Posted on 03/04/2016 5:20:08 AM PST by Kaslin
Mitt Romney's speech against Donald Trump is not likely to win many converts. Romney's remarks will just further vindicate and entrench Trump supporters.
Romney, though a good man, is quintessentially GOP establishment and has shown, by his speech, that he still doesn't understand the role he and his colleagues have played in bringing about the Trump surge.
During campaign season, these guys always seem to get it. They profess to understand how destructive President Obama's agenda is, but once they're elected, they lose their will to fight, which makes many conservatives believe they didn't believe their own rhetoric in the first place.
I know, Republicans tell us that the GOP leadership has done all it can to stop Obama but there's only so much a congressional majority can do. That's also what they said about congressional minorities when they were a minority.
Regardless, they haven't presented their case to the American people with conviction during the past seven years, except in the runup to elections. They didn't point out Obama's evil intentions and often denounced those who did. They didn't rally around Ted Cruz, Mike Lee or a handful of others who tried to stymie Obama. Instead, they chose to ridicule and marginalize these fighters.
Even to this day, the establishment fails to understand the legitimate concerns millions of Americans have over illegal immigration. Establishment types arrogantly and unfairly slander border hawks as nativists, suggesting their opposition to open borders is race-based.
It's not about race; it's about our national sovereignty, the rule of law, protecting jobs, protecting Americans against criminal elements and jihadis, and stanching an invasion of people who will further burden our welfare state -- not assimilate, not embrace the American idea -- and vote almost solely Democratic.
A sovereign nation must control its borders and encourage immigrants to assimilate and embrace the unique American experiment. But Democrats are for flooding the borders for all the wrong reasons, and large swaths of the Republican establishment have affirmatively aided and abetted them.
We've watched as Republicans have allowed many of Obama's budgets to sail through under the radar, on the pretense of just waiting for the next election. Our guys don't even talk about entitlement reform anymore, though they were telling us just a few years ago that we were about to go bankrupt.
The Republican Party has been so tone-deaf to these real concerns that some Republican voters are furious enough to have chosen a wildly flawed solution in Donald Trump. One person on Twitter said she is so disgusted she is going to vote Democratic for the first time in 40 years.
It is tragic that true conservatives, however, are being lumped in and punished for the betrayals of centrist Republicans. Trump supporters are adamant that no elected official escape the blame. Their solution is to burn the house down and rebuild it around Trump, even though they can't be sure what he'd do when elected.
People wonder why they would turn to someone like Trump. The GOP, after all, has stood for moral principles, manners and adult behavior, and Trump seems to exhibit none of those things. In many ways, he is the opposite of conservative principles, in demeanor, lifestyle and his personal conduct in the campaign.
But in their disgust at the Republican establishment, they are throwing out true conservatives and also certain conservative principles and values, as if all of conservatism has been tainted by a party that betrayed its base.
How else does it make sense that even valid, troubling criticisms of Trump seem to help him more than hurt him?
I think it's because this disaffected class of voters wants someone unorthodox enough to break the rules, someone brash enough not to be deterred by the niceties that have prevented establishment Republicans from distinguishing themselves from Obama in bold colors rather than pale pastels. They're seem not only not offended but invigorated by someone who'll hurl profanities and refuse to apologize even when he owes an apology, because they think it's going to take someone like that to resist pressure to betray them once he's elected.
And though the establishment has finally awakened to the intensity of the discontentment among the party rank and file, it still doesn't believe the angst is legitimate. The establishment is still in bitter denial and wouldn't support a person advocating many of Trump's ideas even if he were a paragon of moral rectitude.
If establishment Republicans were the least bit repentant about their betrayals, truly believed in the conservative principles embodied in their party's platform and were realistic about stopping Trump, they'd quit posturing and unite behind Ted Cruz.
For the way to defeat Donald Trump is not to deny him a majority and steal the nomination from him at the convention; that really would be the end of the party. It is to embrace the closest thing to a Reagan conservative since Ronald Reagan, before it's too late. But truth be told, they probably hate Cruz worse than they hate Trump.
I wish Trump supporters would consider this when they wrongly lump Cruz in with the establishment, and I wish they'd simmer down long enough to recognize that Cruz represents the answer to their complaints far more than Trump -- and with none of the baggage.
I am afraid you are correct. Fools never learn, and that is factual.
