Nikki Haley said she would be inclined to pardon Trump. Also said transgenderism causes suicidal ideation in CIS girls. I agree that she's a moderate in today's climate, but that's less a...
Nikki Haley said she would be inclined to pardon Trump. Also said transgenderism causes suicidal ideation in CIS girls.
I agree that she's a moderate in today's climate, but that's less a compliment to Haley and more an indication of how far off the deep end conservatives have gone.
On the upside, she acknowledged that if the accusations are true it would be a serious problem. If you forced me to really play devil's advocate, I could see the anxiety behind putting Trump...
On the upside, she acknowledged that if the accusations are true it would be a serious problem.
If you forced me to really play devil's advocate, I could see the anxiety behind putting Trump behind bars from a extremely risk-averse perspective. It's hard to say how the American public might react and, since power within the American political system is quite decentralized compared to most other modern countries, we might run into a real crisis if some sizeable minority of Americans goes ballistic or abandons all faith in the legal system. That being said, it's a big stretch and I think Ford truly planted a poisonous seed about our attitudes toward the office of the presidency.
Why are you blaming Ford? I don't really know enough, but I would blame Nixon, the most morally corrupt president America ever had (until Trump) who, I think, is the seed for a lot of the fascist...
Why are you blaming Ford?
I don't really know enough, but I would blame Nixon, the most morally corrupt president America ever had (until Trump) who, I think, is the seed for a lot of the fascist leaning in the republican party today.
I mean, it made clear that the president is beyond the law. It becomes difficult to maintain any rigorous moral standard in politics after that. Beyond that, it did not achieve its aim of...
I mean, it made clear that the president is beyond the law. It becomes difficult to maintain any rigorous moral standard in politics after that. Beyond that, it did not achieve its aim of "healing" the country. The lack of any meaningful closure on the issue had the exact opposite effect.
Can I ask why you're capitalizing "cis"? Or is it just autocorrect shenanigans? It's something I mostly see from anti-trans folks who treat "cis" as a slur or insult so I wanted to call it to your...
Can I ask why you're capitalizing "cis"? Or is it just autocorrect shenanigans? It's something I mostly see from anti-trans folks who treat "cis" as a slur or insult so I wanted to call it to your attention and also make sure I'm not missing something!
Based on context I think it was for emphasis -- the standard talking point is that "transgenderism" causes suicidal ideation in trans kids, but she's claiming it causes it for cis girls.
Based on context I think it was for emphasis -- the standard talking point is that "transgenderism" causes suicidal ideation in trans kids, but she's claiming it causes it for cis girls.
I absolutely hoped so, but I was also wondering if I was missing other context. I've seen transphobic people use it, and others use it to mock the TERFs and it felt worth mentioning while not...
I absolutely hoped so, but I was also wondering if I was missing other context. I've seen transphobic people use it, and others use it to mock the TERFs and it felt worth mentioning while not assuming negative intentions
I've honestly never seen TERFs use cis, with or without capitals, but I haven't had to see them talk about shit since I quit Twitter (I stg so many trans folks of Twitter need to learn not to...
I've honestly never seen TERFs use cis, with or without capitals, but I haven't had to see them talk about shit since I quit Twitter (I stg so many trans folks of Twitter need to learn not to quote tweet their BS). Luckily I haven't encountered any TERFs on tildes so far. The population seems to be mostly properly woke people re: trans issues mixed with your standard "vaguely ignorant but means well" cis people.
It's mostly been used by folks who objected to being called "cis" or called "cis" a slur. I did not expect to find the OC out to be a secret transphobe or anything but also wouldn't want someone unaware to accidentally be sending that vibe out either!
My experience has been much the same here with at least one person who I'd say has probably listened to too much of the rhetoric around "protecting" kids from gender stuff
this seems like shaky ground to criticize from. Haley was Trump's ambassador to the UN for 2 years. that's her only foreign policy experience. as Governor of South Carolina, she couldn't even see...
Haley dismantled Ramaswamy on foreign policy. It was not only her contemptuous put-down: “You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.”
this seems like shaky ground to criticize from. Haley was Trump's ambassador to the UN for 2 years. that's her only foreign policy experience. as Governor of South Carolina, she couldn't even see Russia from her house!
Similarly on abortion, many of her opponents took the issue as a chance to perform self-righteous bluster — to make the issue about themselves. She was the only one who acknowledged the complexity of the issue, who tried to humanize people caught in horrible situations, who acknowledged that the absolutist position is politically unsustainable.
this laundering of far-right conservative views into "moderate" ones is something we can always rely on David Brooks for.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Wednesday pledged to sign a federal ban on abortion but noted that passing one would be highly unlikely without more Republicans in Congress.
