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A Real Centrist

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Everybody is surprised that Trump is running as a centrist. He’s saying a federal abortion ban at 6 weeks is insane and wouldn’t even make a firm promise at 15 weeks. He’s refusing to say that a man can’t become a woman.

The only reason why this is surprising is that people have bought into the silly news coverage that keeps trying to present him as a far-right autocrat.

In reality, Trump has always been consistently centrist and the most open to bipartisan thinking of all presidents since I can remember. Forget the noise and think back to what he actually did in what concerns crime, immigration, COVID – everything.

Trump is far-right like Obama was a Communist. And he’s an authoritarian like Biden is a teenager.

25 responses to “A Real Centrist”

  1. Demotrash Avatar
    Demotrash

    Part of the reason he was able to entice me over was that he is a moderate, specifically a more moderate on economic issues than his Tea Party predecessors.

    Right now, as Tim Scott is calling for striking auto workers to be fired, Trump is offering to visit the strikers. Even if you personally dislike the strike, why run your mouth about it like a moron? That message doesn’t even win over Republican primary voters.

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  2. Demotrash Avatar
    Demotrash

    I don’t like what Trump has been saying about abortion, but I can’t deny it’s a wise electoral strategy. And abortion stuff is mostly state level at this point, so that’s where I’m putting my focus. There’s a November ballot measure about abortion in Ohio and I wish people could put half as much energy into opposing it as screeching about someone Trump said.

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  3. ed Avatar
    ed

    Or maybe he’s just trying to appear centrist now that the Republican nomination is basically in the bag.

    Nothing centrist about constantly picking up fights and sowing discord.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I’m talking about actual policy, though, not the rhetoric. His actual policy was always extremely mild.

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      1. ed Avatar
        ed

        I don’t know what “policy” you are talking about. As far as I could tell he did not have one.

        He also appointed the anti-abortion judges that overturned RoevWade. So this new found concern for abortion rights is clearly just a facade.
        He certainly did not appoint centrist judges, which says a lot about how “centrist” he is.

        Liked by 1 person

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          COVID policy, for instance. His was right in the middle of every variety around the world. Immigration, in which he was extremely mild in both directions. Prison reform, where he gave enormous concessions to the Democrats. The extremely restrained (if not absent) response during the BLM riots.

          The SCOTUS justices he appointed are, indeed, very centrist. They deliver one defeat after another to conservative causes, beginning with Trump’s own efforts to litigate the results of the election.

          Roe was bad law according to pretty much everybody in the legal field of all political persuasions. It’s simply unsustainable constitutionally and it’s a shame it was ever taken to the judiciary and not put through the legislative process like in the rest of the countries in the world. Returning abortion to legislature is what’s done in every developed country, including very left-wing ones.

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          1. ed Avatar
            ed

            Once again, what COVID policy? Every state did what it wanted basically, there was no cohesive Federal policy other than the vaccines.

            I really think you’re conflating a hands off approach and centrist. Once again, how can you possible be a “centrist” when you are constantly fighting and arguing with over half the country?

            Ok, let’s say Roe was bad law. What did Trump to do pass legislation legalizing abortion? He did absolutely nothing! So he has absolutely no credibility when he did absolutely nothing to codify abortion rights and instead put people in the supreme court that removed Roe without any Federal legislative base to keep common sense abortion rights.

            Trump is a charlatan, he will say and do anything that will get him re-elected. So now he needs to look “centrist” and pander to independents because he knows very well he won’t be elected otherwise.

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              Deciding to leave it in the hands of the states is policy. Many governments chose a different approach. For example, at my department, the Chair always supervised course offerings in all programs. I have reversed that policy and gave the power over this issue to program directors. I could have forced my will on them but I chose not to. That’s absolutely policy.

              On abortion, the centrist position is to give the choice to the states. Either a federal ban or a federal legalization is not centrist. It’s partisan.

              Passing a federal legalization that would be remotely bipartisan is impossible because there’s no agreement on the actual weeks of pregnancy. Last week, Kamala Harris adamantly refused to name the number of months. Even the Biden has zero ideas as to how to word that federal legislation. Is there to be a blanket legalization for up to 40 weeks? That is supported by something like 8% of the population.

              Right now, the most reasonable, centrist approach is to leave it to the states.

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              1. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                As for Trump constantly fighting and arguing, where is he doing that? I never hear from him at all. He’s on that Truth Social or whatever but who goes there?

                The reason why I won’t be voting for Trump again (aside from Ukraine, of course) is that he’s too mild, too compromising. I’d like somebody significantly to the right of him or at least principled.

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              2. methylethyl Avatar
                methylethyl

                I can see some interesting legal tangles arising from the biological complexity of trying to limit number of weeks.

                Pregnancy is counted from the start of your last period, but conception doesn’t happen until (on average) two weeks after that. So at the point where the embryo is two weeks old, the pregnancy is four weeks old. But that’s an average and averages are weird. For some ladies, particularly those with disorders like PCOS which is really really common these days, that two weeks can be six weeks, twelve weeks, four months… if you legislate “no abortions after 12 weeks” what does that actually mean? 12 weeks since your last period? It’d be simple to write legislation that would make it illegal for a woman with irregular cycles to have an abortion at all, because she didn’t actually get pregnant until after the arbitrary number-of-weeks mark.

