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December 11, 2021 - 6:16pm
The images from the 6th January riots at the US Capitol will be with us for years — shocking, unnerving, and ultimately tragic for the five people who died. But was it “armed insurrection” or a failure of policing? How close did the President come to directly inciting violence? What is a wise way for Democrats to respond?
To help understand this significant moment, and what these final astonishing weeks of the Trump administration mean for the US and for the world, I spoke to writer and commentator Andrew Sullivan. He lives just a few blocks away from the Capitol and from the first moments of our interview you can see how traumatised he has been by the events of the past few years, culminating (so far) in the events of last week:
Sullivan is worried that it is not over yet. Many of his friends in Washington DC are planning to leave the city for the inauguration on 20th January on the grounds that it is not safe: “We don’t know what’s going to happen now. There are a lot of arms in the country. And Inauguration Day is going to be another stress test of whether this place is going to survive civil conflict.”
He sees the “tyrannical” streak in Donald Trump’s character as constituting the tragic part of this epoch, because he has now prevented the overlooked and important issues that got him elected from being properly addressed:
As a result, he fears that any attempt to challenge “wokery” is now fatally undermined. An illiberal Left, closely coupled with the might of Big Tech, will now seek a revenge that may be unassailable:
Responding to the challenge by some of President Trump’s defenders that he didn’t, in fact, directly incite violence, and that the social media bans are therefore unfair, Sullivan counters:
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SubscribeIt’s strange. I have a faint recollection of massive rioting and burning throughout the United States over the summer and fall and no one caring. Now violence and rioting are a threat to the foundations of the country. What did I miss?
What attempt to either abduct or kill a politician occurred? Because someone in the media told you this happened? The same Congress was back in the Capitol the same night while most rally-goers were either back in their hotel rooms or eating, wondering what it is that some of you believe you saw.
So you missed how a cop died as a result of this mob breaking into the capital? No lefty antifa groups have done anything like this, and in all fairness, if I organized a group of shouty, angry protesters, some of whom were armed, all proclaiming to destroy the process of finalizing an above board election, I’d expect to either be dead or in prison for a long time. Reality. It’s hard for a lot of folks.
Uh he died of a stroke. The only person murdered was an unarmed female trump supporter so don’t worry no one outside her family gives a rats behind and nothing will be done.
Lefty Antifa have done far worse, including assault with bike locks, putting Andy Ngo in hospital and blocking the doors of a govt building and setting fire to it with people inside.
Also debunked…
You complete moron. This is what fake news does! The cop was Office Brian Sicknick and the mainstream media went bananas with reports that he had been bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher. All they had to do was ask his family but digging out facts to back up a story is beyond most modern journalists When it was no longer possible to push the fire extinguisher story the MSM pushed the line that he had died after being sprayed with bear spray by a protesters. This was another lie. Sicknick died at home of a stroke more than 24 hours after the Capitol disturbances. He had no wounds and there was zero evidence of “bear spray”, something his family had maintained from the beginning when they also begged the MSM to respect their privacy. Incidentally, Sicknick turned out to be a Trump supporter.
Aren’t facts difficult to deal with sometimes in this fast-moving world “Karen”?
Apparently sitting in Nancy Pelosi’s chair makes you worse than someone who burns down a small business employing half a dozen people while the minority owner who spent years building it cries in the street.
Classic straw man argument and Soviet/Chinese-style whataboutism.As I’m sure you know Annette, the issue is not that someone sat in Pelosi’s chair.Nor does an appreciation of the overtly political nature of an invasion of a seat of government preclude or diminish concern over violent rioting and looting in other instances.
Of course that’s the issue. Nancy Pelosi didn’t care if your neighborhood burned down it’s just her seat she wants protected. In fact, she wondered out loud how there were not more uprisings all across the country. Sounds like incitement to me.
As to the Capitol events, your problem is that left-wingers are now being identified as perpetrators.
Why is that my problem? And why does it matter if the Capitol rioters are “left wing” or “right wing”? What matters surely is that there is a sizeable part of the US population that believes the election was fraudulent/stolen etc, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and they want the result overturned one way or the other.
Well there isn’t any evidence to the contrary, nor could there be. If you believe there is, why not provide it?