...
Introducing Haley at a “Women for Nikki” event later Wednesday, the co-chair her women’s coalition in New Hampshire sought to shift the focus away from abortion.
“It’s time to put a woman in the White House to lead the charge on some important issues other than our reproductive rights,” said Sharon Bolduc, whose husband unsuccessfully challenged Democratic U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire last year.
“We as women voters have so much more to offer the American people than just talking about our uteruses,” she said in an interview afterward. “Let’s get over that already.”
Instituting a federal abortion ban is not “realistic,” Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Sunday.
“I’m not going to lie to the American people. Nothing’s going to happen if we don’t get 60 votes in the Senate. We’re not even close to that on the Republican or the Democrat side.” Haley said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” when pressed about what kind of limits on abortion she would seek if elected president.
so she supports a federal abortion ban, but is "realistic" that it wouldn't pass without 60 Republicans in the Senate. and one of her campaign surrogates talks about "getting over" the issue of abortion.
but Brooks praises her, because, for lack of a better term, she virtue signaled about abortion better than the other candidates. her policy positions are not meaningfully different from the rest of them.
the talk about 60 votes in the Senate is a distraction. as we've seen, the actual fight over abortion is happening in the courts, both the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts. would the judges Haley appoints be meaningfully different than ones appointed by Trump, or Pence, or Ramaswamy?
I never heard of her before reading this article, but from what you're saying it sounds like she has almost exactly the same values as every other republican. But also that she is just better at...
I never heard of her before reading this article, but from what you're saying it sounds like she has almost exactly the same values as every other republican. But also that she is just better at politicking and more down to earth in terms of strategy - and more "reasonable" that way?
She says the noxious parts quietly and politely, the way elite republicans like. But the base prefers their ideology raw and uncut. The one thing to their credit is they’re at least honest about...
She says the noxious parts quietly and politely, the way elite republicans like. But the base prefers their ideology raw and uncut. The one thing to their credit is they’re at least honest about what they actually want, unlike the centrist Republicans whose cope has reached truly astounding levels of delusion.
To quote her from the debate: Her stance on abortion is fairly reasonable if you're willing to agree to disagree. She is pro-life but believes the American people should ultimately be the ones...
To quote her from the debate:
...Having said that, we need to stop demonizing this issue. This is talking about how unelected justices didn't need to decide something so personal, because it's personal for every woman and man. Now it's been put in the hands of the people--that's great. When it comes to a federal ban, let's be honest to the American people: it will take 60 Senate votes, it will take a majority of the House....
Her stance on abortion is fairly reasonable if you're willing to agree to disagree. She is pro-life but believes the American people should ultimately be the ones deciding.
there's nothing "reasonable" about banning abortion. and agree to disagree...about what, exactly? I believe people have autonomy over their own bodies and reproductive organs. Haley does not....
Exemplary
Her stance on abortion is fairly reasonable if you're willing to agree to disagree.
there's nothing "reasonable" about banning abortion.
and agree to disagree...about what, exactly?
I believe people have autonomy over their own bodies and reproductive organs. Haley does not.
she's running for President and wants to impose her opinion about abortion on me and everyone else in the country. what does "agree to disagree" even mean in that context?
like, if I enjoy the taste of cilantro and Haley hates it, then that's something we can "agree to disagree" about. if I'm making guacamole for a party and Haley will also be there, I can make two bowls and only add cilantro to one of them. yay, compromise.
but if Haley runs for President on a platform of banning cilantro nationwide, based on her personal dislike of it, it's not possible to "agree to disagree" about that anymore.
She is pro-life but believes the American people should ultimately be the ones deciding.
no, this is nonsense. if her stance was "I'm pro-life but I think pro-choice people should be able to decide to have abortions" then that is pro-choice. it's basically Biden's position. and it would get her booed off the stage at a Republican debate.
as far as I can tell, she's in favor of banning abortion, including at a federal level (as she pledged in May), but wants to give the ban a veneer of legitimacy by saying "Congress passed the ban, and people voted for those Congresspeople".
so she clearly wasn't in favor of letting people in South Carolina decide for themselves about abortion.
you quoted only a snippet of what she said. here's the debate transcript, let's look at the whole thing, and I'll bold the part of it that you quoted:
MACCALLUM: Abortion has been a losing issue for Republicans since the Dobbs decision. In six state referendums, all have upheld abortion rights in this country. And even in red states, there are more swing state referendums that are coming up as we head into the elections, as well on this.
