“Genius” has his limits — it’s stupid not to vote for Roy Moore

• Shapiro’s morality tale is ridiculous

Ben Shapiro is a genius, or so bios and commentaries about him indicate. He graduated from Harvard Law at what 4?  Maybe at pubescence. We forget other than that we have shoes older than him. He is associated with the conservative neverTrump element although he will occasionally praise policy achievements by Trump, usually with something snide to wiggle in.  Now we usually associate “genius” with the innovative, something useful or clever, usually something good, which is not meant to burden geniuses with always being innovative or even usually profound or correct. Shapiro missed any claim by a mile with his recent article focused on the special Senate race in Alabama.

DEMOCRATS SEIZE THE MORAL HIGH GROUND: Dems Dump Franken Overboard As Bannon And RNC Embrace Moore

Shapiro’s political reasoning

Shapiro’s column was dim-witted as to valid moral motivations for voting. He rightly derides the convenient cynicism of Democrats for dumping Conyers and Franken but to suggest that Republicans would be the true practitioners of morality  and send a profound message if they dumped Roy Moore is just stupid (and by the way not moral).  Of course that is what he advocated also as regards his neverTrumpism . . . look to the long run … (when we are all dead and moral preening won’t matter).

Let’s dissect some of Ben Shapiro’s non-genius in the referenced article.

(excerpts)

Meanwhile, Republicans are granting Democrats the political high ground on an obvious moral issue. And they’re not just granting the high ground: they’re throwing it at Democrats with both hands.

Nonsense — his faulty presumption is that voters in Alabama cannot discern relative superiority, moral and otherwise, nor can the country as a whole.

Leading the charge: Stephen K. Bannon.

Shapiro’s bête noire

Bannon is a charlatan, a con man who has ridden his way to prominence in politics by hitching his wagon to bigger stars (Sarah Palin, then Andrew Breitbart, then Donald Trump). Now, he’s attempting to carve out a space for himself as the supposed guardian of Trumpism — a philosophic movement and political attitude built around machismo and murky populism.

Hmmm “murky populism” that has proven to be conservative, patriotic, Constitutional,

Bannon correctly senses that many Republicans are willing to engage in binary politics — that Republicans can be convinced to support bad candidates in order to avoid worse Democrats. Furthermore, Bannon senses that many Republicans don’t want to live with the cognitive dissonance of supporting bad candidates, and are willing to latch onto the thinnest of reeds to exonerate those bad candidates of bad action. Finally, Bannon knows that many Republicans resent conservatives who aren’t willing to vote for bad men to stop Democrats, or to justify bad men in order to vote for them.

The suggestion of manipulation on Bannon’s part are pejorative as they are disparaging of the voting populace.  Shapiro would perhaps have voters not vote binary, a usual  predicament given the exigencies of our two-party system. The truth is “voting binary”  in the short and long run can advance good in the face of imperfection and with fallen human beings (everyone involved) as electors and elected.

Bannon has combined all of this into a morality-free politics that guises itself in the raiment of strength and principle. All Bannon has to do is this: claim that any bad man is actually an innocent victim, and that those conservatives who refuse to buy such an argument are actually gutless wimps.

He dismisses not only the validity of choosing the lesser of evils, the protagonists policies, but also the matter of the presumption of innocence.

Thus, last night, Bannon — a Harvard Business School grad and Goldman Sachs lawyer with royalties from Seinfeld — re-emerged from the darkness to shout about Roy Moore’s virtues (Bannon was nowhere to be found while President Trump and the RNC considered Moore’s fate). Bannon donned his homeless hunter outfit and stood on stage in Alabama ripping Mitt Romney, who had the temerity to question Moore’s fitness for office.

How should he dress Ben, in preppy attire as you are ought to do?  As regards his education, his work history and ripping Mitt Romney well that is not in isolation is it Ben, neither as to background nor what is at issue with the likes of Mitt Romney. Was Romney the best candidate, did he run a great campaign?  Shapiro runs on:

And Bannon didn’t just defend Moore — he suggested that Moore, a man who has been credibly accused of attempting to molest a 14-year-old girl and a 16-year-old girl when he was in his early 30s — was a man of the highest quality and character, far superior to the clean-cut Romney.

