Posted on 03/23/2016 6:20:09 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Donald Trump fits no simple ideological framework. The presidential candidate collects thoughts from across the spectrum. Added together, however, his ideas represent a sharp departure from many of the Republican Party’s values and priorities dating back half a century or more.
The list of Trump’s apostasies is lengthy and growing by the day. He said this week that he sees little value in U.S. military commitments in the Asia-Pacific region. He questions the terms of U.S. involvement in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He opposes free-trade agreements. He advocates taxing imports from China.
Domestically, he opposes any restructuring of Social Security or Medicare. He favors hefty spending on infrastructure. He favors the use of eminent domain. He advocates closing a tax break the benefits Wall Street hedge fund managers, and he decries corporate inversions. He defends much of the work of Planned Parenthood outside of abortions.
Yet, on other issues, he embraces more doctrinaire conservative views. His tax plan is consistent with that of other Republican candidates. His tough talk on immigration is cheered by many in the GOP. He strongly supports Second Amendment gun rights and favors local control of education. His latest discussion of Middle East issues puts him squarely on the side of pro-Israel hawks.
“I am a common-sense conservative,” Trump said in a telephone interview Tuesday. Asked how he would label his governing philosophy, he replied, “It would be governing through strength — and governing also through common sense and governing through heart.”
To many people in the party, Trump’s ideas lack intellectual cohesion, but together they reflect the instincts of a dealmaker. He arrives at positions guided less by philosophy than visceral reactions to problems of the moment.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Exactly.
“Conservative Media” is the home plate of Dogmatic Conservatism. They live eat, breath, sleep dogma. For them theory of “Conservatism” is more important then anything else
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
More helpful, insightful, incisive analysis of Donald Trump by the nation’s leading liberal cage-liner. I wonder how they have the time to cover any of the other candidates, including their own lamentable contributions.
Actually Trump is a return to core Republican values and a move away from the Bush 30 years of liberalizing the GOP
Republicans use to stand form small government, low taxes, limited regulation,free enterprise and traditional social values. Thy were suspicious of an interventionist foreign policy and favored a strong national defense designed to protect US National Security interests
Most informative article. Trump gets it that Republicans shouldn’t be scaring voters about restructuring their benefits.
Ah, the sweet smell of DC Uni-Party fear!
There are those that think and those that do.
I agree.
Good post.
Actually Trump is a return to core Republican values and a move away from the Bush 30 years of liberalizing the GOP
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So true.
Do you mean like globalism, open borders and 'egalitarianism'?
A lot of Americans are symbolically conservative but operationally liberal.
They don’t like government condescension towards them and trampling of their values but they appreciate the benefits they receive from government.
Is it a contradiction in terms? Yes and yet for many Americans, politics doesn’t fall into a set of rigid checklists but rather a kind of pragmatic dealing with the realities of everyday life.
Trump seems to represent that outlook.
The Washington Post again weighs in on advising Republicans how they should think and vote
This new spirit of bipartisan journalism is so refreshing, isn’t it?
Coming from the Wash Compost.....thats another few thousand votes
George Will is a Conservative.
David Brooks is a Conservative.
I have no idea what “Conservative” means today.
I listen to Trump. I like what I hear. labels don’t matter.
This country is repeating 1st Samuel 8. There is nothing new.
More anti-Trump swill from WaPo, the progressives media guide.
Do we get to go through bankruptcy 4 times while he gets OJT?
One debate he says he is going to end H1B visas.
Then at the last FNC debate Trump tells Kelly:
“I’m changing. I’m changing. We need highly skilled people in this country, and if we can’t do it, we’ll get them in. But, and we do need in Silicon Valley, we absolutely have to have. So, we do need highly skilled, and one of the biggest problems we have is people go to the best colleges. They’ll go to Harvard, they’ll go to Stanford, they’ll go to Wharton, as soon as they’re finished they’ll get shoved out. They want to stay in this country. They want to stay here desperately, they’re not able to stay here. For that purpose, we absolutely have to be able to keep the brain power in this country.”
All mean Kelly's fault anyway.
Points aside, I’m really sick of seeing publications use muzzie-speak in their headlines/text. Apostasies? Nauseating.
Conservatism has been emptied of ideological content.
Many people like those I described observe if anything the GOP establishment is happy with big government, just not with government on the side of the little guy.
There is little support for small government bromides when the party’s elites look out for themselves and ignore the anger at their hypocrisy and indifference to the plight of average Americans they’ve screwed over.
People increasingly understand conservatism is no longer about sharing the burdens or defending cherished values but a rigged game meant to perpetuate the power and perks of insiders.
The conservatism offered by GOP elites is now as dead as the dodo.
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