Posted on 03/24/2016 12:25:05 PM PDT by Kaslin
The American People are angry. And it is not cyclical anger – after all, we are sitting at the top of the current business cycle. This anger is a secular trend. There is anger at the lack of jobs, there is anger over class warfare , there is anger at police profiling of young black men, anger at conservatives, anger at political correctness, anger at Liberals, anger at the break down of our inner city infrastructures and the poisoning of water in Flint, Michigan and elsewhere, anger at Hillary Rodham Clinton, anger at Donald Trump, anger at the main stream media, anger at liberal and conservative media, and, most of all, anger at a promised way of life that seems to be slipping away never to return.
The anger tracks a culmination of several economic and demographic trends that have been gaining traction but are now becoming apparent to the majority of the population. The American people are finally aware that they will no longer have job security or employer-based health care. The traditional work week has given way to the gig economy. No matter how much educational debt one accumulates in an effort to escape this new normal, most people will still be subjected to this uncertainty over career, income, and upward mobility. And to people who worked hard and played by what they thought were the rules, this is unacceptable. Someone is to blame, and someone has to pay for this. Enter the political establishment. As Governor Romney alluded to in his failed attempt to repudiate Donald Trump, the political elite has always employed tried and true methods of channeling popular discontent. It was either through engaging in a war against some foreign threat or fomenting anger against groups within America. Both parties have been guilty of this – whether it is fomenting anger against blacks or fomenting anger against whites, or Mexicans or workers or capitalists. The political parties have been able to control this anger and use it to their benefit.
But they have never encountered a person like Donald Trump. Trump has issued a clarion call to discontented Americans, and they have responded en masse. His message has been blunt, crass and at times vulgar. And yet people like the way he is expressing their own anger. This has rankled the establishment because they see it as a major challenge to their own interests. Because Trump is not beholden to the status quo, he is unpredictable once in office. He may make decisions that go against entrenched interests. Nothing could be as clear as when Trump went before AIPAC and declared that he did not want or need their money. He would not even commit to a common position endorsed by all the other candidates – which he would advocate that the putative capital of Israel be moved from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. This deeply rankled the Jewish establishment and further cemented Trump’s status as his own man.
The Republican establishment has desperately attempted to control and curtail the Trump movement. The latest threat – holding a brokered convention, in which establishment leaders would determine the nominee, could very easily backfire. Even those who do not necessarily support Donald Trump are angered by the prospect of the party interfering with the will of the people. They see this as fundamentally anti-Democratic and not the way we should conduct ourselves in this country. Those that oppose Trump should do so within the Democratic means we have at our disposal. Trump has thus far run quite an unorthodox campaign and may have broken the unspoken rules of political rhetoric. But the fact is he has played well within the official rules of the political game. He may have exploited the rules in his favor, but he has not broken them. Let’s not go breaking rules in an effort to stop him from gaining the nomination. That could lead down a dangerous road and set a terrible precedent for the future.
Already there is rumbling that there are establishment plans afoot to unleash protesters to attend Trump rallies and disrupt them. They want to create further confrontation and put the campaign in a position where it is seen as fomenting violence. This is what the media wants the American public to see, but it is not generally the truth. And if the agitators are able to get enough incidents of violence, perhaps the authorities will declare the rallies a threat to security and shut them down entirely. These are the ideas that are actually being floated. Prevent a Trump presidency by denying him the right to speak to his audience. The proposed suppression of speech and free assembly is a far more dangerous threat to our Democracy than that of an eventual Trump presidency.
Donald Trump has undoubtedly tapped into something, a spirit of anger buried deep inside the American electorate. Rather than try to deny it or suppress it by dismissing Trump as its cause (he is not), politicians need to wake up to the reality and deal with it. The Republican Party in particular risks starting a major rebellion if it tries to engineer a brokered convention in an effort to stop Trump. The Democrats should be wary of trying to shut Trump down by baiting his supporters into a street battle. Respect the will of the people and let them decide who their leader should be.
