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How the GOP Became Trump’s Party
The Weekly Standard ^ | October 1, 2018 at 2:36 AM | CHARLES J. SYKES

Posted on 10/01/2018 11:13:55 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

The tribalization of conservatism.

Late on the afternoon of October 7, 2016, I texted an old friend, fellow Wisconsinite Reince Priebus. The Access Hollywood videotape had just been released, showing the GOP presidential nominee describing his approach to seducing and perhaps assaulting women. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them,” Donald Trump said on the tape. “It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

In the course of his campaign, Trump had insulted POWs, women, disabled reporters, members of minority groups, and his opponents without derailing his candidacy. But this felt like it might be different, and events were moving quickly.

Trump was due to visit Wisconsin the next day for a rally with Speaker Paul Ryan, their first joint appearance of the campaign. Relations between Trump and Ryan had been fraught, with the speaker accusing his party’s nominee of “textbook racism” while Trump derided the speaker as “our very weak and ineffective leader.” The Wisconsin event was the culmination of Priebus’s peacemaking efforts. Like other members of the GOP mainstream, Priebus had been a Trump skeptic, but as chairman of the Republican National Committee he had embraced Trump’s candidacy with apparent enthusiasm. He was also one of Ryan’s best friends, so the joint event would be a symbol of his efforts to normalize Trump’s candidacy and rally the disparate wings of the GOP behind the erratic billionaire.

But now all of Priebus’s friends and colleagues from Wisconsin would have to stand on stage with their pussy-grabbing nominee. It would be the photo-op from hell, a month before the general election.

(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 2018midterms; gop; trump2016; trump45
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"Tribalism" is code for "They aren't buying our lies anymore and we have to ridicule them back into submission."
1 posted on 10/01/2018 11:13:55 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

When you pick someone like Jeb! to be your standard bearer you are just asking to be overrun.


2 posted on 10/01/2018 11:15:16 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Trump fights. His critics only whine, both about Trump and how the Dems and media treat them.


3 posted on 10/01/2018 11:17:20 AM PDT by dirtboy
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The Cheap Labor Express is ticked off that we escaped the box they had US in voting endlessly for their amnesty candidates.


4 posted on 10/01/2018 11:18:30 AM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here of Citizen Parents__Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: dirtboy

Did anyone else see Flake,speaking just now? Disgusting.


5 posted on 10/01/2018 11:19:02 AM PDT by sanjuanbob (sanjuanbarbie; did 100 Ken dolls in a single year.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Waaaah.

-—”But claims that Trumpism had delivered major conservative wins were undermined by the GOP’s dramatic abandonment of even the pretense of fiscal conservatism, adding trillions of dollars to the national debt. Rather than draining the swamp, they fully funded it.”-—

This is crap, precisely because complaining that Trump is ballooning the deficit is a complaint that can be made against all recent GOP Presidents, and Dem ones too.

NOBODY has the guts to tackle the deficit. Even Reagan couldn’t do it. When Clinton got a small surplus by accident, all the talk was how they were going to spend it.

Any pol getting serious about the deficit/debt is a pipe-dream. Using it to bash Trump is hypocritical.


6 posted on 10/01/2018 11:21:50 AM PDT by StoneRainbow68
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Democrats, of which I was once one, became the Maoist/Communitarian/Socialist/Fascist/Identitarian Party, and those of us who once campaigned and voted for them were left behind.

The GOP is the Moderate Democrat Party. (Take that you RINOs purporting to be anything else.)

Our wonderful President Trump is creating a party combining the best of each, when each one once believed in the country and its people.


7 posted on 10/01/2018 11:23:04 AM PDT by OpusatFR
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To: Buckeye McFrog; E. Pluribus Unum; dirtboy
President Trump's calendar...


8 posted on 10/01/2018 11:25:22 AM PDT by 4Liberty (Where are the Obama-Creamer audio tapes?/GM bondholders: America's SAfrica White farmers...)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Swampers don’t like the people telling them they are unaccomplished, feckless, and elitist.


9 posted on 10/01/2018 11:25:44 AM PDT by ecomcon
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The GOP had NO LEADER with courage and convictions until Trump.

It was like a wolf-pack without an alpha male.

Unfortunately instead of being inspired by their new leader the beta males are scared of a true alpha male.

10 posted on 10/01/2018 11:28:18 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Wow, this guy sounds so bitter. Good!


11 posted on 10/01/2018 11:34:27 AM PDT by Menehune56 ("Let them hate so long as they fear" (Oderint Dum Metuant), Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC))
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This IDIOT Charles Sykes is still around?

