Patrick Ruffini wrote a fairly lengthy thread about the core premises behind everything he writes … a thread that may well have officially broken both John Harwood and Matt Yglesias.
Well, at least Matty.
It started here:
Here’s a thread where I list all my hot takes about politics. These are the core premises that underlie everything else I write. I’ll be adding to this periodically.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) October 21, 2018
His hot takes.
Sounds legit.
Trump is a normal President doing normal things except for the tweets.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) October 21, 2018
Actually, we agree. As far as policy and procedure Trump seems pretty normal, it’s the things he says and tweets that seem to get him in trouble. This simple statement though freaked John Harwood right the eff out.
definitely not correct https://t.co/rdUsSNxYxB
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) October 22, 2018
Well gosh, John, if you say so.
PS: This is one of the reasons Trump won, people are so TIRED of snooty people like Harwood who think they’re our ‘betters’.
Ruffini continued:
African American and Hispanic Democrats play a key moderating role, reining in the hare-brained schemes of the white progressive left.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) October 21, 2018
Truth.
Someone winning the Presidency with supermajorities in large states like California and New York is exactly the scenario the Founding Fathers were looking to prevent when they instituted the Electoral College.
— Patrick Ruffini (@PatrickRuffini) October 21, 2018
And THIS one broke Matthew Yglesias.
People should be embarrassed to make this argument in public. https://t.co/4N3Glcdqcq
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 22, 2018
Screech screech! Notice how Matty and others on the left were AOK with the Electoral College when their guy was winning.
It’s like toddler-level moral reasoning built atop wildly inaccurate history.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 22, 2018
Someone is, dare we say, triggered?
Please note we avoided calling him a snowflake.
Okay, so the Electoral College.
For starters, while it’s true that the EC has a bias in favor of small states it’s a mild bias. And critically that bias isn’t what tipped the EC to Trump.
He won because he won *big* states (PA/MI/WI) by tiny margins.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 22, 2018
Wisconsin is a big state? Compared to what, Wyoming?
K.
The Founders, however, weren’t thinking about this one way or the other because their intention in setting up the Electoral College was that there weren’t be presidential elections at all in the way that we understand it.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 22, 2018
This sounds like the same argument these folks use when they’re trying to repeal the Second Amendment.
Pass.
Then moral reasoning:
As you can see, the Founders were visionaries but they also had a lot of mistaken ideas. Appeals to their intentions have no justificatory force. Many of them, after all, owned human beings as chattel property.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 22, 2018
Again, we didn’t see ol’ Matt complaining about the Founders making mistakes when Obama was president.
Crazy, right?
Related:
Call the EFF-BEE-EYE! Sen. Claire McCaskill has her own #MeToo problem (will she #BelieveWomen?)
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