10 Comments
User's avatar
⭠ Return to thread
Linda Oliver's avatar

He did not “hand off his own party”, he was kicked out of it by the followers of a demagogic lunatic, and he doesn’t want the entire country to fall to that same fate.

Expand full comment
Bridget Collins's avatar

He spent 30 years telling conservative voters that Democrats were socialists. He endorsed Thomas, Alito and Roberts. He deified Reagan.

He primed the voters of his party and courted them with implicit racism and sexism. He ignored immigration and the deficit when Republicans were in office and railed against them when Republicans were out.

His problem was he made a lovely mob mentality only to have it hijacked by a grifter.

He's not the only one but he was a big part of why we're here.

Expand full comment
Colleen Kochivar-Baker's avatar

You left out his approval of Palin, the prototype for Trump.

Expand full comment
Dave Yell's avatar

I've always said Palin was Trump before Trump.

Expand full comment
Richard Kane's avatar

Great point! It was like she was the GOP's way of testing the water on how much idiocy the GOP voter would accept and embrace.

Expand full comment
Colleen Kochivar-Baker's avatar

She certainly worked out that way.

Expand full comment
Richard Kane's avatar

Thank you! You put it much better than I did.

Expand full comment
Richard Kane's avatar

Up to that point he approved , endorsed, and facilitated his party into a position to be taken over by a con man. Do you think with the arrival of trump the GOP, with a snap of the fingers, became fascist? Their flirting with authoritarianism goes back to at least Reagan.

Expand full comment
Bridget Collins's avatar

Linda, here's a question for you. Because it's been nagging at me for months.

Bill Kristol, the editors and owners of the WaPo, the NYT, they have been part of the political upper class for decades. Fundraisers, golf, cocktail parties.

And yet no one noticed that Clarence Thomas was taking multiple expensive vacations in 20 years? No one gossiped about how he could afford it?

No one asked a reporter to dig around? No one brought up ethics?

What other questions should we ask Bill Kristol and people like him?

Any place I've worked, people gossip. I want to know why I'm supposed to believe political Washington is different.

Expand full comment
Clay Banes's avatar

I'm a middle-aged Dem who has long admired Mr. Kristol. Please don't tell me now this is his fault.

Expand full comment