So, Governor Haley, what do you say to your party and to your state, which today confirmed a six-week abortion law as well, especially the impact on women suburban voters across this country?
HALEY: Thank you, Martha. I am unapologetically pro-life, not because the Republican Party tells me to be, but because my husband was adopted, and I had trouble having both of my children. So I'm surrounded by blessings.
Having said that, we need to stop demonizing this issue. This is talking about the fact that unelected justices didn't need to decide something this personal, because it's personal for every woman and man. Now, it's been put in the hands of the people. That's great.
When it comes to a federal ban, let's be honest with the American people and say it will take 60 Senate votes. It will take a majority of the House. So in order to do that, let's find consensus. Can't we all agree that we should ban late term abortions? Can't we all agree that we should encourage adoptions?
Can't we all agree that doctors and nurses who don't believe in abortion shouldn't have to perform them? Can't we all agree that contraception should be available? And can't we all agree that we are not going to put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty if she gets an abortion?
Let's treat this like the -- like a respectful issue that it is and humanize the situation and stop demonizing the situation.
in the part you quoted, you cut it off right before she advocated for a federal ban on "late-term abortions". her saying that kinda works against what you're claiming is her "reasonable" position that she wants to let "the people" decide.
now, let's pick apart the rest of what she said a bit:
This is talking about the fact that unelected justices didn't need to decide something this personal, because it's personal for every woman and man. Now, it's been put in the hands of the people. That's great.
this is just absolute disingenuous bullshit.
if it were actually in the hands of the people, then someone who wants an abortion could get one, and someone who's morally opposed to abortion wouldn't have to get one. but again, that is the pro-choice position.
instead, what she really means is it's been left up to state legislatures to ban it or not ban it, and "the people" can vote for state legislators.
Can't we all agree that we should ban late term abortions?
“Late term” abortion typically refers to abortions obtained at or after 21 weeks, however it is not an accepted medical term, nor is there a consensus around to which gestational ages it refers. Members of the medical community have criticized the term “late-term” abortion, as it implies abortions are taking place after a pregnancy has reached “term” (37 weeks) or “late term” (>41 weeks) which is false. In fact, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has written that “late-term abortion” has no medical meaning and should not be used in clinical or legal settings.
so no, Nikki, we can't all agree on banning late-term abortions because late-term abortions are entirely a propaganda term that the right wing made up.
Can't we all agree that we should encourage adoptions?
I'm not sure what specific policy proposals she has in mind here, but in general I dislike anyone who brings up adoption as a "workaround" when discussing banning abortion. if you prevent someone from accessing an abortion, you put them through 9 months of unwanted pregnancy, with all the attendant health risks and financial costs. "but you can give up the baby for adoption" is not a solution.
Can't we all agree that contraception should be available?
this is wishy-washy to the point of meaninglessness. for example, in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby SCOTUS struck down a provision of Obamacare and ruled that corporations have the "religious liberty" to not cover contraception in their employees' health insurance plans. does she believe that case was wrongly decided? would she appoint Supreme Court justices who would rule the other way? would she be willing to stand on the Republican debate stage and say Justice Alito was wrong and Obamacare was right?
or, in his concurrence in the Dobbs decision, Clarence Thomas floated the idea of revisiting Griswold v Connecticut, the 1965 case that established a right to access contraception (but only for married couples - unmarried couples had to wait until 1972). does Haley think Clarence Thomas is wrong? is she willing to say that on the Republican debate stage?
And can't we all agree that we are not going to put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty if she gets an abortion?
has Haley said anything about that case? that's about as human as it's going to get, isn't it?
as for "stop demonizing"...no, I don't think I will. the people who forced the 13 year old rape victim to carry that pregnancy to term are actual demons. they deserve to be demonized. if being demonized makes them feel sad or uncomfortable or ashamed, good.
When she said to stop "demonizing" the issue she was very clearly referring to people on the right who were demonizing people who are pro-choice and women who get abortions. Haley's position is...
When she said to stop "demonizing" the issue she was very clearly referring to people on the right who were demonizing people who are pro-choice and women who get abortions. Haley's position is undeniably a step in the right direction.
from her own website, a transcript of a speech she gave in April:
When she said to stop "demonizing" the issue she was very clearly referring to people on the right who were demonizing people who are pro-choice and women who get abortions.
I would remind those on the Left who demonize anyone who is pro-life, that it was not too long ago when President Bill Clinton said he wanted abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare.”
...
Pro-life political leaders and candidates must not put up with being demonized. We should call out the extremism of the Left.
Haley seems much more grounded in reality than anyone I've heard run as a Republican in the past decade. She doesn't say the quiet parts out loud is basically what I took away from this article....