There is no question that Hilary Clinton is the complete opposite of Donald Trump. If the American people decide in the end that they would rather have an establishment candidate, they have ample opportunity do so without interference with the political process. I suspect, however, that the world has changed since she made her calculation about what playing an inside game would earn her in terms of power and influence. With Trump, we don’t know exactly what we are getting. But one thing is for sure; it won’t be what we’ve gotten thus far.
Adios.
Good riddance.
Well, bye.
Too funny I should have kept reading before I responded - oh well got some words out.
I burst out laughing. Well done, Jim, it was like a hook that came out from behind the stage curtain at exactly the right moment, so that it seemed part of the comedy act. Hysterical.
Yay government will save us this time! It just wasnt’ big enough last time.
Sarc, nah; I’m just gearing up for the general election.
“If the people want to elect a fascist I absolutely will do everything I can to stand in the way.”
But looks like you won’t be doing at FR. Guess you could always move to Daily Kos or Democratic Underground. You’ll be much more effect there anyway in trying to stop Trump.
You can help elect someone guaranteed to appoint Barack Hussein Obama as the fifth communist to the Supreme Court, in which case the the U.S. Constitution will thus finally be permanently relegated by the “Progressives” to its well deserved position as a historically curious piece of meaningless dusty old parchment scribbled by a bunch of irrelevant dead white men, and any rights you may formerly have enjoyed under its former protection will be gone forever. When they come to confiscate all of your firearms, please remember your proudly principled support of President Hillary Clinton.
Townhall.com is a website that publishes numerous conservative columnists. Formerly a project of the Heritage Foundation, it was purchased in 2006 by Salem Communications Corporation.
History
Did you know that the late William F. Buckley was the founder of National Review online and he was a conservative
They need to stop and think before they engage in dirty tricks. If the GOP establishment chooses to disenfranchise the will of the people it’s not going to be forgotten by a great deal of people. While the race for the nomination is 2/3 over, that 65% reflects delegate counts only. Some wins are from small state caucuses with a spartan number of voters. The bulk of the voting population base is yet to come. There are more registered voters in California than all republicans that have voted to date.
Look at the top delegate rich states:
California 172
New York....95
Pennsylv.....71
Indiana.......57
New Jersey..51
Then look at the populations they represent:
They represent around 15 million registered republicans.
They represent another 8-10 million registered independents.
They represent potentially a million cross-over democrats.
A handful of folks in ‘over represented states’ might not care and may seem insignificant to them. But what happens when the votes cast are double or triple the opponent into the megamillions? And Trump’s state delegation majorities are triple Cruz’s. And Trump has won 3 dozen or more states?
The GOPe would be fools to implement their desperate threats of attack.
Who on the Republican side is a fascist?
And Cruz is putting out all sorts of Nazi vibes, right?
That is what I thought, but usually it is IBTZ
“If the people want to elect a fascist I absolutely will do everything I can to stand in the way.”
Then your “everything you can possibly” do isn’t very good, because we’ve been run by facist oligarchs in the executive and judicial branch for quite some time now. Oh yeah, that won’t change regardless of who is elected either.
Yes, we need to remember that the enablers of all this are the down ticket gop pukes. The senators, house members, legislators, county commisioners, and all the ones who make up the party hierarchy. But alas, all their scheming and calculations have a problem....
Scorched earth.
Scorched earth in this context is when millions of pissed off Trump supporters show up to vote against all down ticket republicans. Every. Single. One.
Ok, my apologies.
If you don’t like Trump, why post stories like this? Let someone else do the ‘happy Trump’ stuff.
"...en masse."
No matter the results of Fox polls now; no matter the results of cnn polls now; (or any polls now) the voters will be out --en masse-- in November...to win the Presidency for Donald Trump.
And that’s exactly the point.
The gop has done the common core math and they think that they can triumph even if they lose the presidency with a designated loser such as cruz or kasich or willard.
It’s time they realize that they’re playing for almost all the marbles.
“...enmasse”
Up the Establishment!
The will of ~35% of Republican primary voters constitutes the will of the people?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.