Posted on 03/30/2016 12:39:06 PM PDT by C19fan
Actually Trump is a return to core Republican values and a move away from the Bush family’s 40 years of liberalizing the GOP
The 2016 GOP Primary has brought up an old divide in Conservatism. There currently is a war being waged between the Dogmatics and the Realists. The Dogmatist care nothing about political realities, only the purity of the candidates political dogma matters to them. The Realist understands you have to be able to advance the political ball down the field to achieve the goals of the dogma. The Realist understands some times a flawed tool is going work better then the flawlessly poltical pure tool.
Reagan, who was a realist, wrote about it.
By Ronald Reagan in his autobiography An American Life
“When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn’t like it. “Compromise” was a dirty word to them and they wouldn’t face the fact that we couldn’t get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don’t get it all, some said, don’t take anything. I’d learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: ‘I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.’ If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that’s what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it.
The Dogmatic at NR, Town Hall, Red State and the rest of the “Conservative” media sneer at the realist as being “nihlistic towards DC and the GOP”.
It is not Nihilism, it Realism. Since 1988 Conservatives have faithfully pledges their treasure and time to the GOP. Despite elections successes in 1988, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2010 and 2014 what have Conservative gotten from the GOP?
Prosperity? Nope worse economy since 1979.
Reduction in Government-nope as expensive, corrupt, incompetent, intrusive and bigger then ever
Supreme Court? Nope as far left as it has ever been.
A Nation secure? Nope at risk in a dangerous world. Military broken, exhausted and overextended.
A respect for rule of law and the Constitution? Nope. Government, and society, is more lawless then it has ever been.
A healthy growing vibrant society? Nope stagnant, or in decline, everywhere in every way.
So, it not Nihilism, it Realism. It is a realistic assessment that doing the same thing again this year electorally is going to continue this decline and degradation from DC.You can only overcome inertia in any system with force. So we need to force DC out of it denigrate path onto a new path. So why Trump rather then Cruz?
I know this falls on deaf ears with 100%ers at NR, Red State and other “Conservative” media but the fact remains, we are a Constitutional Republic that rests on the notion that the people’s Representatives in Government know how to compromise and negotiate.
This feeling that Cruz will ride into DC and dictate the Conservative Media’s 100%er terms to everyone else there is simply wishful thinking. What is more probable is Cruz would be a GOP Carter.
Carter was the same sort of religious political puritan who went to DC and assumed he would dictate his political dogmas to everyone there. The record shows how badly that idea failed.
“Conservative” politicians talk a good game and then go to DC and accomplish nothing. After 30 years of fail, it is time to try another solution. The winning candidate is, brace yourselves.... going to have to cut DEALS! And some times those deals require..compromise!!!
Another fail point for the “Principled Conservatives” is they think only as far as the election. Then once they win their purity candidates go to DC and fail against the inertia of the DC/Media political machine. 1988-1994-1998-2000-2002-2004-2010-2014 are all example of where this “Next election” mindset has failed.
Trump is merely the 1st wave of a multi wave assault. Cruz might do for a follow up wave, he is not a 1st wave candidate. Without Trump to lead the way, the Cruz boat would of either been ignored because it was irrelevant, or been shelled into oblivion by the $10s of millions of GOPE attack ads.
The 1st wave job in any assault is to shatter the defenses and open the road for the follow up waves. No matter how flawed you think the vessel is, Trump is the best 1st wave political assault team we have had to hand in my lifetime.
We need to use Trump for all he is worth to shatter the corrupt, “my party right or wrong” mindset that grips vast swaths of the electorate. Break that inertia, get the people thinking outside the party label box and real change is possible. Do not an we slide into a stagnate European style decline that will not end in my lifetime. Cruz shares that agenda point but is not as well equipped by background and media following to achieve that break through as Trump
We either win this now or we have little chance of ever doing it again politically. Once we win we must relentlessly stay on the attack election wave after election wave until we are dead.
I am really not willing to leave this fight to my kids and grand-kids. We have let the ship of state drift since Reagan in the hands of the “smart people”. We failed and must redeem that failure.