Haley seems much more grounded in reality than anyone I've heard run as a Republican in the past decade. She doesn't say the quiet parts out loud is basically what I took away from this article. She's trying to make herself seem more central and garner some of the on-the-fence voters. I don't know that it will be enough to sway the more staunch party members into voting for her.
My only hope is that Trump finally sees jail time for all the crap he's done. It's the definition of insane to consider him as a candidate again.
There was a similar type of question during the elections in Denmark last year, in which leaders of all parties also had to raise hold up signs with yes or no to answer a few question. I don't...
There was a similar type of question during the elections in Denmark last year, in which leaders of all parties also had to raise hold up signs with yes or no to answer a few question. I don't remember the question anymore but some of them held it halfway up lol, so as to not commit.
I am surprised none of these candidates didn't hold up their hand halfway and talk their way out of it because yeah, raising your hand to support a soon-to-be convicted felon (I hope) is insanity.
didn't they all have to sign a pledge that they would support the nominee whomever it is in order to be in the debate? (not sure how Hutchison got in, as he was clear he wouldn't)
She ruined it by still raising her hand in support of Trump.
didn't they all have to sign a pledge that they would support the nominee whomever it is in order to be in the debate? (not sure how Hutchison got in, as he was clear he wouldn't)
David Brooks is a favorite columnist of mine, frequently appearing on the PBS Newshour. I would consider him a moderate American voice, the welcome and well-reasoned conservative neighbor everyone...
David Brooks is a favorite columnist of mine, frequently appearing on the PBS Newshour. I would consider him a moderate American voice, the welcome and well-reasoned conservative neighbor everyone would want to have living next door.
I consider myself a liberal (queer, pro-drugs, pro-abortion, pro-sex, free PrEP and PEP for everyone, pro-welfare, etc.) and David Brooks is one of my favorite columnists too. I think it is an...
I consider myself a liberal (queer, pro-drugs, pro-abortion, pro-sex, free PrEP and PEP for everyone, pro-welfare, etc.) and David Brooks is one of my favorite columnists too.
I think it is an absolute loss to anyone to write him off as evil and therefore not read his pieces. Through his writing, my mental model of the messy world becomes more well-rounded and nuanced. I find that conservatives view life through a different prism: there is also truth in their perspective. And life can be weird in that multiple seemingly contradictory truths can all exist at the same time.
In 1991, 48 percent of eighth and 10th graders said they liked to take risks sometimes. By 2021, that number had plunged to 32 percent.
This culture of exaggerated distrust and presumed toxicity has influenced us all, but the younger generations most of all. On the one hand it’s made them hypervigilant to danger. Since 2011 the number of kids who have had to go to the emergency room for nonfatal injuries has plummeted. Members of Gen Z are less likely to do drugs or get into fights or car accidents than were teens in previous generations.
As a certified middle-aged guy, I’m glad that the members of Gen Z behave so much more responsibly than members of previous generations. Politically, they lean left, but dispositionally they are cautious and conservative.
But the sense of exaggerated menace has its downsides. Twenge describes a moment when she was telling some Gen Z women about a lady who had met her future husband when he hit on her in an elevator in their office building. That would almost never happen today, the young women told Twenge. His behavior would be considered creepy and stalkerish.
It’s always good to be on guard against a dangerous creep, but you may miss out on meeting the person who could be the love of your life.
I think he struck an off-color tone. I think it's good that we're moving toward a less sexist culture where men are made aware of how they make women feel. But he also struck a chord of truth, I think, that a growing culture of mistrust and aversion of risk, of the unknown, of the strange and the stranger does isolate us from one another. I find that in life, the freedom to discover joy is twinned with the freedom to discover suffering and disappointment.
And then in another piece about US college admissions, Mr. Brooks hits an excellent point:
Maybe this could be a moment when we finally step back and acknowledge that the elite meritocracy has spiraled out of control. It’s ridiculous that we have built a culture in which people make fine status distinctions among Princeton, Northwestern and Penn State as if they were 18th-century courtiers arguing over which aristocratic family had the grandest name.
It’s ridiculous that we’ve built a system that overvalues the sort of technocratic skills these universities cultivate and undervalues the social and moral skills that any healthy society should value more.
It’s sad that we’ve spent decades trying to build a more representative leadership class, but we’ve ended up with an educated elite that doesn’t know much about the rest of America and doesn’t seem notably more competent than the elites that preceded it.
