Republicans have no one to blame for Trump except themselves

Casey Stengel, when he first began coaching the Mets, and they were losing big, said: “You look up and down the bench and you have to say to yourself, can’t anybody here play this game?”

That’s what I want to say to the Republican bench as they face the Trump phenomenon. Based on current polls Trump would lose the general election if he got the nomination because his negatives are sky high. Yet polls tell us he’s the most popular candidate with the base of the Republican party. And the reason is blazingly obvious: he’s not afraid to embrace politically incorrect positions on illegal immigration, he promises the return of the American Dream, and he attacks the Democrat press with glee.

He’s not going to get the Republican nomination because Republican Party activists are not going to support him. Which makes me wonder why the Republican bench lacks the smarts to shut up and stop attacking him. Trump’s popularity among the public – especially the Republican public – has nothing to do with Trump as a person. He’s best known as a real estate developer, a shameless self-promoter with a series of trophy wives. He has a history of supporting liberal programs and liberal politicians plus he’s braggadocios, egotistical and arrogant.

Trump-the-man is not leading in the polls; it’s Trump-the-idea that is getting support. Here’s his idea in a nutshell: the problem with America is its government, not its people. His message embodies the spirit of America even as his persona is off-putting. Ronald Reagan said “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." In a way, Trump-the-message is Reagan without Reagan’s amiability.

That’s why McCain’s attack on Trump’s supporters as “crazies” backfired. People don’t think that unlimited immigration of poor people, many of whom are welfare cases, criminals or unskilled laborers taking American jobs is a good idea. And when Trump backhanded McCain on his hero status he wasn’t “destroyed” like the conventional wisdom said he would be. And it’s why Rubio, Perry, Jeb and others, who misunderstand the Trump phenomenon, didn’t help themselves.

It was not wise for one of Walker’s supporter to refer to Trump as a “dumdum” because it gave Trump an excuse to counter-attack, something that Trump does with glee.

If the people you want to woo are the ones who like Trump’s ideas you don’t attack the man who articulates those ideas; you embrace them. Ted Cruz is the only one on the Republican bench who seems to understand that. He stood on the floor of the Senate and called Senator McConnell a liar. That resonates.

In flyover country people are wondering why the Republicans are not doing the things they promised to get elected. They are ready to believe that the Republican establishment doesn’t care about the middle class, and they don’t want the Democrats’ charity.

They’ve seen good paying jobs in Appalachian coal mines become casualties of the president’s war on coal. They’ve lost solid, middle class work on the oil rigs of the Gulf to a president more obsessed with tomorrow’s temperatures than today’s families. And they’ve bid goodbye to Midwestern factory jobs while the president saddles employers with oppressive taxes and regulations.

They’re the autoworkers whose fathers punched in at $30 an hour, and they’re trying to get by on a $15 hourly wage. They’re the legion of middle class workers who once had employer-provided health insurance, but now have to pay for most of their medical costs themselves.

They went to the polls and elected Republicans. But instead of good jobs they find the Republican establishment supporting an Obama trade deal that will ship more jobs overseas. They hear Jeb and Rubio talk about “comprehensive immigration reform” and know that it’s all about cheap Mexican labor taking their jobs. They were promised an end to ObamaCare but found that the Republican establishment was fine with funding it. They like their guns and their religion but find that Republican appointees to the Supreme Court think they’re bigots and yahoos who had better get their head straight and bake cakes for gay weddings.

So whose fault is it that a billionaire who gave more money to Democrats than Republicans now leads in the polls? You can only screw the people so many times before they get wise. The Democrats have managed to do that to their Black base for over half a century. It appears that the white, non-college working class Republican base is wising up faster.

If Republicans find themselves stymied by a billionaire huckster who many view as a stalking horse for a Hillary Presidency they have no one to blame but themselves.

Good posting, kind of matches what I posted two weeks ago here (re-posted below). I REALLY don’t like people saying that we’re the problem when we get double-crossed by our leaders at every opportunity.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3310574/posts

The Republicans had 10 Years to Stop Trump; now it’s too late (vanity)

The only reason that Trump is leading the pack is because the Republican Party will not lift a finger to stop what is (correctly) perceived as a foreign invasion that is quickly transforming this country into a Third World Cesspool. This started at least a decade ago when Bush-43 began his Amnesty efforts and has not still not stopped.

The invasion is very convenient for those involved, as it has the potential to bring millions of new voters for the Democrats (as their brainwashed union-voters get old and die) and millions of new, low-wage and reliable workers to Republican business leaders.

It was the perfect combination for the leaders of both parties. But just one problem: The country did not want it! And not just Republicans, but Democrat voters too. So what did the parties do? The Democrats stuck with the transformation, figuring that political power was much more important than the security of the country (nothing at all new there). Republican leaders, even though they were looking down the barrel of being driven from power for decades, if not generations, still salivated over the fact that there was big money to be made from these new workers. Not only were they good, they helped drive-down wages for the entire low-end of the labor force, helping US businesses be competitive with foreign, low-wage countries.

Democrat voters, these days, while still not crazy about the country being transformed, seem willing to accept it as the price of driving the Republicans (or Christians, as they really see us) from power. But Republican voters have only gotten angrier and angrier. They see no benefit in a few rich fat-cats getting even richer, while they see their beloved country disintegrating right before their eyes. And since Republican voters generally have kids, they are scared to death for those kids and grandchildren, something that Democrat voters don’t have to deal with (ok, a few Democrats may have made the ‘mistake’ of having kids, as they see it).