                I’m against abortion. But I’m also against writing weird catch-22 stuff into law.

                Liked by 1 person

              3. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                Philosophically, there’s a reasoning for a legalization until birth and there is one for a full ban. It’s very hard to find a reasoning for anything in the middle.

                For a full ban, life begins at conception or heartbeat which is the same thing given that science allows to perceive a heartbeat extremely early. I heard Klara’s 2 days after I found out I was pregnant, and I was desperate, peeing on sticks like it was a job.

                For a full legalization, the logic is that life starts at first breath. Hence, the expression “to breathe life into something”.

                You can kind of make an argument of viability out of the womb to be a cutoff. But there’s zero logic behind the popular cutoff of 12 weeks. Just none. And that’s the one that most agree on. So everybody gets boggled down.

                Liked by 1 person

              4. methylethyl Avatar
                methylethyl

                “So everybody gets boggled down.”

                Yeah. There’s a lot of well-intentioned law that I agree with in spirit, but which gets used maliciously. I will not champion any of these “x weeks” bans. As you say, the reasoning is arbitrary

                But also, the tendency is to just hand over more power to people who shouldn’t have it, like unelected hospital officials. There are rights-of-the-unborn laws out there already that have been grievously abused for the benefit of hospitals and the medical establishment. They were established, supposedly, to protect unborn babies, and I think establish penalties for people who willfully caused their deaths, such as abusive partners. How they’ve actually been used is to penalize and medically kidnap women who wanted to give birth at home– literally taking them against their will to the hospital using emergency hearings where the mother has no rights, no legal representation, it’s just people making medical decisions for her on behalf of her baby, without her consent. Not cool.

                Liked by 1 person

  4. Avatar
    Anonymous

    “The reason why I won’t be voting for Trump again (aside from Ukraine, of course) is that he’s too mild, too compromising. I’d like somebody significantly to the right of him or at least principled.”

    I can definitely agree on the clear lack of principles. To me this translates as a lack of cohesive policy.

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  5. el Avatar
    el

    \ it’s just people making medical decisions for her on behalf of her baby, without her consent. Not cool.

    That’s 100% logical.

    The moment one supports forcing women to continue with pregnancy and be jailed for attempting illegal abortion since fetus is regarded as a child, one supports “literally taking them against their will to the hospital,” yes.

    Pretending otherwise is an example of religious people wanting to force their morality on me while being unaffected themselves.

    I live in Israel and, unfortunately, my country has horrible record regarding religious coercion, while using double standards for religious and (relatively) secular Jews. However, since America is supposed to have a separation between church and state, I would expect it not to enshrine religious beliefs into state law.

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    1. methylethyl Avatar
      methylethyl

      These are not antiabortion laws. They are laws enacted in places where abortion is completely legal.

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      1. el Avatar
        el

        \ These are not antiabortion laws. They are laws enacted in places where abortion is completely legal.

        I meant that if somebody supports antiabortion laws, one also supports taking women to hospitals against their will using the same logic.

        I do understand why what you described happens in pro-choice states. Up to a certain point in time a fetus isn’t regarded as a full human being, so a woman cannot be jailed to preserve a pregnancy.

        However, the situation changes at advanced pre-birth stages of pregnancy. You do view 8 months fetus as a child, right? If parents refuse medical treatment for kids for faith reasons, should it be legal too? I googled and was shocked to discover letting kids die IS legal in America as long as one provides a religious excuse for this child abuse.

        \ Letting them die: parents refuse medical help for children in the name of Christ
        The Followers of Christ is a religious sect that preaches faith healing in states such as Idaho, which offers a faith-based shield for felony crimes – despite alarming child mortality rates among these groups

        https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/13/followers-of-christ-idaho-religious-sect-child-mortality-refusing-medical-help

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        1. methylethyl Avatar
          methylethyl

          I’m against abortion, and Christians shouldn’t do it. I view a child as a child all the way back to conception.

          That doesn’t mean I want my beliefs enshrined in law, particularly in a culture where my views on life, death, and the body, are not widely shared.

          I have yet to see any laws that could not, would not, be abused to outrageously violate the rights of women to make their own medical decisions, and take their own medical risks, for the gain of our predatory medical system.

          Liked by 1 person

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          1. Clarissa Avatar
            Clarissa

            So true. I couldn’t get a C-section a day before 40 weeks with my first pregnancy, even though my son was very large. There was some stupid rule that you can only do that at special clinics that are authorized to do it, and you need to get registered with them way in advance. How was I supposed to know I’d get insulin-resistant gestational diabetes? How was I supposed to know such clinics even existed?

            We all know what the result of that rule was for us.

            Of course, with the second pregnancy I registered at the magical clinic before even trying to conceive but isn’t it simply stupid? Shouldn’t this be decided on a case-by-case basis and not based on some cookie-cutter rule?