This is our generation’s “go” time
plus everyone who voted for Reagan in ‘84, from 18 years old to 40 years old is still going to be around for a quite a while, even if no new ones were added, which i’m sure they were.
Glad to be in good company....
In terms of demographics, a big part of the Reagan coalition were people who lived first hand the rigors of the depression and the second world war. All too many of these folks, and their beliefs, are no more.
Getting cornholed all these years has demented him.
“Except when you go down Trump’s platform, issue by issue, many of them are Reagan’s platform.”
Actually, Trump’s platform is to the right of R Reagan.
I think Reagan would have seen the damage of the Trade we’re experiencing these days.
We all want a robust foreign trade, but that doesn’t mean we wanted 40 million plus of our people out of work to achieve it.
I agree with you. Reagan would have supported free trade in concept, but all of these 8000 page agreements chock-full of crony capitalist giveaways to well-lobbied industries would have driven him nuts.
Followed by the "you have no idea" discussion of what life was like under Communism. And how people who buy into the notion today think they'll have their current standard of living, but "everyone" will have my standard of living.
I told him, you want to see what Communism looks like? Go look at a housing project. That's an upgrade from Communism.
Sending illegals home...
Building a wall...
Ending sanctuary cities...
I’m not sure they had sanctuary cities in Reagan’s day, but some of the churches were sure pumping hard.
Smiles all around Cruzbots, Brooks has your back.. At least for now.
Thanks McFrog. I appreciate the note of agreement.
Reagan was not the “perfect conservative” either. He chose Bush has his VP. That led to James Baker, III, being influential in his administration with the heart of the GOP_Ultra_Elite.
Reagan appointed Caspar Weinberger who took Frank Carlucci as his Deputy over at DOD. Carlucci had been there under Jimmy Carter. Carlucci got all manner of pro-abortion and pro-ERA women appointed all over the Pentagon by the Reagan White House.
The list goes on but you get the idea.
Are none of you old enough to remember that Ronald Reagan was called “That damned California LIBERAL!”, and not a TRUE Conservative(whatever the hell that really means) in the 1980 primaries??
In 1980 I was 24....and I was also California and live with Reagan is my governor
Reagan was a pro American conservative that’s different then a Party Line conservative we have today
Remember Reagan became conservative after being an FDR ... but in both he was Pro American as both... he became conservative because he conservatism serviced America’s people better then FDR New Deal ism
He was never a Party Line conservative he was a pro American conservative... a John Wayne type pro American conservative..
I keep pointing out to people that forget that Reagan debated Buckley....they were on opposite sides of the Panama Canal issue... with the father of conservatism Buckley thinking the Panama Canal should be given back to Panama...
you know what’s funny about people talking about limited government and Constitutionalism as the same thing... it’s historically not the same thing
People seem to completely forget that the US Constitution radical expanded the US government in fact established the Federal Government and superseded the far weaker States Right oriented Articles of Confederation... that was the whole point
so you say you’re for limited government and the Constitution you’re saying exact opposites ...if your for limited States rights government then why not go back to the Articles of Confederation.... if you for the Constitution then your for a more powerful government then how this country was originally established.... it’s all a matter of perspective
Just so you know the truth Reagan was a protectionist:
Words are not deeds. Unfortunately, a look at the record leads to the question: With free traders like this, who needs protectionists?
