Donald Trump Endorses Liberal Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania Senate Race

Celebrity.

Former President Donald Trump endorsed celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate Race on Saturday after his initial pick, Sean Parnell, dropped out amid a contentious custody battle with his estranged wife last fall.

So he had previously endorsed a conservative. But why the change now to someone who previously pushed amnesty for illegal aliens?

Or a guy who wrote columns supporting gun control, and then lied, claiming he didn't personally write columns in his own name? (He did.)

But here is the problem for Oz--he cannot blame just the co-author of the column for the radical views he espoused on the Second Amendment in favor of gun control, because there are many other instances where Oz himself pushed gun control outside of the column. Perhaps most significantly, in 2018, Oz tweeted calling for a CDC study on "gun violence in this country" and said he thinks it is "time we view shootings as a public health problem." The tweet remains public on his Twitter profile, from which he is now campaigning as a U.S. Senate candidate claiming to be a Republican--but from which just a couple of years ago he was pushing full-blown gun control...

This latest claim about his columns seems to have been invented by his U.S. Senate campaign when he needed an excuse to get out of the political liability of having written these intensely unpopular views--but when it was convenient to his public image as a celebrity doctor friendly with the American political left, Oz celebrated his column.

For instance, in a Thanksgiving piece for Time Magazine in 2013, Oz wrote that he constantly runs into people who thank him for writing his column--many of them by this point pushed these gun control ideas--and he said he was proud to put his name on them. "I get stopped by people who mention they learned something on my show or read my newspaper column and benefitted from it," Oz wrote of his columns with Roizen.

More recently, in February, he told supporters in Bucks County that he supports the "red flag" law.

Oz has also previously been an abortion supporter, before suddenly realizing he's been "pro life" all along.

But only two years earlier, Oz characterized efforts to overturn Roe as a misleading and possibly conspiratorial crusade. Not only was Oz supportive of abortion rights, he seemed puzzled that people would spend time fighting abortion rights--going so far as to say that, as a physician, he was "really worried" about the anti-abortion movement and that eliminating Roe would have negative effects on women's health.

"It's, as a doctor--just putting my doctor hat on--it's a big-time concern," Oz said in the 2019 interview, which aired on the Breakfast Club radio show. "Because I went to medical school in Philadelphia, and I saw women who had coat-hanger events. And I mean really traumatic events that happened when they were younger, before Roe v. Wade. And many of them were harmed for life."

Oz conceded that abortion "is a hard issue for everybody," and he said that, on "a personal level," he disliked abortion and would not want anyone in his family to have one. But he took a common pro-choice position in 2019 that his belief should not be forced onto others. He would not want to "interfere with everyone else's stuff," he said, "because it's hard enough to get into life as it is."

So, this post is going to cause trouble. There are some commenters who insist that Trump is beyond criticism and that any criticism of him is disloyal or helps the left.

But it's that kind of claim, which convinces Trump, wrongly, that he can do whatever he want and conservatives will not hold it against him if he goes liberal, which then induces him to go to the left.

If you want to support Mehmet Oz and tell me he's the best possible candidate, then you go ahead an do so. But note that Trump was previously supporting an actual conservative, Sean Parnell, so Trump believes a real conservative can win this race.

But don't tell me that I can't point out that Trump has ignored conservative candidates to endorse, yet again, someone he's seen on TV.

Now what's probably going on is that Oz is the highest-profile candidate who agreed to pledge fealty to Trump behind the scenes. (As if that counts -- Mitt Romney interviewed to be Trump's Secretary of State and I'm sure he told Trump he was a big fan and supporter. Spoiler: He was not a big fan and supporter.)

And I don't actually blame Trump for trying to stock the Senate with people who owe Trump something. Mitch McConnell also endorses people based on his understanding of who will support McConnell's Corporate China-Aligned Fake Conservatism, and he kneecaps those who he suspects won't.

For example: Bitch McConnell just donated to fellow neocon Acela Corridor Liberal and corporate stooge Liz Cheney.

And Trump knows that Mitch McConnell has the Senate stocked with NeverTrump fish.

I dislike this Roman game of advancing your loyalists in the Senate, but I do understand, it's a rotten game that mut be played.

But we can't permit Trump to endorse non-conservatives without rebuke just as we can't permit Mitch McConnell to do the same without rebuke.

He could have endorsed a lower-profile candidate. I'm sure any number of them were willing to do so (and might have already have done so). If Trump's coveted endorsement is actually worthy of coveting, he should be able to endorse someone up to a win.

He keeps "endorsing" people who are already ahead. Like he's trying to pad his "endorsement wins record" with sure things.

"Cheap Date Conservatism," where conservatives have given their blessing to people and called them "conservative" based on the most trivial of gestures while ignoring their liberalism, has really harmed the movement over the years.

posted by Ace at 01:48 PM

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