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            1. methylethyl Avatar
              methylethyl

              IMO rules about C-sections for women who don’t want one are equally horrible. If your kid is breech, twins, or you’ve had a previous C-section, then they will force the C-section, because liability. But a C-section is major surgery, has its own risks, leaves a lot of scar tissue, and can negatively affect a woman’s future fertility (and that’s without getting into the risk of intestinal adhesions) and increase the risk to both herself and her babies in future pregnancies.

              It’s perfectly rational to decide to have a C-section when you’re 40, complications, history of loss. For a younger woman, having a first kid… I don’t think it’s outside the pale to accept a slightly higher risk to the child in order to preserve her bodily integrity and future fertility. That’s a rational decision that she should be able to make. Like, why does the risk of losing a baby trump the risk of mom getting a post-surgical bloodclot and dying? Why is risking a breech birth worse than increasing the odds that a woman will die of an AFE with her next kid? It’s also a rational decision for a woman who already has children to care for, and doesn’t want to risk being unable to care for her existing children if something goes wrong. I’m not saying that’s a decision we should celebrate, just that sometimes the options aren’t that clear-cut and the balance shouldn’t always be tipped toward hospital profits and liability.

              In addition, current policies wrt things like breech and twin births, mean that the current crop of doctors have no experience whatever in how to handle these deliveries apart from surgery. And the thing is, surgery’s not always an option! Sometimes when the laboring mother arrives at the hospital, she’s already too far along and you need someone with that expertise. Except for some niche places like the midwifery school at The Farm in Tennessee, safe delivery techniques for breech, twin, and shoulder dystocia are not even taught anymore. That’s expertise that’s being lost, every day. The only way to teach that effectively, is to let women who want to do it, take that risk, with the help of experienced attendants… and their students.

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              1. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                Absolutely! The woman is often not taken into consideration at all in all this. My sister was literally tortured in Canada as she was going into labor because her doctor’s shift hadn’t started yet, and his colleagues wanted to delay birth to make sure he caught the birth to add to his numbers.

                The exact same situation happened when my mother was giving birth to my sister back in the USSR but we were expecting something better from Canada.

                Liked by 1 person

              2. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                Also I want to mention that these needs of women who want to have children aren’t discussed. The entire arena of the discussion about reproductive rights is swallowed up by the needs of women who don’t want to give birth. Reproductive rights are always, invariably reduced to a single right which is to not reproduce. There’s no raging, intense decades-long public debate about anything relating to women who actually are exercising our right to reproduce or want to do so.

                Is there anything else related to reproduction that doesn’t involve abortion and trans people that might be of importance? Anything at all? It makes me really angry.

                Liked by 1 person

              3. methylethyl Avatar
                methylethyl

                …my first was born in a really lovely casa de nacimiento with a nice partera in attendance. No problemos. The next two were born in US hospitals, and while I did get the non-intervention that I wanted, I felt like I spent way too much time fighting my OB and the hospital staff to get that. I tested positive for GBS with both. They wanted me on IV antibiotics during labor. In both cases the colony count was under the reporting threshold, I read the dang studies that they based that recommendation on and the risks are associated with astronomically higher counts than I had. Plus, in order to be effective, the IV has to be administered 4 hours before the birth happens. I have really, really short labors. With kid2, literally 3 hours 45 minutes from the first contraction to when he was born, and I spent the first hour at home dithering. There was no way I was even going to be at the hospital for four hours before the baby arrived. All an IV was going to do was carpet-bomb my digestion, expose the baby to all the nasty side-effects of antibiotics, without actually being effective for its intended purpose. I explained this to my OB, she glazed over and repeated her “But when tests show X, we must do Y” robot spiel, I told her where she could shove it (but politely), and she still put it in my hospital recommendations where I then had to explain the same thing, do the same refusal, with the hospital staff while I was at like 6cm and trying to get checked into a room. I’ve gotten pretty good at telling nurses “no”, “I won’t do that” “I refuse” and “that’s my decision”.

                It’s not my favorite sport, but I win at it.

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            2. methylethyl Avatar
              methylethyl

              “The entire arena of the discussion about reproductive rights is swallowed up by the needs of women who don’t want to give birth. Reproductive rights are always, invariably reduced to a single right which is to not reproduce. ”

              Exactly.

              Don’t even get me started about hormonal contraception (do they ever ask if you might possibly want to have kids in the future? No.) and the “emergency hysterectomy”.

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    2. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      When abortion is made illegal, the only people who can be guilty under the law are doctors. Nobody persecutes the women. There’s never any support for that.

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  6. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “You can kind of make an argument of viability out of the womb to be a cutoff”

    That’s kind of where I land (a man, so…. feel free to ignore me) . I’m not into firm x number of days or weeks but I tend to take a more… holistic view. It should be easier to get an abortion early on and harder later on with viability out of the womb (in natural terms without heroic medical interventions) in the middle.

    The absolutists on either side make common sense solutions more difficult….

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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