Every human being alive (I’m no exception) likes people who agree with him or her. Hearing what we want to hear gives our brains a positive jolt. Gathering with like-minded people makes us feel “at home”. It’s human nature. Heck, it’s the reason I started visiting this blog (which is Bruce’s), years ago.
We also like to think that our heroes / important authorities would agree with us. This can be used for a marketing advantage. For example, if you dislike Donald Trump or his key supporters, you can get a leg up – in terms of having on-the-fence people read you or believe you – if you pretend to speak for the Republican party, as Ana Navarro does.
Or you could go Reagan. I’ve seen many folks quote (or re-tweet) a certain anti-Trump presence calling themselves The Reagan Battalion.
For my part, I’ve always felt a tad suspicious of them. They never struck me as especially Reagan-esque, or as linked to the Reagan legacy in some extra way that would justify claiming his name. The name strikes me as a marketing effort to say “Believe us, because we promise, Ronald Reagan R Us! Totes legit!”
I tend to be suspicious of Argument from Authority, and its variations like Argument from Biography, or Argument from What I Claim To Be. This is one reason (there are others) why I don’t talk my biography here on GP. My presence sort-of-tells people I’m gay, and my handle (ILC) announces my general ideology; other than that, I work to make my information/arguments stand on their merits.
Anyway: Lucian Wintrich, a gay Trump supporter and journalist, has done a piece critical of The Reagan Battalion that may be of interest. He says they were part of the anti-Milo campaign earlier this year (which I agree was a smear pile-on and as such, not the tiniest bit Reagan-esque). Wintrich links to other journalism that ties The Reagan Battalion to Democrat money and sketchy activists, per FEC and IRS filings.
This is one where I don’t claim to know “the truth”; just pointing out the article and letting people comment.
Always thought their was something shady about them.
On their web site, a few things jump out at me.
1. Relentlessly pro-GOP-Establishment. Plus anti-Milo and anti-Trump.
2. They have a “Conservative Directory” which tries to gain credit-by-association. Take Greg Gutfeld. He is *NOT* notably pro-GOP-e, anti-Milo or anti-Trump. But he is well known and funny. TRB gives him a long, glowing bio and promotes his books. The thing is…does Gutfeld have anything to do with TRB, in real life? If he does, let me know. My guess, for right now, would be “not much”. In which case, TRB basically would be leeching off his good name (as they do with Reagan’s). Perhaps without his permission?? I don’t know. Same with other names they list, like Steven Crowder.
3. And they list Glenn Beck…eww!
4. The first thing they want from you is a signup – presumably to bombard you, sell your address, etc.
5. They flash the word “Conservative” everywhere (several more times than GP does); again it feels like a sales job, “Hey, we’re totes legit! We promise!”
I can’t help smelling a certain Brock-Soros kind of deceptiveness in the whole thing.
How do we know The Reagan Battalion and Ana Navarro aren’t the same person/s?
The first people who I saw touting the “Milo is a pedophile” canard were the Reagan Battalion and “conservatives” on Twitter who follow them- generally anti-Trump, pro-Cruz or pro-Rubio Republicans. Not the Left, the so-called Right.
There’s a certain breed of Republican who use Reagan’s name much like medieval Christians used sacred relics. We need to stop invoking Reagan’s name like it automatically validates whatever the invoker is doing.
ILC, I learned an enormous amount about the whole Soros world and the ACORN background from Glenn Beck when he did his string of chalkboards and magnetic pictures on his program on FoxNews.
FoxNews owns those valuable seminars and they are likely locked away forever. Beck’s work was at least solid enough to keep from dragging FoxNews and himself into humongous lawsuits.
In my opinion, Beck has the charismatic’s disease of reaching the level of self-esteem that causes him to believe he can throw lightening bolts with the gods on Mt. Olympus.
Beck has some great insights mixed with (perhaps overcome by) his divine inspiration forays into prophecy and doomsaying.
The part of his mind that is on track is well worth consideration. So, I both pay attention and keep my skepticism radar in tune.
Heliotrope, Glenn Beck has been so introspective, that he has lost the ability to relate to what “hyper-caffeinated” Hannity calls the forgotten man, his radio show has become a toxic mix of theocracy and virtue signaling. You should be given a iron stomach award for listening. I am not surprised to see a Soros linked group tied in with never Trumpers. Globalist of a feather flock together.
Can anybody confirm if the maladies Beck said he was suffering from (going deaf, on a very strict diet due to immunodeficiency) have ever materialized, or if those were not true?
Glenn Beck has gone full-on Trump Derangement Syndrome. Pretty blatantly says that Trump is Hitler redux on his radio show. So, it’s not surprising a group like the Reagan Battalion are behind him.
These are interesting times for those of us who are neither Pro-Trump nor anti-Trump. All the outrage over Trump’s pardon of Joe Arpaio seems much more motivated by anti-Trump animus than by the legal facts, but it seems also that those in the throes of derangement do not even recognize how their hatred Is shaping their positions.