Hey FReepers: Does your candidate unite or divide conservatives? Do you? (Vanity)

Conservatives have had an abundant number of excellent candidates for the Presidency, this election cycle.

From successful Governor's like Walker, Jindal, and Jeb Bush, to Cruz, Rubio, Carsen, on down the line.

News Flash: NONE OF THESE GUYS ARE BOB MICHEL, BOB DOLE, JOHN McCAIN, OR MITT "ROMNEYCARE" ROMNEY STYLE "RINO's".

Most of these guys have been pretty conservative throughout their history. Rubio and Cruz have been decent Senators - heck, amongst the MOST conservative Senators. Jeb Bush and Scott Walker were darn good Governors. ALL OF THESE GUYS WOULD MAKE ONE HECK OF A PRESIDENT, and far better than ANY Democrat of the past 100+ years. As Limbaugh said today, paraphrasing, the Democrat party is an evil institution that must be utterly destroyed for America to survive.

Like most everyone else on Free Republic, I was thrilled when Trump went all "un-PC" on the immigration issue. While most of the GOP office holders were still playing mind games and giving lip service, using the Democrat's lexicon in discussing this nation's terms of surrender, Trump went all "Rambo" on the immigrant invasion issue.

So, that was nice, maybe even essential. He framed the conversation and moved the dialogue. But then Trump went all Rambo on everyone and everything else in the GOP. Any conservative, no matter how solid his or her credentials, has been disparaged in personal terms by "The Donald". So, wait a second, is THAT what a "conservative" really is? Maybe Trump will be the GOP nominee, and possibly, he might be the best positioned candidate to win against the Democrats, but maybe not. I'll leave it at that, because this message isn't in support of any particular GOP candidate.

You see, I don't want to divide conservatives. However, Trump does. His lexicon and methods are Alinskyite, and even his supporters need to be honest about that. I'm not saying he's evil, or a progressive, a Marxist, a Democrat in drag, a liberal, or any other pejorative adjective. I WILL say that Trump is more "learned" than he lets on. He obviously has read Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals":

Do any of these concepts sound familiar, vis-a-vis Trumps campaign? He's used these methods to blow apart any cohesion within the GOP, and within the conservative movement. Maybe that's a good thing, to hammer the GOP-E into irrelevance. However, his target looks more like the CONSERVATIVE movement. Think about it. The GOP-e was never a threat to Trump, so he hasn't spent a whole lot of time attacking specific members of the GOP-e in personal terms. How can a progressive minded candidate win against a conservative dominated political party? Divide and conquer?

Here's the real problem with Trump, folks. CONSERVATIVES ARE PRINCIPLED, NOT MACHIAVELLIAN. We are not "ends justify's the means", just "get 'er done" Alinskyites. True conservatives believe in a Creator, in a Divinity, the God given absolutes of "right" and "wrong", and we're not going to sell our eternal souls just to win an election.

However, Trump's taking us there, to the standards of the American left. The author of all the pejorative, trash comments, the half-truths and mostly lies evolving in post after post on FreeRepublic is Donald Trump, via his Alinskyite verbiage and methods. He's influencing the behavior and language of Trump supporters, and it's ricocheting around the web between the campaigns.

Trump has been the ONLY "nasty" GOP candidate (read HIS lips and words, not mine). All others opposing Trump are in fact, NOT liars, traitors, mama's boys, girly-men, or whatever. If Trump supporters echo his insults, then it's you who are also a "nasty" liar. The GOP had great candidates before Trump entered the race, and we still do. These guys are not perfect, but they're good men, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. So, stop the Alinskyite crap game that some of you are running, or you're going to lose voters that the conservative movement cannot afford to lose. If you think that Trump's going to "reach across the aisle" and bring in enough Democrats and "new voters" to offset loss of alienated conservatives, then you're nuttier than a Hillary (or McCain/Romney) supporter. The Democrat "opposition research" effort against Trump will be legendary, and they'll have a million pounds of "meat" in Trump's past to use against him. Democrats will support the Democrat nominee, not Trump, because in the minds of the majority of Democrat voters, their virtuous goals justify any means they use to achieve them. Their "god" is progressive, secular humanism, and no other god shall stand against them, including Trump.