I remember my friends and friends' families back in (my affluent) high school nitpicking between HYP vs. "lower Ivies" vs. Dartmouth "the non-Ivy Ivy" vs. UChicago, Northwestern, and Stanford vs. "Public Ivies". Mr. Brooks is right: it was like watching a bunch of 18th-c. courtiers gossiping about aristocratic family lineages. Our collective attitude toward and worship of the college admission system is stupid.
Couldn't agree more. As a regular PBS News Hour viewer, David Brooks has basically become the poster child of what sane conservatism used to be for me. He's a breath of fresh air. Sadly he's also...
Couldn't agree more. As a regular PBS News Hour viewer, David Brooks has basically become the poster child of what sane conservatism used to be for me. He's a breath of fresh air. Sadly he's also a constant reminder that the days of sane conservatism are also in the rear-view mirror and getting further away with every passing second.
Cause his brand is dying out, not growing. Damn shame.
You can look him up if you want. I don't think he's some sort of snake, he just has geriatric moralist views and probably complains about "loose women" and "marxism" instead of any real problems....
You can look him up if you want. I don't think he's some sort of snake, he just has geriatric moralist views and probably complains about "loose women" and "marxism" instead of any real problems. He exists to make extremist conservative views sound palatable, which is arguably evil. Centrism allows cruelty to fester and all that.
Every Friday evening, I watch the PBS News Hour and they have a segment in which an anchor and two columists cover the weeks political events. David Brooks has been a columnist on that segment for...
Every Friday evening, I watch the PBS News Hour and they have a segment in which an anchor and two columists cover the weeks political events. David Brooks has been a columnist on that segment for quite a few years and frankly... you are living in a different reality than I am.
He's definitely one of the more sane conservatives. I have never heard him refer to either Marxism or Loose women either. He's hardly a moralist. Just a traditional conservative who happens to despise Trump and the complete and utter decline of the Republican party into a populism fueled mob of fools and conspiracy theorists who have no actual principles to speak of.
I'm jokingly referring to his wiki page that explicitly refers to his criticism of promiscuity and marxist behavior in the youth, it's there if you want to read it. Along with his old-fashioned...
I'm jokingly referring to his wiki page that explicitly refers to his criticism of promiscuity and marxist behavior in the youth, it's there if you want to read it. Along with his old-fashioned views on abortion and marijuana use.
And I could debate the damage conservatism has wrought historically, even moderated versions of it, so I suppose my implicit distaste swells up, but that's neither here nor there. I guess mostly I wanted to both take the piss and shed light on why someone might considered this "good-natured, reasonable conservative" an evil guy, because despite his demeanor, he isn't spotless in his views if you look at his history. Just because he sounds reasonable and eloquent, doesn't mean he hasn't given explicit support to programs and policies that have hurt and killed millions.
I am only speaking for myself here, but I think it's rather easy to avoid espousing views that harm huge swaths of people. David Brooks was massively in favour of the Iraq invasion in 2003 which...
I am only speaking for myself here, but I think it's rather easy to avoid espousing views that harm huge swaths of people. David Brooks was massively in favour of the Iraq invasion in 2003 which led to horrific civilian casualties. No amount of apologising resurrects hundreds of thousands of people.
To some extent I disagree with digging up the past to shame people; I firmly believe people can grow. But he has continually supported the Republican Party for decades, even when he disagrees with them around topics like same-sex marriage. It's not dredging up history if he still backs the Republican Party and their policies.
I think "evil" is perhaps a loaded term, but centrism has long been associated with right wing policies, whether that is endorsing a right wing status quo or pushing for extreme right wing...
I think "evil" is perhaps a loaded term, but centrism has long been associated with right wing policies, whether that is endorsing a right wing status quo or pushing for extreme right wing policies under a veneer of being centrist - the Dutch Centre Party, as an example, was banned for its extremist views.
not that relates to Haley, but he has had some pretty ill-informed views on evolution, development, and "evolutionary psychology". here is a pretty good interpretation of his writings on it, from...
not that relates to Haley, but he has had some pretty ill-informed views on evolution, development, and "evolutionary psychology". here is a pretty good interpretation of his writings on it, from an actual evolutionary biologist, which lead him to some subtly-racist positions.
Nikki Haley said she would be inclined to pardon Trump. Also said transgenderism causes suicidal ideation in CIS girls.
I agree that she's a moderate in today's climate, but that's less a compliment to Haley and more an indication of how far off the deep end conservatives have gone.
On the upside, she acknowledged that if the accusations are true it would be a serious problem.
If you forced me to really play devil's advocate, I could see the anxiety behind putting Trump behind bars from a extremely risk-averse perspective. It's hard to say how the American public might react and, since power within the American political system is quite decentralized compared to most other modern countries, we might run into a real crisis if some sizeable minority of Americans goes ballistic or abandons all faith in the legal system. That being said, it's a big stretch and I think Ford truly planted a poisonous seed about our attitudes toward the office of the presidency.
