monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Quote:

Electoral College sees record-breaking defections

The seven so-called “faithless” votes cast by members of the Electoral College on Monday may go down as a noisy footnote to an otherwise chaotic 2016 election. But they also represent a historic breach between electors and the candidates they were expected to vote for.

The number of faithless votes has now become the most-ever cast in a single presidential election. The record was set in 1808, when six Democratic-Republican electors opposed James Madison. It’s also the first time since 1832 in which more than a single elector cast a faithless vote.

As a historian, I’m not optimistic that our culture wars will end anytime soon. These angry disputes about the meaning of America, and who is a true American, have been raging since the early days of our nation. We’ve lurched from one cultural conflict to the next. A loss in one battle further convinces culture warriors that our society is going to hell. So they cast about for another grievance — another “them” to blame for what is happening to “us.” In this way, the culture wars are perpetually rising from the dead.

As I investigated America’s culture wars from Jefferson to Obama, I found that they follow a predictable pattern. They tend to start on the right, with conservatives anxious about some cultural change. Yet conservatives almost always lose, because they lash themselves to lost causes. That’s how this latest round in our culture wars is likely to conclude, too. If you fear (as I do) what a President Trump might do, remember that the promise to build a Mexico-financed border wall or to ban Muslims from entering the country are as lost as causes can be.

blatham wrote:

Quote:

Electoral College sees record-breaking defections

The seven so-called “faithless” votes cast by members of the Electoral College on Monday may go down as a noisy footnote to an otherwise chaotic 2016 election. But they also represent a historic breach between electors and the candidates they were expected to vote for.

The number of faithless votes has now become the most-ever cast in a single presidential election. The record was set in 1808, when six Democratic-Republican electors opposed James Madison. It’s also the first time since 1832 in which more than a single elector cast a faithless vote.

This, of course followed a record breaking bout of mass hysteria on the part of many Democrats and diehard Hillary devotees, and with it, an equally record-breaking mass effort to intimidate electors and defy our constitutional process.

In itself this was a largely harmless phenomenon that, ironically, will likely do the Democrats far more harm than good. Some of their political opponents are outraged others merely bemused , but all more united. Meanwhile the Democrats appear to still be stuck in denial, backward thinking, and wasting time.

I think the only objectionable element of the whole sorry debacle is the claims (such as the one made by Blatham above) this this is somehow representative of anything more than what I have described.

Longstanding Colorado state law prohibits public accommodations, including businesses such as Masterpiece Cakeshop, from refusing service based on factors such as race, sex, marital status or sexual orientation. Mullins and Craig filed complaints with the Colorado Civil Rights Division (CCRD) contending that Masterpiece had violated this law. Earlier this year, the CCRD ruled that Phillips illegally discriminated against Mullins and Craig. Today’s decision from Judge Robert N. Spencer of the Colorado Office of Administrative Courts affirms that finding.

Your cited author here is using a bit of easily detected sophistry to make an otherwise indefensible point. In his review of "culture wars" from President Jackson until now he has implicitly assigned "conservative" as the label for whatever forces were resisting the change in question, regardless of how their views then might relate to those labelled "conservative today. This is a rather elementary tautological fallacy, and I am surprised that any real historian (if indeed he is one) would make such an obvious error.

A lot of pretense and hot air demonstrating nothing.

Should someone in the Trump administration cross the line, Gingrich has a potential answer for that too.

“In the case of the president, he has a broad ability to organize the White House the way he wants to. He also has, frankly, the power of the pardon,” Gingrich said. “It’s a totally open power. He could simply say, ‘Look, I want them to be my advisers. I pardon them if anyone finds them to have behaved against the rules. Period. Technically, under the Constitution, he has that level of authority.”

People today are saying anti-white stuff all the time

I love how the left likes to interchange Republican and conservative depending on what point in history they want to talk about. According to them the GOP never did anything for anyone, even when it was the GOP who did those things. They never want to admit that the Democrats controlled the south from the time of reconstruction until the mid 1990's when the first GOP governor was elected. They never want to admit that it was Dems who started the KKK, that's when the label flips start taking place. Can't have anything bad attached to the Dems and can't have anything good attached to the GOP.

Why do you think it is so important for the left-wing to control the education system?

It's the ideology that counts. For instance, that is why it is repugnant for present day Republicans to take credit for the emancipation of slaves because Abe Lincoln was a Republican. I understand that modern day conservatives often take credit for the past achievements of progressives. But please, give me an example from our country's ongoing "culture wars" where conservatives were the ones who stepped forward to champion the cause of the oppressed.