I think Nicole has missed the boat.
Posted on 12/29/2015 3:21:02 PM PST by VinL
The rise of Trump signals a conservative crackup.
The big political story of 2015 was the rise of Donald Trump. In addition to generating endless cycles of entertainment and outrage, the Trump juggernaut crystallized a decade-long development: the fracturing of American conservatism.
The first hints of the crackup appeared in 2005, when the base rose up in opposition to President George W. Bush's proposed immigration reforms. It reappeared in 2009 with the tea party, but that movement was so quickly co-opted by the GOP that its significance was muddied. (Remember that in 2010 Sens. Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were all tea party candidates.)
When the tea party fizzled, something far more populist , and far less conservative, took its place: the Trump faction. Trump supporters, and we should focus on his supporters, as Trump is not a politician but a grievance avatar, are at war with both the conservative movement and the Republican Party, trying to displace the first and overtake the second. The war they have launched against these political establishments is causing both to splinter, a disintegration that mirrors the breakup of the liberal establishment in the late 1960s
From the 1930s through the 1960s, liberalism was the center of gravity in American politics, commanding so much institutional and electoral strength that both parties bent to its will. What ended that era of liberal consensus was not an assault from the right but from the left. Support for black civil rights fractured the Democratic coalition; the rise of student radicalism and Black Power shattered the liberal consensus.
Presidential elections punctuated this unraveling, providing a series of quadrennial set pieces charting liberalism's collapse. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson won in a historic landslide against conservative challenger Barry Goldwater, leaving the Republicans only the Deep South and Goldwater's home state of Arizona. Four years later, Johnson faced such serious opposition from peace candidates in his own party that he declined to run for re election. And four years after that George McGovern, hero of the New Left, was routed by President Richard Nixon, picking up just 17 of 538 electoral votes.
Conservatives may not have caused the disintegration of liberalism, but they certainly benefited from it. Refashioning themselves as the voice of the silent majority, conservatives condemned '60s radicals for a long list of offenses. The New Left was crass and vulgar, lawless and antidemocratic. They were children of privilege who were committed to the idea that America was essentially bad.
Sound familiar? It should. Though they hold a very different set of beliefs about the world, Trump supporters (and the man they back) exhibit these same characteristics. Trump presents America as a washed-up also-ran. His closing statement at the most recent Republican debate included the lines: "Our country doesn't win anymore" and "Nothing works in our country." He swears a blue streak on the campaign trail and social media, and seems a bit cool on due process and constitutionalism. His supporters, privileged yet failing, are in search of a man on horseback.
Where conservatives in the late 1960s and 1970s appealed to a silent majority, Trump supporters sense they are in the minority, so their politics are edged with nihilism. (Hence their support for a candidate without any sort of coherent agenda.) Where construction workers in the 1970s hoisted signs reading "We support Nixon and Agnew" and "God Bless the Establishment," Trump supporters treat "the establishment" as the filthiest phrase in the English language. No longer believing the establishment is on their side, no longer believing victory is in reach, Trump supporters have committed themselves to '60s-style political radicalism.
In 1968, a group known as the Yippies (members of the Youth International Party) nominated a dark-horse candidate at the Democratic National Convention: Pigasus, a 150-pound Hampshire pig. As the Los Angeles Times reported, "The stated purpose of the Yippies is to make the Democratic convention looked ridiculous." It was a goal the Democrats were doing a fairly good job of achieving on their own, but the Yippies helped drive the point home. Perhaps this is the best way to understand the link between '60s radicalism, conservatism, and Trump. Donald Trump is the populist right's Pigasus, only one with a better shot at the nomination – and a better shot of hastening the coming conservative collapse.
Democrats are communists...Repubs are opportunists; very few in Washington still believe in the Founders' America.
Ted Cruz is the only candidate who truly believes in limited government, Federalism and the primacy of the Constitution. No one else.
USnooze.
This election will decide if the American citizen gets to keep our country.
This election is the citizens against The Cheap Labor Express.
Every cycle before this one, they have force-fed us amnesty candidates since the last amnesty.
We have one last chance to elect a President who will retain the rule of law.
One more amnesty and we lose our country.
US News is yet another organ of the mainstream media division of the ruling elite to have now, officially (as tagged by House) JUMPED THE SHARK.
The ascendancy of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump has befuddled the GOPe, the ‘RATS and the mainstream media. They’ve officially gone unhinged, IMHO.
The person who wrote that has no understanding of what is happening in conservative America. None whatsoever.
I think Nicole has missed the boat.
An odd way of saying Trump is supported by the ideological middle.
And a lot of conservatives.
20 years from now, people will look back on articles like this and realize how pathetically insular the chattering apparatchiks were.
Society continues towards the brink, and they natter away as if reality bends to their will.
“When the tea party fizzled...”
I stopped reading right there. They keep saying it, as if it’s newly happening every year.
The Rats said the same thing when the washed-up actor “Ronnie Raygun” was nominated.
How did that turn out?
“(Hence their support for a candidate without any sort of coherent agenda.)”
Bullcrap. Trump has presented very coherent, specific plans on a variety of issues. More so than the GOPe, whose only agenda is to keep themselves in power and the globalist gravy train running. I’m happy to have a candidate I can be for enthusiastically for the first time in decades.
That's the slogan every election. I get your point, but crying wolf too much makes it lose effect.
I cannot read these countless articles when their main idea is.buried deep into the article.
Maybe that's a good thing. The Marxists don't know how to fight that of which they have no understanding.
I think R. Emmett Tyrell of the American Spectator wrote a book years ago called the “Coming Conservative Crack-Up”.
Guess what.
The Left IS crass and vulgar, lawless and antidemocratic.
The Democrat Party is broke.
They are running candidates for the presidency who are so old that they actually knew Karl Marx.
Their big claim for success is that they brought peace to Syria where every Air Force with more than four planes is dropping bombs.
If the American Press wasn’t bought by Soros and the Saudis, the only thing you’d hear about the Democrat Party is that they had to eat their mule mascot to stay alive.
Useless News and World Distort
The politics of today has turned into all of them against us. All politicians think alike.. their minds go down a track that they seem to understand. They go to Washington and join a club. I’ve seen this for years. The logic was that the people didn’t choose the candidate and the people didn’t elect the President ... the governing body of the world order, did the picking and choosing. We, the people just thought we did.
Well.. this year, we are seeing who that ‘governing body’ is and they are upset with ‘we the people’.. for having a voice or having a vote. Because of Donald Trump, maybe we can upset their power. I am watching.. they are exposed and some are not who I’d suspect as being so anti American People. They are an ugly bunch.. and for the first time in a long time, I can see they just might not have their way. Pray for the protection of that man.
Hope a hanky is handy.
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