But yes, there are plenty of liberals identified as part of the Capitol riots. And I’d say it’s more that there were clear problems and issues with the election. Plenty of witness affidavits to that effect so far, poll watchers not permitted to watch. In addition, election rule changes at the last minute are not the norm. When have votes ever been counted six days after the election? When have they been accepted unsigned and undated? I think you’d see the problem immediately if election rules were changed at the last minute to eliminate pollling places, wouldn’t you? But you don’t see a problem here?
Sorry Annette, I believe in empathising with Trump supporters who have been sold lies, but I fear you’re beyond simply reasoning with if you think the election result is illegitimate as a result of postal voting or other relatively few/minor irregularities or procedural issues. Not a single US court or institution supports that contention, and they’ve been presented with all the evidence that Trump and his legal team can muster. Worth remembering too that the federal court of appeals benches are now predominantly Republican nominees.
As for the elimination of polling places, I would point out the SC’s decision in Shelby v Holder opened the way for the states to (re)introduce racially discriminatory voting practices such as closing polling places in predominantly black American neighborhoods, which suffice to say is unlikely to have been to the material disadvantage of Trump’s vote in the election.
Where did I say anything about postal voting? It’s not a minor change to accept ballots six days after the election or to accept unsigned ballots. No US court have considered any of the evidence.
If you have no problem with changes right before an election, you won’t be able to complain if some are made that you don’t care for.
I have faith in the federal courts to police the system, as they have done and will continue to do.
Federal courts do not police anything. SCOTUS determines the constitutionality of actions. You’ll enjoy the future.
What do you mean? SCOTUS is a federal court (see Article III of the Constitution) and like SCOTUS the lower federal courts also interpret the Constitution/determine the constitutionality of the law.
The federal courts are incredibly showing they have been ideologically captured by the hard left, and this is happening across the West. Even the military is pushing hard leftist ideas.
Even if the vote was all legit, the role the media and Democrats played in demonising Trump and his supporters, even before he took office ffs, certainly DID play a part.
I have read quite a bit of the evidence. To any sensible person it is sufficient to raise a prima facie of electoral fraud that required proper investigation and a trial.
The problem is that courts operate in a political environment an having assessed which way the wind was blowing no Judge who had any thought for their future was going to open the door for Trump no matter how cogent the evidence.
Also, the Courts were under enormous political pressure. It was clear that if there was any prospect of the election result being subject to judicial challenge the Democrats would let the mob off the leash, only to a far greater extent than they had during the summer, and who would want to take responsibility for that.
They don’t generally believe it was stolen but it was indeed ‘rigged’. Suggest that title by molly Hemingway to provide proof in how it was done.
After the way leftists treated Trump and his supporters, including fabricated impeachment atenots over ‘Russian collusion’, called all the names under the sun, the encouragement of attacks against MAGA supporters, and rioting with impunity, it’s really hard to blame them. If you are treated that way you tend to have less trust in the institutions that are showing themselves to be untrustworthy, biased and sometimes openly hostile to you and your duly elected president
A sizeable portion of the US population believes that Trump is a Russian spy and other outrageous conspiracy theories about him in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
I wish the dude trashed her chair, her office. After Pelosi ripped up Trump’s State of the Union address in front of the world, behind his back, I swore I would never vote for a Democrat again. Yup, I took that gesture very personally.
Yes it was entirely ill mannered, unpatriotic and just downright out of order.
Strange, what I saw was mostly a bunch of jokers taking selfies of themselves disrespecting the sanctity of the Democratic elites. It was a middle finger to Pelosi rather than an attempt at a coup. A sort of a reminder to the Dems and Rhinos that the people still wield power, perhaps a crudely exercised power, but real power nontheless.
What attempts to abduct and kill? I remember some people being let in to the building, police and guards barely present, waving some flags about and putting their feet up on Pelosi’s desk. The politicians were escorted out well before anyone was anywhere near them. The only person actually murdered was a protestor, a female veteran no less, being shot by the cops. Everyone else died of natural causes. Unlike many of the victims of BLM rioters, including those BLM activists who attempted to kill cops and govt workers by setting fire to a govt building and blocking the doors. But of course it’s *different* when it’s leftists.
The ‘kidnap’ story is debunked.
Except this didn’t happen. The only person murdered was Ashley Babbitt
I like much of what Andrew Sullivan says and writes but he undercuts his entire argument with one sentence.