Why are you blaming Ford?
I don't really know enough, but I would blame Nixon, the most morally corrupt president America ever had (until Trump) who, I think, is the seed for a lot of the fascist leaning in the republican party today.
Of course Nixon is ultimately culpable, but Ford's pardon was quite damaging to the political process.
Why do you think that's the case?
I mean, it made clear that the president is beyond the law. It becomes difficult to maintain any rigorous moral standard in politics after that. Beyond that, it did not achieve its aim of "healing" the country. The lack of any meaningful closure on the issue had the exact opposite effect.
Can I ask why you're capitalizing "cis"? Or is it just autocorrect shenanigans? It's something I mostly see from anti-trans folks who treat "cis" as a slur or insult so I wanted to call it to your attention and also make sure I'm not missing something!
Based on context I think it was for emphasis -- the standard talking point is that "transgenderism" causes suicidal ideation in trans kids, but she's claiming it causes it for cis girls.
I absolutely hoped so, but I was also wondering if I was missing other context. I've seen transphobic people use it, and others use it to mock the TERFs and it felt worth mentioning while not assuming negative intentions
I've honestly never seen TERFs use cis, with or without capitals, but I haven't had to see them talk about shit since I quit Twitter (I stg so many trans folks of Twitter need to learn not to quote tweet their BS). Luckily I haven't encountered any TERFs on tildes so far. The population seems to be mostly properly woke people re: trans issues mixed with your standard "vaguely ignorant but means well" cis people.
Finding examples is hard but this article contains an example of a tweet with the all caps.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/transphobic-war-cis-elon-musk-j-k-rowling-jordan-peterson-1234780337/
It's mostly been used by folks who objected to being called "cis" or called "cis" a slur. I did not expect to find the OC out to be a secret transphobe or anything but also wouldn't want someone unaware to accidentally be sending that vibe out either!
My experience has been much the same here with at least one person who I'd say has probably listened to too much of the rhetoric around "protecting" kids from gender stuff
this seems like shaky ground to criticize from. Haley was Trump's ambassador to the UN for 2 years. that's her only foreign policy experience. as Governor of South Carolina, she couldn't even see Russia from her house!
this laundering of far-right conservative views into "moderate" ones is something we can always rely on David Brooks for.
from the AP in May:
from Politico:
so she supports a federal abortion ban, but is "realistic" that it wouldn't pass without 60 Republicans in the Senate. and one of her campaign surrogates talks about "getting over" the issue of abortion.
but Brooks praises her, because, for lack of a better term, she virtue signaled about abortion better than the other candidates. her policy positions are not meaningfully different from the rest of them.
the talk about 60 votes in the Senate is a distraction. as we've seen, the actual fight over abortion is happening in the courts, both the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts. would the judges Haley appoints be meaningfully different than ones appointed by Trump, or Pence, or Ramaswamy?
I never heard of her before reading this article, but from what you're saying it sounds like she has almost exactly the same values as every other republican. But also that she is just better at politicking and more down to earth in terms of strategy - and more "reasonable" that way?
She says the noxious parts quietly and politely, the way elite republicans like. But the base prefers their ideology raw and uncut. The one thing to their credit is they’re at least honest about what they actually want, unlike the centrist Republicans whose cope has reached truly astounding levels of delusion.
To quote her from the debate:
Her stance on abortion is fairly reasonable if you're willing to agree to disagree. She is pro-life but believes the American people should ultimately be the ones deciding.
there's nothing "reasonable" about banning abortion.
and agree to disagree...about what, exactly?
I believe people have autonomy over their own bodies and reproductive organs. Haley does not.
she's running for President and wants to impose her opinion about abortion on me and everyone else in the country. what does "agree to disagree" even mean in that context?
like, if I enjoy the taste of cilantro and Haley hates it, then that's something we can "agree to disagree" about. if I'm making guacamole for a party and Haley will also be there, I can make two bowls and only add cilantro to one of them. yay, compromise.
but if Haley runs for President on a platform of banning cilantro nationwide, based on her personal dislike of it, it's not possible to "agree to disagree" about that anymore.
no, this is nonsense. if her stance was "I'm pro-life but I think pro-choice people should be able to decide to have abortions" then that is pro-choice. it's basically Biden's position. and it would get her booed off the stage at a Republican debate.
as far as I can tell, she's in favor of banning abortion, including at a federal level (as she pledged in May), but wants to give the ban a veneer of legitimacy by saying "Congress passed the ban, and people voted for those Congresspeople".