Yes, the trains have to run on time and a penny in the fuse box works until you can get a fuse. Getting things done is priority number one for me. What’s your number one?
For what it’s worth I will enthusiastically support Cruz and have in the past. My only caveat is that if Cruz bests Trump by allying with the establishment rather than making a positive case for himself, I will become a “hold my nose” supporter.
Trump/Kasich 2016
Keep the trains on the tracks, and don't burn down the house.
Cruz couldn’t win beyond his home state and its next door neighbor, but we’re supposed to believe that if only the Trump people would give up their candidate, who has won in the North and the South, that Cruz would win nationwide? Sorry, just doesn’t add up.
I have no problem with you believing it, and maybe he can. I have no idea. However he still has a long way to go and having 49% polling points and 320 delegates mean absolutely nothing at this point.
But here's the big thing: Cruz may truly be conservative. But he does NOT have the ability to communicate that conservatism in a way that is not combative or annoying. He seems like he's lying even when he's telling the truth. He does not come across as being genuine. He's essentially ineffectual. And that's coming from someone who likes what Cruz says.
It only means he has a lot more than any other candidate and if things continue the way they are headed, he will wrap up the nomination...
I would rather be where he is than where any of the others are...
That's funny. I wuz just thinking that what lil respect I had for Trump...was lost last evening.
He looked like a warshed up prize fighter flailing away in an effort to land a punch.
But that's not what did it. When Trump threw up his hands, then glanced down and made reference to the size of his penis...ON NATIONAL T.V., I said to myseff, done!
That was probably the most sophomoric, obnoxious comment I believe I've ever witnessed during a presidential campaign.
Besides Texas he won the Iowa caucus, Oklahoma, which was a closed primary, and the Alaska caucus
I think a Reagan conservative without Reagan's charm has a tough time in today's atmosphere. It is a more dumbed down, TMZ world than before. A conservative is too easy to caricature, ridicule. Cruz is a Reagan conservative without the charm. He would get creamed once the focus is on him, just as he was being creamed in the budget battle. He had everyone mad at him except the few of us who understood what he was doing.
Trump has the charm without being the conservative. Conservatives who support him know that Trump can win and don't think Cruz can. We also think it more important at this stage of the game to destroy the RNC structure first, then in a fair contest, sell conservatism to Republicans and the American people in future elections.
If Trump only roots out the establishment from control of the party, and stops amnesty, those two things will be enough to allow American patriots the chance to save this country. If he does some of the other things he has promised, that is just gravy.
I had hopes for Cruz, but he threw in with the establishment in hopes of winning this go-round, rather than hanging back and being available to work with Trump. He has chosen unwisely, and thereby damaged his credentials as an American patriot. He is mad for power, and willing to pay steep costs. Sessions saw more clearly than him what is needed. I hope fellow conservatives such as Mike Lee follow Sessions' lead and not Cruz'.
In any event, I think it's too late for Cruz to redeem himself.
Getting things done is priority number one for me. What’s your number one?Getting someone who will uphold the Constitution and the Law.
I don't believe that Trump cares about that, and I'm certain that his cultist followers don't, which is why it's important to keep him out of the White House.
Gotcha. :)
“and with none of the baggage.”
Cruz has plenty of baggage.
ROFL! Nice!
Townhall is nothing but eGOP anymore. They are scared to death that Trump won’t invite them to DC parties.
Sad, too, because many of their contributing bloggers are good people.
I don't want people to vote for Cruz to stop Trump. I want them to come to the realization that Cruz is the best option for the job. I'm not foolish enough to believe that it's going to happen though.
Cruz won IA and AK by a whisker. He won TX with less than a majority, historically low for a native son. These are not signs of a nationwide winner, however much his followers might want to believe he can get elected in November.
Cruz’s showing relative to all the pre-primary/caucus season hype has been poor. He was supposed to win the south, and didn’t. He has a limited, hard-core following, but can’t get beyond that. He just can’t.
1) Ted waited until 2014 to renounce his Canadian citizenship. Why?
**************
Granted not as important but family ties.....
Why did Rafael B Cruz take until 2005 to decide to get his USA citizenship? He came to
the USA in 1957, went north to Canada where he got his Canadian citizenship and fathered
Rafael E Cruz, returned to the USA and finally decided in 2005 it was time to become an
American citizen?
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