I get good advice from friends all the time.  Quite often, I respond with “Yeah, but…” followed by an excuse or rationalization for not following their advice.  It never serves me well.  At the best of times, I eventually take their advice.  At worst, I miss a valuable opportunity.  I am resistant to advice, for whatever reason, so the latter, rather than the former, is the rule.  I even say “Yeah, but…” to myself.  For example, I have been debating the deletion of my Facebook account for some time now.  Every time I thought about it, I would think, yeah, but I will lose contact with my friends, or yeah, but I will lose exposure for my art, or yeah, but my Guatemala project is on there.  The thing is, none of those things were good reasons for not deleting my account.  Most contact on Facebook is shallow.  The benefit to an artist of Facebook algorithms is negligible, and I can, as I have done, start a new account just to maintain the project and share this blog. (Scrabble might have played a part as well).  My point is, all my “Yeah but…”s did not serve me.  They never do.

Senators McCain, Flake, and Corker all went on the record this past week with strong criticisms of the man who gets an extra scoop of ice cream in the White House.

Almost immediately pundits and others on the left began saying “Yeah, but…”  Yeah, but they created him by pushing divisive rhetoric for years.  Yeah, but they supported him in the election.  Yeah, but they still vote for his policies (not really true, as he has no policies.  They vote for the Republican agenda).  Yeah, but they are retiring.

My response?  Yeah, but what they all said this week was important, it was true, and it needed to be said by people from the right.  Yes, they created the environment which spawned Trump, but those are the very people who need to acknowledge that in order to convince his followers.  Yes, they supported him in the election, but they regret that now, and why would you not want them to say so?  Yes, they still support the Republican agenda, but they have also resisted attempts to push it even farther into extremity.  Yes, they are retiring, but what they are saying is still the truth, and needs to be heard.

Saying “Yeah, but…” only diminishes the power of what they are saying.  Why would you want to do that?