the same people they were in 2015, with all of their faults that we've heard a thousand times. Conservative Christians have changed deeply because the birther fringe has overtaken the responsible mainstream, and fully obscured the distinction between orthodox belief and temporal politics. "For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." (2 Tim 4:3)
There are no careful and methodical views espoused on free speech by either party anymore; it's pretty much all hypocritical tribal politics. Conservatives are very familiar with the dialectic around "hate speech" and "misinformation" coming from the left, but are quick to call for bans when offensive things are said about people they like. (Corey Compatore is the most recent example I can think of.) I do think the Biden administration was out of line to call for certain vaccine skeptics to be banned from Twitter. I also think Elon would ban someone in a heartbeat if the Trump administration asked him to do so, and more than that, Trump has repeatedly called for critics to lose their broadcast licenses or be jailed. I see both sides as saying concerning things but neither having a very clear path to their desires.
[Conservatives continue here]Women can't be drafted so they don't get an opinion on when we go to war. You're not married so you don't get an opinion on marriage laws. You're not a teacher so you don't get an opinion on education laws. This line of argumentation cannot be consistently applied. My concern is the protection of the lives of the most defenseless among us.
In my opinion, yes, but in the vast, vast, vast majority of the situations you're analogizing, there is a consensual act that happens prior to the attachment and therefore a moral duty to the person resulting from that consensual act. People of good faith can disagree about the moral deontology of those fringe situations that do not involve consent.
I'm immune to this one, sorry.
I can't have a federal abortion act on my conscience. Sorry.
I have concerns about the ill treatment of immigrants but I don't think he cares enough to persecute other groups.
You didn't read it and neither did I, and Trump said he's not beholden to it anyway.
I don't believe in the Hegelian notion of progress, where humanity is overall trending towards greater and greater achievement, mastery over nature, equality, and justice. History is cyclical, cycling between abundance and deprivation, ease and brutality, with each phase bringing its own challenges. Man, as a religious being, needs to believe in something, and so in the case of the progressive movement's discarding of God, in its place we have a belief in the triumph of man's will over his environment and natural limits. The collective will, known as "Democracy" in the progressive movement, is the vehicle that is believed will deliver this triumph.
I believe God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and the humanity who bears His image will continue to be short-sighted, frail, corruptable, and selfish because of original sin (Rom. 5:12). Nearly every step forward we make is actually a tradeoff. We may have iPhones, but we've given up a large amount of human relations in daily life because of that 'progress.' Food is more convenient and requires less effort to procure than ever before, but it's killing us and making us sick.
Capitalism gets faint praise from me, better than all other systems that have existed historically, though I agree with more moderate progressives that its excesses must be curtailed for it to function properly.
I oppose the progressive ideological hegemony that exists on most college campuses, newsrooms, and entertainment media companies, much preferring a true inclusion of different perspectives to mirror hegemonies like Liberty University and Fox News. I am toying with the idea of supporting the reintroduction of the Fairness Doctrine, which had many flaws and is unworkable in the internet context but kept American political discourse more civil and less polarized.
An initially well-meaning reaction to an industrial revolution culture of overworked men that routinely came home drunk and beat their wives. Today it is mostly defined by its excesses (just look at the misandrists occupying any college campus protest for living examples), but much of the reaction to feminism is equally as terrible as those excesses (MRAs, MGTOWs, incels, Biblical Patriarchalists, whatever Andrew Tate and Pearl Davis are).
That all depends on how loosely you're using the word. He's not smart enough to have read Nietzche, Evola or Gentile. I don't believe he has plans to reform society into the cult of the state. I do think his immigration rhetoric has serious echoes of fascist regimes of the past. He definitely believes in the Divine Right of Kings (only applicable to himself, of course), so maybe he'd be better described as a monarchist.
If I'm honest with myself I believe Harris winning will be worse in the short term but better in the long term. Trump will be the opposite.
The consequences of a Harris win will be grave, especially a narrow one. Trump and the RNC have already hired an army of lawyers to contest election results should the time come. January 6th proved that he is willing to at least indirectly call for violence if the election doesn't go his way, and the online right is gearing up for a rebellion country-wide. All he has to do is give the order and there will be chaos at the Capitol again, and at statehouses around the country. Occupations of statehouses are possible. Counts may be disrupted by violence. It will take some time for the dust to settle and Republican lawmakers will be too cowardly to oppose the violence by virtue of the fact that they still have jobs. I think we will recover but there is an outside chance of a destabilizing outcome that throws the federal government into crisis, making us vulnerable to our enemies. If this all settles down and Harris makes it into office, we'll likely continue to struggle with high prices and there is a threat of federal abortion legislation, but our containment strategy in Ukraine will continue and our allies in Europe will get more support. Harris will likely call on Bibi for an exit strategy in Gaza and Lebanon. There will be a semblance of stability and continuity.
