All the smart conservatives are now saying it

Here’s what I wrote in 2017:

But he also seems like the sort of guy who will try to bring down the Republican Party if they don’t support him. Even during the campaign, it was obvious that the GOP had a tiger by the tail. If they had stiffed him at the convention he would have told his supporters to not vote for the GOP nominee.

I can’t wait to see Trump’s response if the GOP nominates DeSantis in 2024. A third party bid?

If you want to read what the National Review will be saying a few years from now, read TheMoneyIllusion today.


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28 Responses to “All the smart conservatives are now saying it”

  1. Gravatar of Ricardo Ricardo
    11. November 2022 at 14:20

    Again, Sumner is inverting reality.

    Just last year, he told us DeSantis was a “threat to democracy” because he kept Florida open during the pandemic (a line that he echoed from CNN) and that not only was DeSantis killing millions of people (another CNN quote), but that people who voted for either Trump or DeSantis, or Cruz, or any other Republican are “cultists” and “threats to democracy.”

    Yet, now he is trying to claim that DeSantis is a good choice for “smart conservatives.” DeSantis is either a threat to democracy, or he isn’t. He cannot be both.

    Like most on the left, there is no logical coherency. There is only biased posts that show a lack of breadth and depth on political policy issues, like his bizarre claim that the Federal government must involve itself in abortion laws (for what purpose exactly?), which he then follows with hateful psychotic incoherent ramblings that label everyone conspiracy theorists and hard right Nazi’s. He even told us the Supreme Court needed packing, because he was so afraid that people in Alabama might be able to choose their own abortion laws. In other words, he wanted to destroy the backbone of the legal system so that he could crush Alabama Christians.

    And Sumner is wrong a lot! I mean, my goodness. Just yesterday, he told us that democrats had taken the Senate because of Trump, in a barely legible post, which he no doubt wrote in a weird fit of glee (with haste) after he thought his Kings and Queens had won, then immediately backtracked when commenters pointed out that the votes were still being tabulated.

    Keep in mind he was also wrong about inflation, about Donbas, about Trump being a fascist, about BLM who he supported, about conservatives being in a cult, about Putin taking over the world, and about TikTok, but there is one thing he’s correct about:

    We do live in a third world country.

    So if Sumner makes a prediction, choose the opposite. You’ll win big. Because like most radical leftists, his policy proposals and overall logic can be described as psychopathic.

  2. Gravatar of George George
    11. November 2022 at 15:05

    The old GOP is dead.

    The new GOP is now MAGA.

    Trump remade the whole party and Democrats, RINOs, fake news, radical left, they’re all going crazy, LOL.

    How could an ‘outsider’ have done this?

    With the entire media against him?
    With multiple sham impeachments, sham attacks, from the Democrat Party?
    With attacks from within the GOP?

    HOW IS TRUMP ALWAYS 5 MOVES AHEAD?

    Anons know.

    Watch this short clip:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BREos5woyXc

    Then watch this post from Trump from this morning (look closely):
    https://i.imgur.com/lCE4UuD.png

    The reason Trump is always 5 moves ahead is because he has supporting him the world’s most advanced and sophisticated INTELLIGENCE group. Q clearance = Highest security clearance.

    Patriots who always knew about the silent war are helping Trump take down the NWO.

  3. Gravatar of Garrett Garrett
    11. November 2022 at 16:39

    Ricardo link to where he said DeSantis was a “threat to democracy”

  4. Gravatar of Sara Sara
    11. November 2022 at 18:07

    He has every right to launch a third party bid, or to establish his own party.

    And there is nothing wrong with attempting to tear down the uniparty establishment, assuming it’s done at the ballot box.

    Folks, America was built on the premise that you can stand up and fight for your beliefs, create your own party, run on your own ticket, without being arrested, investigated, harrassed (e.g., biden’s threats to elon) or worry about having your rights being taken away under the pretext of emergency because some executive thinks you are a threat, or some ministry of truth identifies you as minformation because you disagree with the state opinion about vaccines or otherwise.

