I’d much rather have been wrong and laughed at later than to be right about what’s on the horizon.

Dude, I firmly believe that if we appear wrong later, it means that things happened openly or behind the scenes that stopped it, not that we were wrong.

I would sincerely like to see another post from you if/when you cross that line where even the die hards (or for that matter even the rank and file Rs) start to think something smells.

but they defend it, deflect, and try to gaslight.

This is a huge part of why I just don’t engage. I can handle protracted, passionate disagreement. I can’t handle deflections, false equivalences and gaslighting. I cannot deal with that kind of thing like a rational adult, and then I get accused of being angry due to disagreement when it’s nothing of the sort.