Credibly accused how? Forty-year-old recollections that have been called into question by family members of the accusers, evidence and admissions. How credible should the body politic allow 40-year old remembrances to be in such high-intensity high-stakes battles?   By the way Ben, were Mitt’s Massachusetts policies without sin?

Bannon stated, “By the way, Mitt, while we’re on the subject of honor and integrity, you avoided service, brother. Mitt, here’s how it is, brother. The college deferments, we can debate that — but you hid behind your religion. You went to France to be a missionary while guys were dying in rice paddies in Vietnam.” This is an odd line of attack coming from a man who boosted Donald Trump, who called avoiding sexually transmitted diseases his “personal Vietnam,” and who received five deferments from service.

I don’t fault Romney’s deferments only criticisms of Trump’s relative to Romney’s. Bannon has the “moral authority” to bring it up as he served six years (post Vietnam). Trump’s comments were rather self-deprecating humor it seems to me and the deferments were medical as much as student. Ever tried to march with bone spurs?  With an active draft the military is comfortable deferring categories because it can get more.  Have you served Ben?

Bannon then attacked Romney’s family: “Judge Moore has more honor and integrity in a pinkie finger than your family has in its whole DNA.”

Well, military service is honorable. But allegedly sexually molesting young girls isn’t. And last I checked, Romney hasn’t done any of that.

Bannon’s comment just above was over the top but the insinuations Shapiro spews are worse. But first, back to an earlier question “Ben”, is not serving in the military dishonorable or not?  Shouldn’t the issue here be whether someone DID molest girls, not allegations? One could make allegations, “virtually” unprovable,  as to activities or proclivities of Romney 40 or 50 years ago.

But Bannon knows that he can outflank non-scuzzy Republicans by calling them cowards for not defending bad behavior. If they weren’t weak cucks, wouldn’t they side with Roy Moore?

What is definitively scuzzy is assuming a vote for Moore is a defense of bad behavior but then again that was the sort of line you took as regards Trump.

All of which leads Republicans down the primrose path to suicide. Democrats were willing to embrace Bill Clinton’s sins when they thought it would harm them to do otherwise; Republicans are willing to embrace Moore’s sins in the same way. But Republicans were never supposed to be Democrats. And with Democrats beginning to clean house, Democrats aren’t the Democrats they used to be — at least for the moment.

Ben, seriously, “primrose path to suicide” . . .  lay off the caffeinated energy drinks or at least the apocalyptic rhetoric — didn’t you use the same rhetoric about Trump, and after a year how valid has that been?

Doubling up on stupidity if not scuzziness,  Shapiro refers to voting for Moore as opposed to Jones as embracing sin. Of course Democrats are not  going to abandon Jones for his immoral POLICIES.  And where is the perfect candidate after the deep dive into the dumpster or the ready availability of celebrity after advertising convenient ruminations from 40 years back?

The suggestion that Democrats are cleaning house is laughable. More like a little more Botox for Pelosi.  And how can Shapiro be that oblivious in his commentary to the core of Democrat ideology which the Democrat candidate Jones promotes — pretty evil by Shapiro’s professed standards — or are such matters now just mere disagreements with no moral component and we should just vote for the person. That is real genius.

Shapiro’s morality tale is ridiculous

Shapiro is spinning a morality tale but he is revealing no practical genius or moral argument only pietism. Roy Moore, given his CREDIBLE denials of wrongdoing, should be voted to be Alabama Senator as a proponent of decent policies, the latter pretty much the only reason to vote for anyone.  If he resigns the office because of allegations he cannot deny then a Republican governor is in a position to appoint his successor who might also pursue moral policies. Democrat Jones would be there for at least the duration of the term and his win would indicate moral corruption of what the election should be about.

R Mall

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