“He’s driven me crazy.”
By definition, if you’re crazy, you are not thinking clearly and therefore won’t make sense of much. So here’s what I will point out to Andrew. Donald Trump was elected to blow it all apart and not hold together a system in which elites reap all the rewards, that’s the entire point of Trump. If you missed that, then you won’t grasp anything that followed Jan 20 2017, including the nefarious means by which the system tried to remove him so that he couldn’t do that. So he couldn’t rain on the parade.
Personally I wanted a flame thrower taken to the military/industrial complex that supported numerous wars the US should not have been in. I wanted troops brought home. The only chance of getting that was Trump. I wanted the focus on the ME to move from the Israeli/Palestinian issue to Iran. And it did. I wanted unemployment lowered. I wanted energy independence.
As for Sullivan’s claim that this is a breach in American history, apparently his memory doesn’t even go back to 1971 when the Capitol on the Senate side was bombed. Or the Brett Kavanaugh hearing when senators were chased around the Capitol and harassed in elevators and cars. Mobs banging on the doors, interrupting senate deliberations. That isn’t excusing it anymore than watching destructive riots all across the US this year with resultant death counts, billions in damages, is excusing that.
What we most need now, are cool heads. Hopefully Sullivan can be part of that. As for the “liberal orthodoxy will be ascendant forever” stuff, Sullivan surely knows that both sides over-reach and the country corrects course every time. After George W Bush, we were warned that no republican would ever be elected president again. Took two terms of Obama to crash that prediction. Politicians seem to be the only ones who don’t grasp this.
‘Liberal Orthodoxy ascendant for ever’, I worry it does not have to correct every time, but really can be for ever. I believe in the paradigm shift theory of society. All societies bumble along till they suddenly leap off the tracks and become something totally different. The full horror of 1984 was not the terror of the system, but that it was cemented in for perpetuity. The image given was to imagine a boot stamping on a human face for ever.
MSM, Social Media, the Davos Elite, the Donor Class, the Political class, all are coming together to create the West in their chosen shape, and I am not sure we can win back from their collective hard and soft power.
“After George W Bush, we were warned that no republican would ever be elected president again. Took two terms of Obama to crash that prediction.”
Correction: No Republican was elected President in 2016. Donald Trump was.
Trump is a New York liberal
Thank you Annette for reminding Sullivan of what he apparently missed over the summer. Nobody had a problem with Donald Trump until he defied all conventional logic and was elected POTUS as a republican! Unfortunately people like Sullivan will never admit that they created Donald Trump. Remember, Trump was one of “them” until he wasn’t.
Trump was content to build his buildings, go on television, and pay for political favors along the way to keep everyone happy. Then something happened and he apparently got tired of growing his wealth while witnessing the death of middle America. If Trump is a tyrant, then we could use more tyrants. The liberal elites of the US have been content to grow their wealth while presiding over the decline of the middle class. Trump gave the neglected people a voice and they rewarded him with their votes. Trump supporters were so invisible in 2016 the pollsters missed them! The left was so stunned that they called him illegitimate immediately. 67 democratic lawmakers didn’t attend his inauguration. Nancy Pelosi called him the “imposter in the White House”. The only possible way Trump was elected had to be Russian interference in the US election, and the left got busy manufacturing evidence to prove it.
I believe President Trump absorbed more abuse from all sides in 4 years than any other President in modern history. But in spite of that, he managed to secure our southern border, lift people out of poverty (especially people of color), renegotiate trade agreements, grow the manufacturing sector, facilitate US energy independence and negotiate peace deals between Israel and the Arab Nations (something the left has considered impossible for decades). And this is the left’s definition of a “tyrant”!
To attempt to understand the inexcusable violence that broke out at the Capital; I suggest Sullivan read “Dignity” by Chris Arnade. The left is determined to punish Trump and his supporters for the high crime of standing up for the most neglected and marginalized people in America. The very people the left has failed for decades.
Thanks Chris but I believe it’s too late for Andrew Sullivan who occasionally is spot on. His TDS is too far gone and clear thinking cannot be expected under those circumstances.
Andrew Sullivan hasn’t been as erudite about Trump as he is emotional which makes him hard to listen to. Other than that, he seems well meaning if hyperbolic and just plain wrong about many facts.