    But the first step is not to run into the congressional buildings with costumes on while unarmed, which is just buffoonery: rather, the first step is to simply secede, and if Washington tries to stop it, then to defend yourself and your state and community from their tyrannical imposition.

    But that’s still a few years away.

    I now predict a civil war within the next decade, simply because the radical policies proposed by the left are so unjust that they cannot be law at all.

    To create global instutions that impose their will, like a one world NATO, with no oversight, no accountability, essentially a fuedalistic plutocracy or a world empire under the banner of stakeholderism with one rule system, predicated upon a set of cultural precepts, as outlined by the lunatic Schwab as he “reimagines” the world is actually the height of insanity, and we cannot permit future generations to live under that radical left centralization manifesting itself through corporate stakeholdersim (modern day feudalism).

    And it’s quite scary that Sumner is parroting Schwab and the radicals, because I thought he had more sense than that. Sumner said “people have lost trust in the elites…” which is a direct quote from the WEF forum.

    It’s like dude…seriously? Wait a minute here. Who the hell is elite? You? C’mon, don’t make me laugh too hard now.

    There was a time in America where everyone would have stuck their middle finger up to anyone else calling themselves “elite.” DeSantis is one of those guys, as is Trump. I like both.

    In fact, I don’t even think King George was so narcissitic as to call himself “elite.” Even that fat piece of junk had more humility than someone like Schwab (btw, why are fat people always evil?). I digress, but hell, even Donald Trump, who sometimes refers to himself in the third person doesn’t call himself “Elite.”

    That’s got to be another level of narccissim.

  5. Gravatar of Edward Edward
    11. November 2022 at 18:42

    He won’t lose to DeSantis.

    You are just caught up in all the media hysteria after your preferred party won the election, which is normal, but it’s not the reality on the ground. And people like Jeb Bush have no power in the party anymore, nor do Fox talking heads, so they can talk all day but in the end Trump is still the guy.

    It doesn’t matter who wins the election in 2024, the establishment figures will continue to fall on both sides of the aisle. You’ll see more of the AOC’s winning, too.

  6. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    11. November 2022 at 22:10

    Edward, LOL, another MAGA moron who can’t read. Where did I even imply that DeSantis would beat Trump?

  7. Gravatar of John S John S
    12. November 2022 at 06:25

    ssumner,

    What’s your view on non-partisan open primaries + Top 4/5 general elections? After several recent cases (Murkowski-Tshibaka, Peltola-Palin-Begich), it seems that the combo of open primaries + Top 4/5 + ranked choice runoffs is much more potent than RCV alone.

    Consider Warnock-Walker in GA. Although Warnock is favored to win the runoff (77% on PredictIt), in terms of expected value, GA came uncomfortably close to electing a horrible candidate (Walker only needed 58,300 more votes, or a swing of 1.48% of total votes, to have won outright). RCV can’t influence the outcome very much if there are only two major candidates to choose from in the general.

    I think it’s likely that many of the 1.9M+ GA voters who picked Walker did so primarily due to party loyalty rather than Walker’s sterling character. However, as the Peltola-Palin-Begich special election in August showed, GOP voters can be quite reasonable when faced with a range of options rather than an “us-vs-them” showdown.

    In a non-partisan open primary, there’s a good chance that GA Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver would have made the official final 4/5 list and gotten a significant boost in name recognition and funding. (I know you’re skeptical of the LP nowadays, but at least Oliver is pro-choice, pro-weed legalization, and pro-immigration.) And at least one other GOP candidate would have made the cut, causing the Walker campaign to expend resources fighting off that challenger rather than concentrating on Warnock.

    The Top 4/5 system would have a similar moderating effect on the left in blue-state races as well. This seems like an effective (and feasible) reform to reduce extremism in the US.

  8. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    12. November 2022 at 08:18

    John, Those proposals make sense to me, but you’ve studied the issue much more than I have.

  9. Gravatar of John S John S
    12. November 2022 at 14:11

    Well if you get the time, I hope you will look into and consider the Final-Five (i.e. Top 4/5) Voting proposal. It’s a pretty simple system, and unlike other potential reforms which have been debated in the blogosphere — such as eliminating the Electoral College or instituting a parliamentary system in the US — it’s actually achievable in the short-term.