Consider that the administration has done the following:
— Forced Japan to accept restraints on auto exports. The agreement set total Japanese auto exports at 1.68 million vehicles in 1981-82, 8 percent below 1980 exports. Two years later the level was permitted to rise to 1.85 million.(33) Clifford Winston of the Brookings Institution found that the import limits have actually cost jobs in the U.S. auto industry by making it possible for the sheltered American automakers to raise prices and limit production. In 1984, Winston writes in Blind Intersection? Policy and the Automobile Industry, 32,000 jobs were lost, U.S. production fell by 300,000 units, and profits for U.S. firms increased $8.9 billion. The quotas have also made the Japanese firms potentially more formidable rivals because they have begun building assembly plants in the United States.(34) They also shifted production to larger cars, introducing to American firms competition they did not have before the quotas were created. In 1984, it was estimated that higher prices for domestic and imported cars cost consumers $2.2 billion a year.(35) At the height of the dollar’s exchange rate with the yen in 1984-85, the quotas were costing American consumers the equivalent of $11 billion a year.(36)
— Tightened up considerably the quotas on imported sugar. Imports fell from an annual average of 4.85 million tons in 1979-81 to an annual average of 2.86 million tons in 1982-86. Not only did this continued practice force Americans to spend more than other consumers for sugar, but it created hardships for Latin American countries and the Philippines, which depend on sugar exports for economic development. The quota program undermined President Reagan’s Caribbean Basin Initiative and intensified the international debt crisis.(37)
— Negotiated to increase restrictiveness of the Multifiber Arrangement and extended restrictions to previously unrestricted textiles. The administration unilaterally changed the rule of origin in order to restrict textile and apparel imports further and imposed a special ceiling on textiles from the People’s Republic of China.(38) Finally, it pressured Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea, the largest exporters of textiles and apparel to the United States, into highly restrictive bilateral agreements. All told, textile and apparel restrictions cost Americans more than $20 billion a year.(39) The Reagan administration has stated several times that textile and apparel imports should grow no faster than the domestic market.(40)
— Required 18 countries—including Brazil, Spain, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Finland, and Australia, as well as the European Community—to accept “voluntary restraint agreements” to reduce steel imports, guaranteeing domestic producers a share of the American market. When 3 countries not included in the 18—Canada, Sweden, and Taiwan— increased steel exports to the United States, the administration demanded talks to check the increase. The administration also imposed tariffs and quotas on specialty steel. These policies, with their resulting shortages, have severely squeezed American steel-using firms, making them less competitive in world markets and eliminating more than 52,000 jobs.(41)
— Imposed a five-year duty, beginning at 45 percent, on Japanese motorcycles for the benefit of Harley Davidson, which admitted that superior Japanese management was the cause of its problems.(42)
— Raised tariffs on Canadian lumber and cedar shingles.
— Forced the Japanese into an agreement to control the price of computer memory-chip exports and increase Japanese purchases of American-made chips. When the agreement was allegedly broken, the administration imposed a 100 percent tariff on $300 million worth of electronics goods. This episode teaches a classic lesson in how protectionism comes back to haunt a country’s producers. The quotas established as a result of the agreement have created a severe shortage of memory chips and higher prices for American computer makers, putting them at a disadvantage with foreign competitors. Only two American firms are still making these chips, accounting for a small percentage of the world market.(43)
— Removed Third World countries from the duty-free import program for developing nations on several occasions.
— Pressed Japan to force its automakers to buy more American-made parts.(44)
— Demanded that Taiwan, West Germany, Japan, and Switzerland restrain their exports of machine tools, with some market shares rolled back to 1981 levels. Other countries were warned not to increase their shares of the U.S. market.
— Accused the Japanese of dumping roller bearings, because the price did not rise to cover a fall in the value of the yen. The U.S. Customs Service was ordered to collect duties equal to the so-called dumping margins.(45)
— Accused the Japanese of dumping forklift trucks and color picture tubes.(46)
— Failed to ask Congress to end the ban on the export of Alaskan oil and of timber cut from federal lands, a measure that could substantially increase U.S. exports to Japan.
— Redefined “dumping” in order “to make it easier to bring charges of unfair trade practices against certain competitors.”(47)
— Beefed up the Export-Import Bank, an institution dedicated to promoting the exports of a handful of large companies at the expense of everyone else.(48)
— Extended quotas on imported clothespins.
I forgot all about the Articles of Confederation.
you’re right.
Yes, he engaged in protectionism when it was the right thing to do for the country.
Because the rest of the world was NOT playing by theoretical, ideal “free trade” rules.
The problem today is we now act as if they all do.
I would like to see how many pages in length the FTA Reagan negotiated with Canada was, and then compare it with NAFTA (also his idea). Only then could we speculate how he felt about the subject.
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