Plus if you see things from a right wing pov – they see the control of the leftists of all our institutions, and the media, who demonise them as evil, wrong and racist, and repeated attempts to deny them their constitutional rights, including observing vote counts (and there’s no doubt there were some weird shenanigans going on on voting night), well the American constitution has a 2nd amendment to prevent hostile powers and too-big govt from taking control. They would see it as not only their constitutional right but also their patriotic duty to stop communists taking over their country. After watching leftists operate the last few years and the utter derangement about their duly elected president (2 failed impeachment attempts could be seen as attempted coups themselves surely?) it’s hard to blame them.
I agree. Sullivan is generally not a bad egg. And usually reasonable. But he became obsessed with Trump which clouded his judgement, irreparably it seems!.
If Trump is a tyrant, wouldn’t he had suppressed the BLM riots? If that had happened in Erdogan’s Tukey, the protestors would have been annihilated. He is not a tyrant. And the media has been fueling anger nd division, not Trump. The entirety of humanity has absolutely lost their minds over #OrangeManBad… it is amazing…
I was expecting something entirely different, given Freddie brought this to us. Disappointed, but not surprised, to hear someone attempt to make this case from an absolutely biased perspective. All speculation and assumption, no reliance on facts (“I can’t remember a Tweet exactly …”, “He told them not to be weak …” and citest this as an example of inciting violence). He is exhausted because other people don’t believe what he does. He is right, an unbelievable breach, but not as he describes it. He somehow feels he doesn’t have to ‘prove’ any charges because clearly he is on the side of right and the other 50% isn’t. Selective hearing and reasoning at its finest. Yes, we’ll see what happens over the next 4 years. Trump gave Biden his virus cure (vaccine) and an opportunity to revive the economy the Democrats destroyed. Listening to the last bits now. Mr. Sullivan’s TDS is on full display. I feel nothing of the rage or insanity he is describing. Sorry, Freddie Sayers, I applaud your restraint but this view is no different than the thousands of vile Tweeters who call us all Nazis and want us all dead or at least licking their boots. Biden has no intention to unite any more than Obama did. The only difference between he and the thousands of ‘crazy people’ on his political side is he is better paid and has a bigger audience.
‘So Mr Sullivan, what was the cause of the Potato Famine, 7 Day War, premature hair loss, global warming, covid, and BLM rioting? (Mr Sullivan:) ‘Donald Trump’. And how about poor student grades, increase in over the counter Narcotic addiction,, racism, breakdown in family, and NYC lockdowns? ‘Donald Trump’. – ‘I F** kin g HATE Donald Trump’. Thank you Mr Sullivan, good night, thank you for watching this Lock Down TV episode.
I’m not sure why he attaches any significance to what a sock puppet President elect with progressive neurological impairment might do or say. The actual person who will inherit the office of the President when he is deemed mentally unfit to hold it is a woke basket case with an abiding hatred of working class white heterosexual males. Postmodernist woke identity politics is hollowing out liberal democracy everywhere, and it was and will remain the animating force of reactionary Trumpism. Without addressing and rejecting that, Trumpism will only grow.
Didn’t you listen to the interview, Richard? According to Sullivan Biden is just the kind of man to bring America together. A guy from working class Scranton, Pennsylvania. I was waiting for Sulllivan to quote from Biden’s speech, cribbed from Neil Kinnock, about his family’s Pennsylvania coal-mining background, when his dad was a Wilmington, Delaware used car dealer. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that as VP BIden had actually tried to broker a deal to make the US chained CPI, C-CPI-U, the index used for upratings of Social Security in the US, which unfortunately fell apart. Now he no longer champions the C-CPI-U, and given the progressive neurological impairment you mention, wouldn’t know the C-CPI-U from C-3PO.
Hi Freddie
From Canada and do enjoy the scope of your interviews. This particular one, though you tried mightily, as the man does obviously have some intelligence, shows TDS in full display. No acknowledgement of burning USA cities, no acknowledgement of the crew from central casting. Turns out Mr horns is an out of work actor. Just TYRANT or orange man bad. If people like him do not acknowledge the huge mass of people that feel disenfranchised by the hawks Republican and Democrat, the internal strife will carry on. There will be involvement in a dirty war soon somewhere and business as usual will march on.
Kerry
Former life long Liberal and I am OLD.