    (In fact, it already has been achieved in Alaska, it’s halfway there in Nevada, and Maine has implemented RCV.)

    Btw, you mentioned in the other thread that you favor RCV. However, 44 states have “sore loser” laws which explicitly prohibit primary election losers from participating in the general election and thus greatly limit the moderating effect that RCV can exercise on extremist candidates.

    (For example, if Liz Cheney had lost to her primary opponent by just one vote, she would still be ineligible to compete as a write-in or independent in the general due to Wyoming’s sore loser law which states: “An unsuccessful candidate for office at a primary election, whose name is printed on any party ballot, may not seek nomination by petition for the same office at the next general election.”)

    https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/2014/title-22/chapter-5/article-3/section-22-5-302/

    This isn’t a hypothetical scenario; in 2010, Delaware Rep. and fmr Gov. Mike Castle (a moderate Republican) narrowly lost the GOP Senate Primary to a Tea Party-backed candidate, even though he was heavily favored against the Dem candidate in the general. (Castle was ineligible to continue due to the sore loser law, and Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party candidate, lost in a landslide in the general.)

    So unless sore loser laws are repealed in many of those 44 states, RCV alone would have almost no effect on reducing political polarization. Top 4/5 + RCV (like Alaska) seems like the only effective path forward.

  10. Gravatar of steve steve
    12. November 2022 at 15:47

    I cant find the quote where CNN said DeSantis was killing millions.

    “btw, why are fat people always evil?”

    Trump?

    Steve

  11. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    13. November 2022 at 05:34

    I forgot about Trump as 3rd party possibility. I assume that would mean the Dem candidate would win. I am trying to think of how one can counter that outcome. I cannot.

    PS. It looks like GOP might not even win the House this year—-50-50? When I mentioned a week ago that GOP polls overstated their probability of winning Scott countered that before I write a comment I should know what I am talking about. He believed that the GOP were not overstated in polls.

    He probably still thinks that.

    As far as the final results are concerned —-it is possible that Walker can win (if DeSantis aggressively supports him). Why would he do that? Because the Senate will be destroyed if he doesn’t win. It would be another 50/50 with Manchin as a swing vote. GOP could win house by 3 or lose by 3.

    Why doesn’t anyone not care we we don’t know the election results yet? Why is it assumed that late write in ballots (as long as they are “postmarked” by Election Day—what a joke) are perfectly okay? Scott thinks it is okay—-but a normal thinking person knows it is not ok. Why? Because the counters know the amount of votes they need.

    As I have said a few times in the past—-when are the GOP going to start encouraging write in votes ——so they can compete on an equal footing?

    Of course write-in/mail-in should be disallowed. Who cares? Scott said we are less Banana Republic then he thought. That’s pretty funny.

  12. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    13. November 2022 at 08:35

    Michael, Not sure what’s funnier, that you still don’t know that the polls predicted a 50-50 senate, or that you have bought into the election conspiracy nuttiness. Thank God the voters rejected people like you this year.

  13. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    13. November 2022 at 12:34

    Michael Rulle,

    If you’re being logical, you shouldn’t assume a problem with vote counting unless you actually have evidence. Why not volunteer to be a poll worker during the next cycle and see how elections are actually conducted? If you understood the process, you’d understand that it would be very, very difficult to steal an election in the US. You do understand that both parties have observers at all polling locations, right? They watch votes being counted. And we have courts to resolve election disputes.

    I’ve mailed in ballots in many elections. There’s nothing suspicious at all about the process, which is very standard here in Florida, and obviously does not help Democrats win much, considering that Republicans have dominated this state for decades.

  14. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    13. November 2022 at 17:57

    @Michael S:

    “If you’re being logical” LOL. This is the legacy of Trump. Before 2020 there weren’t massive waves of people thinking elections weren’t secure. No one was complaining about mail in ballots. People lost elections and conceded after losing.