A Trump win may agitate Antifa and other left-aligned groups to general mayhem around the country. There will be stores broken into and cars overturned. It will be over in a couple days and possibly repeated at inauguration day. Regrettable for sure but unlikely to bring on a constitutional crisis. Trump will retake office and enact his agenda on schedule. Immigrant communities will be terrorized as thousands of people are hauled off to detainment centers, Ukraine will be abandoned to Russia, Israel will get even more money for their rape and torture camps and settlement expansions, and Iran, North Korea, and China will be emboldened by Trump's desire for their affections. Power will continue to coalesce in the executive to better fit Trump's desired role of king under the "energetic executive" pretense. The deficit and debt will accelerate even faster than in the so-called "big government" party. Most of the Republican party's best and brightest will no longer work for him, leaving him to appoint lackeys and loyalists that are unfit for cabinet positions. Trump will seek to stay in power beyond his term though he is unlikely to succeed or receive much support, as his aging will rapidly advance. The 'baby Trumps' coming up behind him will probably ape much of his behavior to win votes.
A very narrow win for Kamala would be the worst outcome in terms of potential for instability, violence, and disruption, and that does seem very possible.
The ASP, in my view, is a socially center right-leaning and fiscally center left-leaning party. I do think the ASP is the closest representation of my views among existing American political parties. They support a federal abortion ban, a modest social welfare system, oppose the death penalty (for practical reasons), support current gun laws, want to provide incentives to build families, support right-to-repair, support homeschooling and charter schools, oppose recreational drug use, support religious liberty, support free speech, support loosening patents and copyrights, oppose corporate monopolies, oppose usury, support trade unions and labor unions, oppose outsourcing, support legal immigration, support a "Just War Theory" foreign policy, support creation care, and support green energy while promising to compensate those that suffer loss as a result of the transition. I support most of these positions.
Christian Democracy was born from postwar reconstruction Germany. It's a centrist ideology emphasizing social justice (in the Roman Catholic sense), subsidiarity (localism), and sphere sovereignty (separation of the church, state and home). In the European context, Christian Democrats are seen as right of the Social Democrats (similar to Democrats, mostly) and to the left of the Classical Liberals (similar to older-style Republicans). Christian Democrats try to only intervene in markets insofar as ensuring the proper functioning of markets and the welfare of the poor. The foundational texts for Christian Democracy are mostly Papal Encyclicals and the works of Abraham Kuyper. (Yes, Catholics and Calvinists get things right sometimes.)
If you want to learn about Distributism read The Servile State by Hillare Belloc. TL;DR the widest distribution of property (land) leads to the freest people *and* the freest markets. It also makes way for a return to something like the guild system, which will create greater worker freedom and independence.
It can just as easily be argued a vote in Ohio is a pointless protest. Trump is going to win here by 10 points. I believe in growing the movement and record numbers of people voting for the movement allows for greater aspirations down the road for the ASP. It could easily become as significant as the Libertarians or the Greens in their ability to shift the major parties' priorities for fear of protest votes should Trump continue to shift Republicans away from traditional conservative social priorities.
I have no opinions of Chase Oliver and the only thing I know about him is that he is gay. I voted for Gary Johnson in 2012. I'm not hostile to Libertarians but I've little agreement with their distinctives: I'm against recreational drugs, for reasonable regulations that protect workers and consumers, and think the existence of the state itself is good rather than a necessary evil (or pure evil, in the case of more extreme libertarians such as Anarcho-Capitalists) (AC Art. XVI:5).
Jill is a hippie kook similar to Marianne Williamson who has known ties to the Russians. I have little agreement with her. The Green Party just seems to be a foil for the Democratic Party's left flank, a place to run if you don't find them progressive enough in a given year.
She's improved a ton rhetorically since 2020. Her campaign turn from the doom message of the Biden campaign to the 'Morning in America' Reaganite optimism was a very smart move. Her flagship issue, federally-protected abortions, I oppose greatly.
A slimy, two-faced hypocritical snake willing to say anything to get Trump elected. Yes, there is a difference between Kamala flip-flopping on fracking and Vance calling Trump "America's Hitler" and agreeing to be his VP. You don't spend years branding yourself as a true Christian intellectual anti-abortion warrior and then abandon the cause on Trump's orders while keeping your dignity intact.
No, this is not strategic triangulation so we can get wins later on abortion. Social conservatives were shut out of the RNC and anti-abortion language was removed from the platform all while Vance condescendingly ensured we would have a "seat at the table" and pretending that the goal was sending abortion back to the states all along rather than a philosophical conviction that the unborn are people. The cause is being abandoned, permanently, and Vance is leading the way.
"Wow, I wish you had that kind of energy for opposing Kamala!" The world is going to be the world. Vance is a traitor.
I don't really have any strong feelings beyond annoyance at his claiming of Lutheranism without qualifying that he's part of the pointless ecumenically-minded progressive Rotary Club ELCA. His abortion policies are barbaric and have resulted in the deaths of 8 born-alive children.
If you're reading this, just know I respect your decision to vote however you're going to vote this year, as there are good reasons to take either side, and if we're friends now, we'll still be friends afterward. I felt this document was just something I needed to get out of my system to explain where I'm at this year politically.