As usual with TDS – long on rhetorical accusations and short on specifics. He’s ‘taken a flamethrower to the country.’ How, specifically? Can you quote some actual things he said or point to things he actually did? Or is it just liberal talking points?
imo, Trump was always a voodoo doll put in place by elites essentially allowing him to be elected, then using him as a ‘see how bad they are’ target to focus liberal side hatred, to increase divisiveness, etc, so that they could marginalize legit conservatives. Trump is somewhat divisiveness, to be sure and he’s sadly lacking in statesmanship. But he’s not the devil. They’ve only dressed him up that way to get carte blanche for a deep state plan that isn’t going to work out in the best interests of any group except the elites. (Check out how much billionaires have made this Covid year if you want evidence for that assertion).
I think Trumpism and an adjustment of conservatism towards the needs of the working class is, is a great move, but you just can’t separate the two, unfortunately, you can’t.
Talk about wanting it both ways. Trump has broken a great many people in the US, at least their ability see beyond the orange. Sullivan is no more able to point to where Trump commanded rally-goers into violence than anyone is, but the mere presence of Trump makes that all irrelevant.
It is amazing how he can note the summer of destruction, and how the left either ignored or tacitly approved it, but somehow Trump is the problem. This from the same guy who has seen a version of today’s purge up close himself in being pretty much forced to leave his previous employer.
And then he flails around the question and is incredulous that ‘proof’ would be needed when, after all it was TRUMP! Not sure where his credibility comes from
Andrew Sullivan is just another manifestation of that disgusting phenomenon, a right-wing commentator who makes a career out of drifting further and further to the left. And yes, he does suffer from severe Trump Derangement Syndrome just like his Canadian counterpart Frum, even if he claims not to.
Sullivan dropped at least two F-bombs in this interview. Just a suggestion to Freddie for future Lockdown TV episodes. He should have something like the one-false-start rule in athletics. Passionate guests should be allowed one F-bomb in an interview, but should be warned to watch their language. A second F-bomb should terminate the interview and result in a lifetime ban from Lockdown TV. These rules weren’t of course in effect at the time, but I suggest a ban on future Sullivan appearances anyway as a favour to the viewers.
By the way, shortly after being exiled to Elba, Napoleon escaped, made himself Emperor of France again, and was only stopped by the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo. The island that Sullivan would like to exile Trump to is Saint Helena. Sullivan invokes historical analogies to show how learned and clever he is, but only shows that he is ignorant and inept.
Nicely done!
“They planned it. They wanted to take over. They had ties to hold people hostage. They were calling for people to be killed”¦ They had a plan”, I guess they forgot to bring their guns then, considering the 1 shooting death was a protestor and not a security guard of police officer, regardless of the media narrative I don’t believe this wasn’t just a protest which simply over achieved.
Oh yes, the tragedy of it that all those those issues that the elites had ignored will now go back to being ignored. Let the hand wringing of “we wanted it fixed but not like that” begin. That is because people like Andrew Sullivan held their noses while the only person with the balls needed to take on The Devil on his home turf was finally overturned by a massive, blatant, “ends justifies the means” cheating and gaslighting and his type never had the courage to stand in the middle ground and say ” we need proper court cases to satisfy ourselves on this for all our sakes”
If you lie and cheat your way to the helm of the Titanic you had better ******* own it when it goes down. Now that mendacious Washington insiders and globalists are fully back in charge my only consolation is that the inevitable will happen on their watch.
Recruiting the Devil to cast out demons was always going to end poorly, and it has. Because you wind up accepting all the Devil’s terms and methods. Donald Trump was never going to deliver on his bombastic promises and threats, but her sure as hell delivered the destruction associated with them. He is unhinged.
Yawn…
RawMuscleGlutesAndrew Sullivan is back!No one else was even willing to attempt what Donald Trump was bringing to attention, border insecurity, job offshoring, the absurd growth of China, and many other issues. His outrage, like so many other cuckservatives, is reserved almost entirely for his own ostensible side, we do not need the likes of Andrew. It’s because of men like him that conservativism is essentially dead.
