Scott Adams of Dilbert: I'm Endorsing Donald Trump, Because My Only Care In Politics Now Is To Push Back Against the Relentless, Remorseless Social Bullying of the Liberal Media and Political Establishment

Hear, hear.

I've been trying to figure out what common trait binds Clinton supporters together. As far as I can tell, the most unifying characteristic is a willingness to bully in all its forms.

If you have a Trump sign in your lawn, they will steal it.

If you have a Trump bumper sticker, they will deface your car.

if you speak of Trump at work you could get fired.

On social media, almost every message I get from a Clinton supporter is a bullying type of message. They insult. They try to shame. They label. And obviously they threaten my livelihood.

We know from Project Veritas that Clinton supporters tried to incite violence at Trump rallies. The media downplays it.

We also know Clinton’s side hired paid trolls to bully online. You don’t hear much about that.

Yesterday, by no coincidence, Huffington Post, Salon, and Daily Kos all published similar-sounding hit pieces on me, presumably to lower my influence. (That reason, plus jealousy, are the only reasons writers write about other writers.)

...

Team Clinton has succeeded in perpetuating one of the greatest evils I have seen in my lifetime. Her side has branded Trump supporters (40%+ of voters) as Nazis, sexists, homophobes, racists, and a few other fighting words. Their argument is built on confirmation bias and persuasion. But facts don’t matter because facts never matter in politics. What matters is that Clinton’s framing of Trump provides moral cover for any bullying behavior online or in person. No one can be a bad person for opposing Hitler, right?

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As far as I can tell, the worst thing a presidential candidate can do is turn Americans against each other. Clinton is doing that, intentionally.

Intentionally.

As I often say, I don’t know who has the best policies. I don’t know the best way to fight ISIS and I don’t know how to fix healthcare or trade deals. I don’t know which tax policies are best to lift the economy. I don’t know the best way to handle any of that stuff. (And neither do you.) But I do have a bad reaction to bullies. And I’ve reached my limit.

I hope you have too. Therefore…

I endorse Donald Trump for President of the United States because I oppose bullying in all its forms.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. My politics have basically changed to be about only this about two or three years ago.

I have noticed, with great chagrin, that many conservatives support the Social Bullying Model -- the Social Justice Warrior coordinated group pile-on mass-shaming -- when it's someone else's ox being gored.

I don't. Enough. Enough of it all.

It is a bad enough fate to be a slave with a single master. To be a slave with ten million masters? Worse.

Interestingly -- or perhaps inevitably -- two whiny NeverTrumpers have penned recent columns about, basically, this same idea, that they are supporting Hillary due to bullying from Trump's more deranged followers. (Followers? Some are followers. Some are trolls. Some are trolls paid, most likely, by a foreign government to reduce Americans' faith in participatory government.)

I don't disagree with them on the point that the bullying is nasty -- and I oppose, as I said, Social Justice Warrioring coming from the right (or "alt-right") as well as the left. These whiners shouldn't have had to through that, and it's a bad thing they did.

However, it also seems to me that this bullying is coming on Twitter from, let us say, economically and socially fringe people with little power in the world.

It's not coming from where Team Hillary's bullying is coming from -- from the actual power centers of politics and media, the actual locus of genuine political power and control.

Does that make the behavior less egregious, or the whiners' pain less real? No it does not. Threats and racist nastiness and insults directed at one's family are painful and unacceptable no matter which septic tanks they rise up from.

But there is a big difference between bullying from some fringey Twitter losers and bullying coming from CNN and the media. Witness what they did to Ken Bone, for example.

Fringe people saying awful things is a scourge, obviously, but that's been with us since the dawn of time.

But when people in actual power begin picking a target, freezing it, isolating it, and attacking it with the full force of ten million megaphones -- that's an actual threat to the social freedom of every citizen in America.

We've all learned to not upset the Right People, haven't we? No matter how brave one might thing one is in the face of Social Justice Outrage Scalp-Hunting, we have all either consciously or subconsciously adapted our behaviors and limited our own free speech to avoid the bloody fury of the Maenads.

Right now the media has a new target for bullying: Taylor Swift. Seems the pop princess hasn't joined the other pop princesses in endorsing Hillary, Esquire is now a jihad to socially bully her into taking a stand against Trump.

Doesn't anyone have a sense of perspective? Who actually has more capacity to do harm and gin up hatred and bullying -- Esquire magazine (and you know another 30 media outlets will begin pushing this same line, because they're lazy, unimaginitive, slavisly imitative, and viciously partisan) or @OdinsTears69 on Twitter?

Incidentally, the NeverTrump crowd never fails to insult me by subtweet (a tweet with an intended target/recipient, but in which the target's @-handle is not used; a way to talk about them behind their backs, but publicly) for daring to be a Republican actually interested in stopping a Democrat from winning the White House.

In fact, there are several groups actively seeking purges of We Deplorables from the party -- and the whiners who whine about bullying on National Review never discuss that at all. Infinite pixels for the outrages of the "Trumpkins," none at all for the misbehavior of their ideological kinsmen.

As usual, one tends to overlook the misbehavior of one's fellow pro-Hillary partisans, while focusing laser-like on the misbehavior of one's pro-Trump enemies.

So yes, bullying is rampant online, but I have very little patience for those who permit it from their allies and only rouse themselves to condemn it in from their enemies.

That's not a very "consistent conservative" or "principled" position, NeverTrumpers, now is it?

I also don't respect moral foppery which declares I Will Vote For Hillary Because Some of Trump's More Febrile Supporters Insulted Me Nastily Online, while utterly failing to condemn Hillary and her allies -- her very powerful allies -- for their own social bullying efforts.

By the way, you guys making your purge lists: You needn't bother. I've purged myself. I don't wish to be in any party you're in, and I will actively work against your interests in the future. Forever.

Right wing Social Justice Warrioring is still Social Justice Warrioring, you Millennial idiots, and you much-older-and-should-certainly-know-better morons.

posted by Ace at 02:10 PM

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