If every #NeverTrump conservative had been an enthusiastic cheerleader for the Trump administration starting January 20, do you really think the administration would be in measurably better shape? Trump still would have claimed Obama wiretapped Trump Tower, he still would have been content to let the House set the details of the Obamacare repeal, he still would have signed the giant omnibus spending bill, he still would have fired Comey, he still would have had the Bannon-Kushner-Priebus-Kohn-
Ivanka “Game of Thrones” infighting, he still would have a glacial pace of naming appointments, tax reform and the infrastructure bill would still be passing slower than a kidney stone… This is a White House where the biggest problems are all self-inflicted. [#NeverTrump conservatives] do not believe that America is engaged in a civil war, with the survival of America as we know it at stake. While they strongly differ with the Left, they do not regard the left–right battle as an existential battle for preserving our nation. On the other hand, I, and other conservative Trump supporters, do.
If you really believe America is fighting a second Civil War… what do you do with people who disagree with you? Shoot them? Blow them up? Imprison them? Keep them in prisoner of war camps? Call our current conflict with the Left what you like – but it’s not war.
.. But where Kurt has really matured as a storyteller is in all the human touches of what could have otherwise been fine as an entertaining social satire and techno-thriller. The ordinary people of Jasper, Ind., in the late 2020s really don’t want to be involved in a political war and have no appetite for launching an insurgency against their own government. But sometimes bad laws and bad leaders set an unstoppable sequence of escalation in motion. Halfway through the book, I realized I’m reading a prequel, and I’m somehow still wondering what’s going to happen. The sense of dread and impending bloodshed is palpable.
.. Kurt, a retired Army infantry colonel, served in the Balkans, and this book is undoubtedly shaped by his experiences there. I’ve heard him speak about how Kosovo once was and could have remained a beautiful place, and how the locals made choices that amounted to throwing it all away, casting away the rule of law and the humanity of their neighbors in the process.
.. If the only concern among Democrats was accountability for suspected “high crimes and misdemeanors,” you wouldn’t hear any talk of “but Pence would be worse!”