The use of the suffix “ism” implies an ideology. Conservative is epistemological, not ideological. Donald Trump co-opted traditional conservative values, hijacking the Republican Party ( while its elites were squabbling with one another ) and the result was a jingoistic amalgam now referred to as “conservatism” by its adherents and detractors. Trumpism is not conservative. True conservatives have more in common with classical liberals than with the morally bankrupt, incoherent political claptrap of the Trumpist right.
Popularism is probably more apt. President Trump is a “populist”. We’re tired of “political correctness” and now “wokness”. We want freedom and Americanism.
Indeed sir. It is strange to watch American movies on Netflix now, because they all play-out in a world that is now gone for good and will never return. And the whole western world will follow.
Andrew Sullivan is not a conservative no matter how much he protests.
The villain of the piece is not Donald Trump. It is the ruling caste in America and the western world these past 30 years.
Two things – among others – which freedom depends upon = a genuine
dialogue between rulers and the ruled; and the 4th Estate of Democracy
actually doing its job (i.e. finding out what is happening, reporting it
as impartially as possible and [genuinely] talking truth to power).
All that disappeared from Occidental life in the first two decades of this century.
[1] The Leave victory in the British referendum of 2016 and Donald Trump’s
success later that year in aiming to become U.S. President ought to have
engendered in the ‘meritocrats’, the elites, who now govern the
Occident a period of reflection and self-questioning. Both these
verdicts constituted remonstrances against the record of the governing
class to date. Yet no such self-examination has ever taken place.
Instead the rulers went hysterical with rage, became griped by Trump and Brexit Derangement Syndromes and – preposterously – blamed the outcome of those electoral contests on Vladimir Putin and Russian interference in
western politics.
HOW COULD THE RUSSIAN AUTHORITIES INFLUENCE
OCCIDENTAL OPINION SO MUCH?! As regards Brexit, we Britons had been in the EU for 43 years. Nobody in Wigan or Sunderland needed any input at all from the Kremlin to know how to think about our membership of the ‘European Project’. Even a cretin who has been married for 43 years
knows of himself what to think about his marriage. He does not need to be told, he will not be influenced, by V Putin or anyone else as to whether or not he feels, in his secret soul, satisfied with the union.
Likewise with Mr Trump’s victory in the USA. Any amount of Facebook ads orpropaganda from the media (which, Heaven knows, went all in for Hillary
Clinton) was not going to count much with American voters.
[2] Barack Obama was worshipped uncritically and absolutely by the whole of the media from the moment he aimed to become president of the USA; and that has continued ever since. His politicising of the Dept of Justice,
the FBI, the CIA; his using the Internal Revenune Service to persecute
political opponents; his dreadful Affordable Healthcare Act and sell-out
to Iran – this, plus all his unctuous hypocrisy and race-baiting, has
never met with any criticism in the US mainstream media (Fox News
excepted) and but little remonstrance over here.
Contrariwise, the moment Donald Trump – a man both courageous and silly – took up thegauntlets on behalf of populism, he was denounced as if he was Adolf Hitler’s worse elder brother or Satan’s own plenipotentiary vicegerent
appointed to wreck life on Earth. And that has been nonstop from the
autumn of 2015.
In short, there you have two proofs among many, that the mainstream media in cahoots with the Political Class (both of them parts now of the awful ruling caste in the western world) operates, where politics is concerned, as a propagandist brainwashing lackey, not a seeker after truth.
It is the Ruling Caste in today’s western world which has all but destroyed democracy.
When the political class, the media and the corporations are all in cahoots to ignore democracy the word fascism truly applies
Hillary, Pelosi, the MSM and the DNC have fueled this with 4 years of lies and wasted taxpayers dollars with the Russia collusion. We elected Trump because of the never ending slide toward socialism in this country but due to his thin skin he always took the bait when when they wanted to incite things. Name me a politician you always agree with? The outrage over what just happened verses the BLM and Antifa riots is beyond the pale. The politicians and buildings in Washington have lost much of their esteem due to the assault on our country from both parties. I don’t know anyone who condones this recent behavior but we have been led down this path by our inability to find any common ground with one another.
Hard to find common ground with someone with your views. Can’t fix what is wrong with your so predictable mouthful of views
Sullivan’s “I was right, I was right!” is embarrassing. Personal dislike for a man does not make for a coherent nor well-thought out political analysis. Sullivan’s giddiness is disgusting.