also, from 2016: South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed a bill into law on Wednesday that makes it illegal for a woman to obtain an abortion after her pregnancy reaches 20 weeks
so she clearly wasn't in favor of letting people in South Carolina decide for themselves about abortion.
you quoted only a snippet of what she said. here's the debate transcript, let's look at the whole thing, and I'll bold the part of it that you quoted:
in the part you quoted, you cut it off right before she advocated for a federal ban on "late-term abortions". her saying that kinda works against what you're claiming is her "reasonable" position that she wants to let "the people" decide.
now, let's pick apart the rest of what she said a bit:
this is just absolute disingenuous bullshit.
if it were actually in the hands of the people, then someone who wants an abortion could get one, and someone who's morally opposed to abortion wouldn't have to get one. but again, that is the pro-choice position.
instead, what she really means is it's been left up to state legislatures to ban it or not ban it, and "the people" can vote for state legislators.
from Planned Parenthood: There’s no such thing as a “late-term abortion”
from the Kaiser Family Foundation:
so no, Nikki, we can't all agree on banning late-term abortions because late-term abortions are entirely a propaganda term that the right wing made up.
I'm not sure what specific policy proposals she has in mind here, but in general I dislike anyone who brings up adoption as a "workaround" when discussing banning abortion. if you prevent someone from accessing an abortion, you put them through 9 months of unwanted pregnancy, with all the attendant health risks and financial costs. "but you can give up the baby for adoption" is not a solution.
this is wishy-washy to the point of meaninglessness. for example, in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby SCOTUS struck down a provision of Obamacare and ruled that corporations have the "religious liberty" to not cover contraception in their employees' health insurance plans. does she believe that case was wrongly decided? would she appoint Supreme Court justices who would rule the other way? would she be willing to stand on the Republican debate stage and say Justice Alito was wrong and Obamacare was right?
or, in his concurrence in the Dobbs decision, Clarence Thomas floated the idea of revisiting Griswold v Connecticut, the 1965 case that established a right to access contraception (but only for married couples - unmarried couples had to wait until 1972). does Haley think Clarence Thomas is wrong? is she willing to say that on the Republican debate stage?
a 19 year old woman in Nebraska was put in jail for 90 days for getting an abortion. has Haley said anything about that case? or is she just repeating the right-wing "no one wants to send women to jail for getting abortions" talking point even when we have evidence to the contrary?
sure Nikki, let's humanize it.
a 13 year old girl in Mississippi was raped, got pregnant, denied an abortion, and forced to give birth
has Haley said anything about that case? that's about as human as it's going to get, isn't it?
as for "stop demonizing"...no, I don't think I will. the people who forced the 13 year old rape victim to carry that pregnancy to term are actual demons. they deserve to be demonized. if being demonized makes them feel sad or uncomfortable or ashamed, good.
When she said to stop "demonizing" the issue she was very clearly referring to people on the right who were demonizing people who are pro-choice and women who get abortions. Haley's position is undeniably a step in the right direction.
from her own website, a transcript of a speech she gave in April:
You can use the same word in two different contexts.... In the context of the debate it was clearly referring to the right demonizing the left.
Excellent contributions. Thanks for doing them.
Haley seems much more grounded in reality than anyone I've heard run as a Republican in the past decade. She doesn't say the quiet parts out loud is basically what I took away from this article. She's trying to make herself seem more central and garner some of the on-the-fence voters. I don't know that it will be enough to sway the more staunch party members into voting for her.
My only hope is that Trump finally sees jail time for all the crap he's done. It's the definition of insane to consider him as a candidate again.
She definitely seems the least insane of the current GOP lot. She ruined it by still raising her hand in support of Trump.
There was a similar type of question during the elections in Denmark last year, in which leaders of all parties also had to raise hold up signs with yes or no to answer a few question. I don't remember the question anymore but some of them held it halfway up lol, so as to not commit.
I am surprised none of these candidates didn't hold up their hand halfway and talk their way out of it because yeah, raising your hand to support a soon-to-be convicted felon (I hope) is insanity.
didn't they all have to sign a pledge that they would support the nominee whomever it is in order to be in the debate? (not sure how Hutchison got in, as he was clear he wouldn't)
David Brooks is a favorite columnist of mine, frequently appearing on the PBS Newshour. I would consider him a moderate American voice, the welcome and well-reasoned conservative neighbor everyone would want to have living next door.
I consider myself a liberal (queer, pro-drugs, pro-abortion, pro-sex, free PrEP and PEP for everyone, pro-welfare, etc.) and David Brooks is one of my favorite columnists too.