But even given that the Republican voter anger at Open Borders is boiling over, Republican leaders simply laughed at them, figuring that the only reason Republican voters were complaining was because of Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and other conservative media egging them on. So they ignored us...and ignored us...and ignored us, as we didn’t represent the real Republican base. Republican victories in 2010 and 2014 helped cement this view – how could we Republicans do so well if we weren’t addressing their concerns? I’ve always said that Republican leaders a lot dumber than Democrat leaders, and this is certainly one example – obviously the 2010 and 2014 Midterm votes were a anti-Democrat vote – Republicans would have voted for a horse if he was up against a Democrat in those years.

Which brings us to today. Rush’s initial reaction to Trump was that he was snake oil salesman, given his history of playing both sides – he was rightly suspicious. But Republican voters are tired of waiting for the second coming of Reagan and will take anyone that has the willingness and the capability to address Open Borders. Trump fits that bill, clearly having the money to get his word out, over the media, and saying what we want to hear. My point here is that Republicans were ahead of Rush on Trump...their support for Trump has nothing at all to do with being “egged on” by Rush, Fox, Beck or anyone else. On this issue, at least, the support is real.

So now what? The initial reaction of the Republican leaders had first been to try to ignore Trump, but that was impossible because the Democrats and the media didn’t go along with them - they seemed to think that Americans just love Open Borders, and so Trump was making a total fool of himself (and the party) - so they would amplify it. Huge mistake on their part. Also, with the Republican leaders (and almost all of our candidates) being totally transfixed by their multi-million dollar efforts to increase our share of the Hispanic vote from 27% in 2012 to 27.01% in 2016 - they were horrified by the thought of having someone out there publicly having a problem with Open Borders and the killings of Americans by Illegals, so they stepped up to the task of trying to destroy him. Needless to say, they instead stepped into it. Instead of crushing him, they amplified his message (as if that were needed) and helped drive him into the lead.

But not all of them stepped into it. Cruz, I suspect, quickly figured out that Trump (or at least what he represents) is not going away that easily, now that the genie is out of the bottle on this issue. If Trump is drummed out of the Republican Party, say in favor of Jeb being the candidate, then Trump runs as a Third Party candidate and virtually assures that Jeb loses in November (and there is a very good chance Trump could win in a three-way race). If Trump doesn’t run Third Party against Bush, then someone else will - maybe Tom Tancredo, for example, because even proponents of serious border security have to be floored by just how important the issue is for voters - everything they’ve heard prior from their ‘advisers’ (most of them gay, by the way) kept saying that Americans have tantrums over the border, but quickly get over it - and that, for example, the issue of adjusting the formula for food stamp benefits in counties with a Native American population of between 7.28% and 12.65% of the total population is much more important to them and can be carried all the way to November. This border stuff...just a few blowhards on the radio, and that can’t last.

So what happens now will be totally different from 2008, or 2012. If an Open Borders type is nominated (aka, Jeb) or someone that seems to take multiple sides of the issue (Romney, Walker), there will be a Third Party challenge - it may be Trump, it may be Buchanan, it may be Tancredo, but it will be someone and they will get a lot of votes, virtually assuring the defeat of the Republican. But if Cruz, Trump, or someone else trusted on border security runs as the Republican (although I can’t think of any others), then it may well be a 2-person race, and the Republican candidate may well get a huge turnout from Republican voters and even a lot of crossover voters, as there are millions of Democrat types that would also like to see some sort border security.

This will be fun.

You can only screw the people so many times before they get wise. The Democrats have managed to do that to their Black base for over half a century. It appears that the white, non-college working class Republican base is wising up faster.

The great Republican landslides by Nixon and Reagan came from the same source: blue-collar, lunchpail Democrats. I'm not advocating that we adopt Nixon's political philosophy but the man knew how to count votes and how to get votes. I have, however, often argued that the candidate who captures issues of middle-class jobs and relates them to Democrat policies of environmental madness at the EPA, of job killing regulations at Obama care, of job stealing trade deals and job stealing amnesty, could recapture that middle-class demographic and win the White House for a generation.

Now Donald Trump has done exactly that to the astonishment of rinos, Democrats, and pundits, in short the entire professional political class was blindsided. The rinos are not stupid they just figured they could talk conservative and govern establishment for yet another cycle but they simply miscalculated.

It is clear that the old shell game played by the Rino establishment is being flatly rejected by the base of the Republican Party but what is not yet clear is whether Trump's campaign will have equal power with lunchpail Democrats. This campaign is not exclusively Trump's, of course, both Cruise and Walker have been on the right side of these issues but Trump has broken through the clutter. He has done so at the cost of making himself personally of noxious to a huge portion of the Republican electorate and therefore he remains:

The wrong messenger with the right message

If Cruz or Walker can ignite the same passions and spread the flames to the hard-pressed Rust Belt, and the hard-pressed coal belt, one of them can easily gain the nomination and win the election when Trump falters as he inevitably will. We simply do not yet know whether these issues will gain traction with working Democrats as they have with Republicans.

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