If you read or listen to Sullivan consistently, he’s always pinching himself about his good fortune for having gone to Oxford & Harvard. He refers to his elite credentials with great frequency which is obnoxious; In my own immediate family, folks have attended MIT, Harvard, Yale, & Columbia – but once graduated no one even deigns to mention their elevated education. It’s not necessary. That Sullivan has had the good fortune to mix with like fellows and breathe elite airs is terrific, but he can’t seems to get over himself. This alone seems to explain his distain of Trump; No matter his humble beginnings, Sullivan is an elitist to the core.
The worst kind – one that fought to get there and feels like he might be ‘found out’ or ‘expelled’ at any moment
I am convinced that the US is deeply divided, that Donald Trump seized the opportunities available in 2015/6 to defeat Clinton, that he has a hippopotomus hide, that his conduct of the Presiency has been idiosyncratic-to put it mildly. I also think it possible to look back over the past four years, and consider that his-is it his? I can hear- record is defensible-employment up, bklack male and mexican-american vote forn the Republicans up, peace in the Mid-East, cross-arty position on China, some home truths told the Europeans in Poland. It is also true to say that the Democrats opposed Trump as illegirtimate from Day One. Apparently, Big Tech took action immediately. As if January 2019, Trump was coasting to victory. Then came Covid; Covid was a massive opportunity to unseat Trump. It is also clear that the US electoral procedures have been made, or just as important, have been seen to be made, vulnerable by postal voting and by electronification-the paper trail of votes has been binned. Plus, that trust in UQS institutions, emdia etc is is the 10% range, according to polls.
Lets accept Sullivan’s take on Trump-he is a tyrant, and dangerous;
So: conclusion: he won’t take the initiative. He sees the future as Sullivan does-one big opportunity.
The ball was in Biden’s camp: join immediately with Trump in insisting on a forensic investigation on what happened duriung the Presidential elections. Do so in the interest of the Republic, and in the interest of his forthcoming Presidency.
Biden snuffed it. Not a sign. Not a peep.
All I hear from Democrats is the snarl of vengeance,-first and foremost from St Obama.
In short, what this interview, misses is a discussion of how far back this breakdown in trust goes. Who was the first mover?
“If you want to play legal scholar on that, you can. Okay, go ahead.”
Thanks, I will. Conservatives complain, rightfully, that progressives’ viewpoints are emotionally driven and based on the belief in the oxymoronic concept of “subjective truth”. The rest of us, who are supposed to be more logical and fair-minded than those on the far-left, should base our opinions of events through the lens of the legal system.
Probable cause and guilt beyond a reasonable doubt are both mandatory. Emotionally charged statements are irrelevant. To paraphrase Sullivan, “Who cares about trivial things like legal justification when making criminal accusations? Trump burned down the country with a flamethrower!”
Isn’t this the kind of thinking that leads to mob rule?
Yes, he has got TDS. This is dangerous fantasy and it is being peddled everywhere. He isn’t the only one.
The new strain of TDS is far more potent and dangerous. It appears to affect Trump supporters and causes severe credulousness and willingness to accept dishonest and unfounded utterances from the Orange Man as fact.
Fact checking Sullivan: The FBI confiscated no guns or arms on January 6. The only gun used was by the Capitol police who killed protester Ashley Babitt.
Sullivan: “(Trump) he has bled the government dry for his own enrichment” – this is just babble.
Sullivan: “Trump is a cult” – no he’s not. The Democrats just can’t get over that millions of folks actually like what a politician is saying. It just rings true.
Sullivan: “I am a drama queen at times” – correct
The media here i in the US is filled with first person accounts of people hiding under desks fearing for their lives including one ex-Marine who had served in Iraq and is now in Congress from Mass. He was shoved into a room with others who were in danger of losing their lives – but also the danger of being exposed to Covid. He didn’t say he would rather be back in the safety of Iraq, however.
I am by no stretch of the imagination a trump supporter, but what was left out of this conversation was the media’s uninterrupted assault on Trump and his supporters. Are they not also responsible for inciting the mob’s fury? Republicans have been on record as wanting government no bigger than a bathtub starting with the Ronald Regan who may have brought “calm” to the nation but in the end did more damage to this country than Trump.
Speaking of danger, one must not in any way deviate from the Democrats narrative these days without losing friends.