I think it is an absolute loss to anyone to write him off as evil and therefore not read his pieces. Through his writing, my mental model of the messy world becomes more well-rounded and nuanced. I find that conservatives view life through a different prism: there is also truth in their perspective. And life can be weird in that multiple seemingly contradictory truths can all exist at the same time.
Mr. Brooks recently wrote about the decline of risk-taking among youths:
I think he struck an off-color tone. I think it's good that we're moving toward a less sexist culture where men are made aware of how they make women feel. But he also struck a chord of truth, I think, that a growing culture of mistrust and aversion of risk, of the unknown, of the strange and the stranger does isolate us from one another. I find that in life, the freedom to discover joy is twinned with the freedom to discover suffering and disappointment.
And then in another piece about US college admissions, Mr. Brooks hits an excellent point:
I remember my friends and friends' families back in (my affluent) high school nitpicking between HYP vs. "lower Ivies" vs. Dartmouth "the non-Ivy Ivy" vs. UChicago, Northwestern, and Stanford vs. "Public Ivies". Mr. Brooks is right: it was like watching a bunch of 18th-c. courtiers gossiping about aristocratic family lineages. Our collective attitude toward and worship of the college admission system is stupid.
Couldn't agree more. As a regular PBS News Hour viewer, David Brooks has basically become the poster child of what sane conservatism used to be for me. He's a breath of fresh air. Sadly he's also a constant reminder that the days of sane conservatism are also in the rear-view mirror and getting further away with every passing second.
Cause his brand is dying out, not growing. Damn shame.
I can dream of a day when Trump has been sentenced and Trumpism/MAGA has been repudiated.
It’s funny/sad to see so much agreement between he and Shields (now capehart) in the face of Trump and the New Reactionaries.
David Brooks IMO is a shapeshifting force of evil that supports a broad spectrum of the conservative Republican agenda.
You can look him up if you want. I don't think he's some sort of snake, he just has geriatric moralist views and probably complains about "loose women" and "marxism" instead of any real problems. He exists to make extremist conservative views sound palatable, which is arguably evil. Centrism allows cruelty to fester and all that.
Every Friday evening, I watch the PBS News Hour and they have a segment in which an anchor and two columists cover the weeks political events. David Brooks has been a columnist on that segment for quite a few years and frankly... you are living in a different reality than I am.
He's definitely one of the more sane conservatives. I have never heard him refer to either Marxism or Loose women either. He's hardly a moralist. Just a traditional conservative who happens to despise Trump and the complete and utter decline of the Republican party into a populism fueled mob of fools and conspiracy theorists who have no actual principles to speak of.
I'm jokingly referring to his wiki page that explicitly refers to his criticism of promiscuity and marxist behavior in the youth, it's there if you want to read it. Along with his old-fashioned views on abortion and marijuana use.
And I could debate the damage conservatism has wrought historically, even moderated versions of it, so I suppose my implicit distaste swells up, but that's neither here nor there. I guess mostly I wanted to both take the piss and shed light on why someone might considered this "good-natured, reasonable conservative" an evil guy, because despite his demeanor, he isn't spotless in his views if you look at his history. Just because he sounds reasonable and eloquent, doesn't mean he hasn't given explicit support to programs and policies that have hurt and killed millions.
None of us are spotless in our views, particularly in our histories. Who among us would really shine if that standard would apply to us?
We could wax philosophical about the nature of man, but that isn't an excuse or permission to hurt people
I am only speaking for myself here, but I think it's rather easy to avoid espousing views that harm huge swaths of people. David Brooks was massively in favour of the Iraq invasion in 2003 which led to horrific civilian casualties. No amount of apologising resurrects hundreds of thousands of people.
To some extent I disagree with digging up the past to shame people; I firmly believe people can grow. But he has continually supported the Republican Party for decades, even when he disagrees with them around topics like same-sex marriage. It's not dredging up history if he still backs the Republican Party and their policies.
And, as of 2015, he is still lying about it.
I think "evil" is perhaps a loaded term, but centrism has long been associated with right wing policies, whether that is endorsing a right wing status quo or pushing for extreme right wing policies under a veneer of being centrist - the Dutch Centre Party, as an example, was banned for its extremist views.
not that relates to Haley, but he has had some pretty ill-informed views on evolution, development, and "evolutionary psychology". here is a pretty good interpretation of his writings on it, from an actual evolutionary biologist, which lead him to some subtly-racist positions.
The best piece of crap is still a piece of crap. Haley is just another Republican buffoon pandering to the dangerous extremes.
The least evil person in a room full of evil people is still evil.