    Now this. Trump shits on the Constitution and now we have this uncomfortably large group of idiots who can’t conceive that their side sometimes loses. THAT’S the bananas in our republic, and it’s going to linger even after Trump is gone. What a loathsome piece of crap that man is.

  15. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    14. November 2022 at 04:42

    What is with Scott and his inability to read about forecasts. 538 gave GOP 59% chance of winning Senate. RCP forecast a 3 win victory for GOP in Senate.

    As it relates to mail-in ballots I really think you are being willful and there is no way you are that stupid. There is no way you believe our current method is good. The following quote is pretty good on why France got rid of mail-ins

    “France allowed mail-in voting from 1958 to 1975. It was replaced by proxy voting by law 75-1239 in December 1975. The reasons given at the time to get rid of mail-in voting are the same reasons not to reintroduce it today, namely, that it can and did permit significant fraud.

    Electoral fraud is difficult to quantify, mostly because all that can be reliably quantified is detected fraud. The political discourse on electoral fraud is often motivated by direct interest more than demonstrated observation. (Nathalie Dompnier. La mesure des fraudes électorales : difficultés méthodologiques et enjeux politiques. In Histoire & Mesure, XXII – 1 | 2007, p. 123–144.) (Not that this is surprising when it comes to politics.) So it is difficult to evaluate the precise impact of fraud. However its possibility and its existence are well-established.”

    M Sandler does not understand logic——Did you ever study probability? You probably got A’s —-and never understood a thing.

  16. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    14. November 2022 at 07:43

    Michael Rulle,

    Do you have evidence of voter fraud in the US national elections that was significant enough to change the outcome of an election? Simple question.

  17. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    14. November 2022 at 07:47

    Michael Rulle,

    By the way, in your statement:

    “538 gave GOP 59% chance of winning Senate.” Obviously, 538’s prediction could have been flawless, with a relatively high probability that Democrats would win the Senate, though less likely than not. How well do you understand probabilities?

  18. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    14. November 2022 at 11:34

    Michael Rulle, When I think of all the time I’ve spent responding to your idiocy

  19. Gravatar of Bob Bob
    14. November 2022 at 12:15

    Scott, remember when the Republican Party was fighting tooth and nail to force states to adopt electronic voting machines while insisting that a paper trail was completely unnecessary?

    Or every effort they made to stop the implementation of voter ID numbers?

    Or any attempt to establish a professionalized election administration?

    Or any effort to make election day a national holiday, which would make it much easier to hire poll workers and watchers?

    No, now it’s “the absence of evidence for electoral fraud is actually evidence that IT’S TOO STEALTHY TO DETECT!” Their obnoxious proclamations of fraud rise as their policies become more blatantly unpopular and unrepresentative. For years, they opposed every effort to make voting more accessible and more accountable.

  20. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    15. November 2022 at 06:05

    Scott——I am quite willing to be called out as stupid——but you never respond to my statements. You keep ignoring my references to RCP and 538 forecasts. You did not respond to why write-ins are a plausible real problem—-I could show you countless essays on the “Covid “ voting methods and even provided a simple quote you could respond to. Instead you think I am an idiot. I assume you enjoy gaslighting—-again, I do not believe you are that stupid.

    But maybe you are—-

  21. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    15. November 2022 at 06:28

    @m Sandler

    Scott has insisted that the election results were consistent with the forecasts ——actually he said the forecasts were matched by the results. They were not.

    (Of course the forecasts, 538, are probabilistic—-no one denies that—they could be wrong—-but usually, the GOP is understated—this time they were not. That was my original comment to which he gaslighted me by saying I don’t know anything about the forecasts.)

    My MAIN point is our election methods “invented by Covid” are prone to fraud. Read my comment more carefully on France (I could pick 30 other countries). Like actually read it. Do you agree with our voting methods?

    Scott NEVER responds to my statements—-other than thru silly insults

    I am amazed I try to take him seriously—-but I will keep doing so—-until he bores me to death.

  22. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    15. November 2022 at 07:42

    Michael Rulle,

    Again:

    Do you have evidence of voter fraud in the US national elections that was significant enough to change the outcome of an election? Simple question.