I’m sorry … Imbecile
There is some real truth to this. It would have been so much better if a leader with some integrity, or moral authority, or who was at least a little plausible, had addressed these real issues.
But how do we imagine such a person would be elected? Trump’s election arguably depended on people, including the Republican party, thinking he was a bit of a joke. I can’t imagine either party allowing a candidate who questioned the neoliberal assumptions to get that far otherwise.
I can’t think of anyone with moral authority but perhaps the concept seems unlikely when we are talking about human beings. Trump’s election was a last ditch flyer, a stick in the eye to the elites and not at all a joke. The joke would have been Hilary Clinton winning. Sure had someone else saying the same things Trump said been running there might have been a legitimate choice. But it was Clinton on offer.
You and I have vehemently disagreed before so I just wanted to dive in and say this is spot on.
Clinton was the continuity candidate in a country that was sick of continuity and the dynasty candidate in a democracy that was tired of the same old dynasties. Terrible choice of candidate.
Her arrogance really took the biscuit. She acted like the presidency was hers by right, like it was divinely ordained. And then grossly insulted half the voting public by calling them ‘deplorables’ – while being married to someone who hung out with Epstein and whose foundation exploited Haitians while making masses of money for the Clintons….
Yup. To this day, most of DC and a fair chunk of America refuses to contemplate how Trump was even made possible. Sullivan dances around it and then promptly dismisses it, as if the factors that made Trump happen are somehow illegitimate because they resulted in Trump.
It would have been so much better if a leader with some integrity, or moral authority, or who was at least a little plausible, had addressed these real issues.
Re-read that statement and see if the glaring flaw in it does not jump off the screen. That no leader who meets your criteria addressed these things should speak volumes about most of the political class. Trump’s great sin is not being one of them; they were not going to have these outsider crash their little party of grift and graft, and certainly not for the benefit of the great unwashed.
Possibly you could have gone on to read the second paragraph.
Andrew Sullivan is a predictable f*g. Always has been.
And he’s not aging well, either. All that hatred and abnormal bedroom activity can’t be doing him much good.
Freddie is quickly becoming one of my favorite interviewers of all time. That said, he practically had to turn into a coach in order to be able to get through the end of this conversation. And though he did a great job at it, I don’t think that should be his role here. I love Andrew Sullivan but if he can’t handle the heat, he is not in a position to be a guest on a channel that goes by the name of UnHerd, especially to speak on a topic that evidently triggers him so easily.
He it truly terrible. 6 months after the right is still angry he will switch sides again. This is how he has been for decades now. He just blows with the wind.
Maybe New York Magazine was right.
This guy is suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome
Andrew Sullivan. The CIA planted fake conservative. This is a completely wasted interview. He doesn’t have a real following anywhere
andrew Sullivan is the least original commentator in the country: he cannot recognize that Trump is the logical outcome of the past 60 years of Republican politics nor does he take any responsibility for his own views that align with that party! Trump offends this chattering class because he is uncouth, Ill-educated and too publicly a genuine fascist. Now, Sullivan wants to be ” woke ” about race and class matters that he has ignored for 25 years! He and his pals don’t really understand either the country or the times. He has been a critic of ” identity politics ” without understanding that identity politics in favor of whiteness is the bedrock of his own perspectives, and this country’s founding principles He is unoriginal and commits the cardinal sin of being boring on top of it all!
Can someone explain to me, in a calm and non-ranting sort of way, what exactly it is about ‘the woke Left’ that is so threatening? Why do commentators like Andrew Sullivan fear it so much, when the real damage to people’s lives that has been done in the UK and USA in my lifetime (born 1957) has come overwhelmingly from the Right?
English is not my first language but I recently found myself explaining the meaning of the term “woke” to a scottish friend. Instead of explaining its dangers I would recommend the reading of Douglas Murray’s “The Madness Of Crowds”
I think it is a type of lazy thinking to see the issue of wokism as being of the left, the left is just useful to a global neoliberal strategy that, for many reasons, seeks to demolish the nation state, citizenship, cultural identification, and democracy… with an aim to put in place a new order encompassing global labour and a psuedo meriticracy in place of any histirical understanding of citizenship. on the governing front, a unchallengable ‘rule of law’ system in much the way of current trade agreements to replace democracy.
Read 1984 and Animal Farm which express it far better than I ever could – oh and the Gulag Archipelago