Revolver has a 50 minute or so minute interview with Mike Flynn. It's billed as a sort of a tell all for conservatives:
Revolver Exclusive: For The First Time Ever, Gen. Flynn Reveals High-Ranking GOP Were Behind Plot to Silence Him
In fact, it's nothing of the sort. Flynn makes vague accusations about high ranking persons in the Deep State being out to get himself and Trump, but if you're looking for names named, new facts presented, truths revealed, etc., forget it. It'll only be time lost from your life. I would hope that readers at this blog who listen to Flynn will not come away feeling more knowledgeable.
Actually, the interview comes across as the kind of interview a prospective candidate for high office might give, if he were going to attempt to run as a non-establishment outsider, running to clean up Washington DC and restore the greatness that used to be America. Heard that before? But there are no details there. Yes, Flynn hints broadly at a cultural war, but I have to say that there's a real moral emptiness at the core of what he's saying. No suggestion whatsoever of any steps that he would champion. That becomes especially clear in the final segment in the terms with which he urges young people to enlist in the military. One comes away wondering: What does America stand for, in Flynn's mind? What makes it worth fighting and even dying for--in his mind?
My parents were born in 1920. They were what would be called "lifelong Democrats"--actually activists. The high point of their lives in a political sense was the election of 1960. But the last election in which they voted Dem was 1964. They left on the issue of abortion, although there were other matters of disagreement as well. They couldn't abide what they could no longer deny was the leftist nature of what they had thought of as "their" party.
Flynn was born in 1958. He admits to having been a "lifelong Democrat", including during the 2016 Trump campaign. He claims to have grown up as a Dem in a conservative, pro-life, non-socialist family. Problem: That would have been more or less the same period in which I grew up--I was born in 1950. I have never voted for a Dem in my life. Not for any reason whatsoever. What did I see beginning in 1968 or so that Michael Flynn failed to see--right up to the moment that he was taken down by a bi-partisan DC Establishment? What does that say about Flynn's insight into himself and his country?
Unbelievably--and I mean that literally--Flynn maintains that he was a lifelong Dem right up through the Trump campaign, but that the Dem party changed "all of a sudden". Really. His words. "All of a sudden." Where, one might well ask, was Michael Flynn from, say, 1980 through 2016? I'm not going to claim that no one (like myself) could have served in the US Government in good conscience during many of those years, but I will say that the change that came over America--and especially the change that came over the Dem party--did NOT occur "all of a sudden". I count myself lucky that I was able to retire when I did. Flynn's claim of a sudden change in the Dem party, which he repeats throughout the interview, is the purest bullshit. A bit like his claim that the purpose of the US military is to "fight and win" wars--his repeated emphasis.
Michael Flynn didn't do this interview to admit that he had failed to understand what was going on in America, to admit that his supposed "non-political" military career was about career advancement, an ambition that may have blinded him to some hard realities. I suppose I get that--Flynn is still young enough to possibly have a career in public office ahead of him. He does say some sensible things, but I don't get the sense that this is a guy who could make America great again. His vision is far too limited and--to be fair--that's a job that's certainly beyond any one man. Nevertheless, a bit more honesty and self examination would be helpful.
The fact that Michael Flynn was shamefully treated by a shameless DC establishment should not blind us to his limitiations--limitations that are imposed on any office holder in today's America. If you don't believe me, look at Trump's three justices on the SCOTUS--no blame there on Trump, he did the best he could.
We can't give up, and to that extent we need to support men like Flynn. But we need to support them with eyes open.
I would like names.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the eGOP directly targeted Flynn, but they aided and abetted the effort by allowing it to happen.
Top on my list are Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, that probably assured Trump that this would blow over, and he should let Flynn go, so Trump would not be distracted, and not start a fight during his honeymoon of his first 100 days.
"urges young people to enlist in the military"
ReplyDeleteno disrespect to any current or former armed forces people whatsoever - I have many in my extended family - but I would NEVER want my children to do that. And its not because of the danger or what have you. I once regarded it as one of the more honorable things one could do.
This is not the republic it once was, and I see no reason for my kin to be tied up in the meaningless royal diktats and elite chess games of those who have usurped the republic.
no. freaking. way.
"We can't give up, and to that extent we need to support men like Flynn. But we need to support them with eyes open."
ReplyDeleteTo often we name heros that are not anything of the sorts. Flynn is a victim that lived in a bubble and there is no shortage of bubble dwellers on either side of the fence.