  23. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    15. November 2022 at 07:57

    Bob, Politics has always been that way, hasn’t it? There are no ethics, winning is all that matters.

    Michael, You said:

    “Scott has insisted that the election results were consistent with the forecasts”

    That’s a lie. The forecasts of a red wave were obviously wrong. I said the polls were accurate, and everyone who knows anything about politics agrees that the polls were very accurate. You are obviously someone who knows nothing about politics.

  24. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    16. November 2022 at 03:28

    Scott—now I am not only an idiot but a liar.

    I will check your comment. We may be talking about different things ——and I was not talking about pols and their dumbass red wave. I was and am specifically discussing the two polls I follow most—Nate Silver and RealClearPolitics.

    As far as “knowing nothing about politics”——I have literally follo

  25. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    16. November 2022 at 04:52

    PS—-continuation.——I know more about politics than you know about monetary policy.

    I grew up in a political family. I studied political science with a BA, MA, and M.Phil (Hobart, William and Mary, Columbia). I was elected to the student Senate as an undergrad.

    “I,followed politics since I was 10—as my father was a Rockefeller supporter who offered him to lobby for the position as Superintendent of the New York state insurance department. (I also read all the “making of a president” books including Kennedy when I was 11) This was when Rockefeller ran the the NYS Constitutional commission (‘56-58). When my father realized that Frank Costello was indirectly involved in everything political—including insurance—-he walked away (Costello’s run ended in 57 when they tried to assassinate him).

    I was friends with The Prudenti family ——-who controlled Suffolk County NY in the 70s and 80s-and was a very close friend of Gail Prudenti who became chief administrative judge of NY (now,Dean of Hofstra Law).

    Her uncle ran the Suffolk county GOP in the 70s-80s—-her father —a good guy—was always rumored to be mob related—-which made no sense to me—-but my family who are from Suffolk insists it was true.

    My cousin ran the money raising operation in the 2010s for Suffolk county commissioner Steve Bellone. He says local politics are totally corrupt. He quit—-he knew it was a racket and left. My former colleague from Lehman was hired as a consultant in the 2010s for Nassau County executive Mangano. He could not believe what he saw. He quit. Mangano is now in jail with his wife.

    I meet with the Fed from time to time. I would meet with Bush advisors several times a year. The Southern California GOP wanted me to to be a a public speaker at their fund raisers—-I did a few—-their top fund raiser offered me a position to “run her company” if I came out there to do this. I knew I was not going to run her company——but that would be my title and I would get paid——to be a promoter. Did not sound kosher to me.

    So you know no nothing about me. You think polls are politics. I will repeat my comment ——-RCP had forecast a 3 win pick-up in the Senate and a minimum of a 14 seat pick-up in House. 538 had a 59% probability that GOP would win Senate (we can never know if 538 makes sense except over a long period of time). They had a 90% probability the GOP would win the House—-GOP seems like it will eke it out.

    Just how was RCP and 538 “very accurate” ——-you are the know nothing. Again, your “everyone knows” line is typical. Tell me how the polls were accurate. I really am open to it——but not because “everyone knows”

  26. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    16. November 2022 at 05:05

    PS—do not know if the 2 comment rules apply to response requests from other commenters.

    M. Sandler

    Of course I do not have evidence of fraud——-just as you have no evidence for no fraud. You cannot prove a negative of course, but lack of evidence of specific fraud is not evidence of no fraud.

    —-AGAIN, my point is this current method of voting dominated by mail-ins, different rules for different states, increases the probability of fraud. Which is why few other democracies use this method——and I do not believe you think this method is the one we should use.

    I want US before Covid —-or Canada today. Do you?

  27. Gravatar of Michael Sandifer Michael Sandifer
    17. November 2022 at 07:53

    Michael Rulle,

    Okay, so you have no evidence of fraud. Then what, a priori, is your concern about mailed in ballots, when they’ve been used for decades, at least, in many places, with no significant fraud?

  28. Gravatar of Klaus Klaus
    17. November 2022 at 22:28

    I vote Michael Sandifer’s comment the most ignorant head in the sand comment in the history of this blog.

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