I'm not arguing against all criticism of one's friends; I've never written anywhere that took that stance. But choices of tone & emphasis & narrative are pretty easy to detect in opinion writing; who is treated as a friend in need of correction, who a foe.https://twitter.com/Timodc/status/1204503787362234370 …
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I keep coming back to Lincoln, who had to navigate an era when the stakes were high, the coalitions up for grabs, & the choices of how to advance one's principles, what compromises to make, & who to welcome in the tent were all fraught. He never lost his realism or his goals.
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I like both principles & purity but am realistic about their presence on the list of ingredients for politicians. https://twitter.com/_Drew_McCoy_/status/1204516439681650688 …
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My own view of intra-party tests: on an ongoing basis, you isolate the worst people in the herd - whether crooks, grifters, squishes, bigots, incompetents - & purge them. But you don't burn down the tent. Regular culling of the worst people=incentive to not be the worst.
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Consider Lincoln: he stayed with the Whigs almost to the end, until the Republicans were a viable replacement. He didn't quit the party when it elected Taylor (even though Lincoln opposed the Mexican War) or when Fillmore pushed through the Compromise of 1850.
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Lincoln never went with the purist Free Soilers. He welcomed ex-Know Nothings & machine politicians. He ran with a slave-owning Democrat as his VP. He made common cause with the Tsar when it helped the Union.
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I used to think policy was the guiding principle, because I didn't think the rule of law and constitutionalism were seriously at issue. They are. Until they are no longer at issue, voting is easy: For the rule of law, against the party enabling a mafia state.
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Rule of written law and constitutionalism are part of the end state. And they are wholly incompatible with the Democratic Party as it has existed over the past several decades - and that's getting worse.
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Whatever you believe and aim for, how can you trust a Trump-allying politician to do that work? You already know they'll abandon their alleged principles on a whim
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Apparently the Kristol wing wants to just stick the blue collar and so con rubes back in the shoebox and stuff them in the closet, while their betters cut reasonable deals with Democrats. Yeah, that'll work.
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