Yes and to that extent Revolver did us all a favor in exposing Flynn as a mere mortal. Mere indeed. I would not support Flynn for elected office (assuming elections ever become a real thing again) as he sounds like just another establishment Uniparty double talker. No thanks. We're in the mess right now because we settled for too many people like Flynn who talk a good game and then kick us to the curb. Rez
Delete"Flynn's claim of a sudden change in the Dem party, which he repeats throughout the interview, is the purest bullshit."
ReplyDeleteI must disagree here, esp. seeing that the choice before, say, 2014, was between 2 very flawed parties.
By the time DJT got the GOP nod, the GOP had shown that much of it had learned a slew since the Dubya disaster, while the
Dems had indeed suddenly changed, from being roughly as dubious as crowd as Dubya's GOPe, to being the hugely deceitful Home of the Woke.
As I doubt that DJT would've ran, or won the nod, w/o the rise of the Woke, I don't see Flynn's trajectory as being so different from DJT's.
The Dems became a dominant Left party as far back as FDR. What that meant for the long term became totally clear with McGovern. There was NO "sudden change". People like my parents and many others recognized that the change was permanent.
DeleteOk, many folks saw things like you did, but evidently not DJT, nor most folks in MI, PA, and WI.
DeleteAnd, many such folks saw the Dubya GOP as more or less as bad as the Dems, until Dubya-ism was replaced by Trumpism, and FDR- McGovernism was replaced by full-bore, outright honky-hating Wokeism.
From 2013, when Oprah teed off vs. "millions" of lynchings, to 2016, when HRC teed off vs. the "racist" etc. Deplorables, the Woke claws really came out, obviously enough for a DJT to shock the world (esp. in MI, PA, and WI).
To enough folks in those states, there had indeed been a "sudden change".
Why are you disputing things I never said? Enough folks in those states were idiots. That's not news to me. I knew and still know plenty of them. That doesn't change the fact that Flynn is wrong. What is your point?
DeleteMy point is, that there were quite key changes among Dems, 2013-16, that drove decent folks in MI etc. into the arms of DJT, after having fled the Dubya GOP to the arms of SparkleFarts.
DeleteIt shouldn't be hard to see, why decent folks (incl. Flynn?) would've been swayed by such considerations, and shifted from party to party to party, as evidence dribbled in, as to which party was worse that the other.
1. I wasn't discussing what got Trump elected.
Delete2. Obama 2008 was a key turning point. 8 years before 2016.
3. No changes in Dems were sudden changes--their Leftist march was progressive and visible.
4. You're free to makes points that I didn't make, but not to ascribe them to me and then tell me I'm wrong.
5. There seems to be a difference of opinion about who decent folks are. I don't regard Clinton and Obama voters as decent folks. Stupid folks at best.
6. I'm not blindly defending GOPe, but I am stating that the GOP has always been the lesser of evils.
I won't reply (yet) on every point, but on "the GOP has always been the lesser of evils" to you, yes, but to decent folks in MI, PA etc., no.
DeleteI don't regard most HRC voters as decent folks, but I quite understand, why folks in MI etc. would've first backed SparkleFarts (over a Dubya *clone*, and then the pathetic shill Mittens), but afterwards swung to DJT (over Bastinda).
According to Steve Sailer, no fool he, Obama 2012 (or something like that) was the key turning point, see
https://www.takimag.com/article/the-great-awokening-conspiracy-theory/ :
< the recent *low point* for usage of the word “racism” was that innocent year of *2011*.
But then, according to Rozado, the NYT began to use “racism” about 20 percent more often in each year from 2012 through 2014, followed by huge jumps in 2015 and 2016.
By 2015, “racism” as a percentage of the total words printed in The New York Times, was appearing *three times* as often as in 2011.
Was racism really *three times* as bad in 2015 as in 2011? Of course not.
The New York Times had merely decided to honk the racism horn three times as loudly.
Why?
That’s a big question.... >
I'll bet ranch, that Steve Miller, Bannon etc., see part of their jobs as, to look quite empathetically at those voters who flipped from SparkleFarts to DJT, tho such voters part from you on "the GOP has always been the lesser of evils".
DeleteNot my job, man.
DeleteFair enough, but I do see it as part of mine, and I hope, of those who do have DJT's ear (which, of course, I don't).
Delete(I'm a quite small fry, nowhere near that level.
If I'm any sort of "player", it's only at the level of sites like this.)