No one would know this bitch if he wasn't #NeverTRUMP & making a big deal out of it!

12 posted on 10/01/2018 11:36:24 AM PDT by KavMan
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The Democrats support all kinds of bad behavior as long as the person delivers on their agenda while expecting Republicans to be saints.

It fact that is in their playbook, make your opposition live up to their own ideals. That play worked for years to keep Republicans off balance or forced to resign over any accusation.

It is good to see President Trump is not allowing the left set the rules he has to abide by.


13 posted on 10/01/2018 11:39:24 AM PDT by CIB-173RDABN (I am not an expert in anything, and my opinion is just that, an opinion. I may be wrong.)
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To: ecomcon

Sykes perfectly delineates the divide between his Republican elite and the Republican voter. What he wants, and what he wanted was in no way what the base cried for. Instead of the girly-Sykes protagonists the voters wanted a fighter. Someone they could believe in after years of wandering in the wilderness with mewling leaders like the Bush, McCain, Romney, Ryan and McConnel cabal. They got their leader in Trump, and just as King David was no saint, they sensed they had a man who had been fingered, despite his many warts; a man who would pick up both the sword and the cross and fight like hell against the progressive Marxists. To that I say Thank God! To Charlie Sykes I say, go to Hell.


14 posted on 10/01/2018 11:40:15 AM PDT by Bookshelf
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“Donald Trump is a serial liar, a con man who mocks the disabled and women. He’s a narcissist and a bully, a man with no fixed principles who has the vocabulary of an emotionally insecure 9-year-old. So no, I don’t want to give him control of the IRS, the FBI, and the nuclear codes. That’s just me.”

“Nothing that has happened since has changed my opinion one bit.”
CHARLES J. SYKES The Weekly Standard

This is a “Conservative” rag?

I’m a “Trumpist”, a “Nationalist”, a Patriot, I’m not a “tribalist” (whatever that is).

Guys like this, rags like The Weekly Standard and National Review, make “conservative” a dirty word.


15 posted on 10/01/2018 11:50:38 AM PDT by faucetman (Just the facts, ma'am, Just the facts)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Pure #NeverTrump stupidity. Basically, any Republican/conservative who doesn’t accept the world as defined by the New York Times is a “tribalist” leading us to ruin. But do they not stop to consider that the New York Times considers THEM to be just a few insignificant shades away from the same KKK, neo-Nazi, tribalists that they try to so hard to disassociate themselves from?

It is interesting though, I’d forgotten that Priebus urged Trump to drop out after the Access Hollywood tape. That alone should’ve DQ’d Priebus from any role in the Administration.


16 posted on 10/01/2018 11:52:00 AM PDT by Behind the Blue Wall
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To: E. Pluribus Unum; All

Uuuummmmm Charles J. Sykes, psst, psst, c’mer, I have a secret...Losing with honor is...well, LOSING you F’n moron!!!!

Eight years of odunga was way more than I could stomach...I would much rather have a harsh talking brash President Trump than to lose...At least President Trump is keeping the America I grew up in intact.

So Charles, if it’s a choice between a skinny jeans wearing, limp wristed, window licker like you or MY President....TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP!!!!


17 posted on 10/01/2018 11:59:01 AM PDT by areukiddingme1 (areukiddingme1 is a synonym for a Retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer and tired of liberal BS.))
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To: Buckeye McFrog

I take this article to mean that the Weekly Standard is pretty much like National Review; both bastions of Never-Trumpism.


18 posted on 10/01/2018 12:03:59 PM PDT by Jean2
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To: Behind the Blue Wall; faucetman

“tribalist” is the new way of saying xenopbobe, nativist, anti-immigrant, restrictionist.

We want to keep our country and they have already invited the world to come, 30 million have already broken in with their blessings.


19 posted on 10/01/2018 12:06:00 PM PDT by Lurkinanloomin (Natural Born Citizen Means Born Here of Citizen Parents__Know Islam, No Peace - No Islam, Know Peace)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

We all knew who and what Trump is.

1) He’s a winner.

2) Womanizer. We all wish we could be but unfortunately fate prevents us from capitalizing on our base desires.

3) A hard workin’ SOB. The spoils of which is listed in item #2.

4) a fighter. He fights for what he wants, The results are item #1.


20 posted on 10/01/2018 1:57:04 PM PDT by Ouderkirk (Life is about ass, you're either covering, hauling, laughing, kicking, kissing, or behaving like one)
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