Like many other conservatives fed up with the GOP-e running the party into the ground, co-opting our issues and then betraying us by enacting progressive legislation or blackballing conservative jurists, I felt that anything that shook up the GOP-e status quo couldn't hurt. If a stick of political dynamite was required to shake McConnell-Ryan (et. al.) congress up, then Trump might be just the guy to do it. A lot of Trump supporters are right there - right now, with that feeling, and I can sympathize. Heck, ever since I was 18 and first voted, whenever the GOP actually won control of the Senate, the RINO Octogenarian, "lifetime Senators" controlling all committee chairmanships sold out the GOP electorate on every conservative issue.

I'm not going to use absolutes about the 2016 election, I won't say "I'll never vote for .." Trump, or any other candidate. However, I guarantee to you that if the Trump supporters continue the attacks willy-nilly on Cruz, Rubio, Bush, Carsen, and their supporters, on FR and other forums, the GOP has lost this election. YOU and I may vote for Trump in the General Election, but a majority of conservatives will stay home rather than vote for "Alinsky-Trump" in 2016. You can say "neener ...neener...neener, you're responsible for electing a socialist and destroying the country ...", but it won't matter diddly. Alienated conservatives WILL STAY HOME, and the GOP will lose in November. No matter how many babies Trump kisses after the primaries, he won't unite conservatives against our common enemy. You can't demagogue a candidate's character for 9 months and expect his candidates supporters to throw in their lot with your guy after the primary election is decided. FReepers insulting fellow conservatives directly makes it that much more personal. Sure, some will hold their collective noses and just vote against the Socialists, but the GOP doesn't need to lose much of the conservative electorate for it to be "game over".

Trump doesn't think this way, i.e. for or against conservative principles. He defines "winning" his own way. We could lose, and he could win, and it's all good. Trump is for Trump. He's Charlee Sheen with his "WINNING!!" strategy. If conservatives are divided, if he needs to "make a deal" with Democrats that compromises core conservative principles, well, then #WINNING.

Rush Limbaugh asked a question of his viewers today, e.g. "Well, how would you beat Trump, if he can't beat himself (i.e. via is own conduct and errors)?" My response would be to let Trump collapse upon himself. Ignore him. Don't respond to his ad hominem attacks. Instead, COMPLIMENT the strengths of your GOP opponents, while delicately (and accurately) distinguishing between legitimate policy differences. As an example, George W. Bush looked so much more "Presidential" on the stump for his brother than Trump ever has, using the wink of an eye, some humor, and just plain "class". "W" is a decent man and was behaving conservatively (even if he didn't govern entirely that way on social policy).

Which takes us to this: Trumps comments regarding 9/11 and the origination of the War in Iraq, that "Bush lied, troops died" (paraphrasing), and that Bush was directly responsible for allowing the 9/11 attack. That's unforgivable, because these are demonstrably untrue lie promulgated by our political enemies. On the war, substantial documentation exists documenting Iraq WMD's, including the entire, years-long UN Inspection program. In fact, Iraq's Nuclear centrifuges and fuel were destroyed IN SYRIA by Israel in an airstrike, and other WMD's were discovered both in Iraq and Syria. Aside from that, Trump ignores Iraq's refusal meet terms of the end of the last (1992) war, with Nuclear inspections and dozens of violations of the UN mandated "No fly" zone. Regarding the scurrilous 9/11 lie, the entire event is taken out of context, ignoring Clinton's mismanagement of America's defense and DOJ establishments prior to 9/11. It ignores the fact that Bush didn't even have his key Cabinet and some other 1000 critical appointees in place because nine months after Bush took office, the Democrats were still blocking nearly all nominees in their post 2000 Gore post-election temper tantrums. Bush faced 9/11 with Jamie Gorelick's insane constraints on the FBI/CIA intelligence sharing intact, because Clinton's appointees still served in their interim positions.

Most critically, it ABSOLUTELY breaks faith with the men and women who volunteered, and served in theater. Kids like my U.S. Marine son-in-law who enlisted at age 17 for two Iraq tours in 2005 after the war was "uncool", i.e. after Kerry and the Democrats rewrote the history of the war into a 1960's meme in their attempt to win the 2004 election. (Kerry's Democrats encouraged the enemy, adding a heck a lot more body bags to the cause between 2004-2005.) Kids like a SPEC OPS friend of the family who just quit after 5 tours in 8 years. It breaks faith with the families who lost loved ones, and the kids who came back broken. I'm sorry, Mr. Trump, but I have a damn good recollection of history, and these kids did not go to war for a lie, and they did not sacrifice for nothing, regardless that the current President's screwed up policies gave it all away, and lost a war than had been won. Really, Trump must walk that back. I'm not buying that Kool-aid.

Limbaugh speculated that Trump intentionally risked losing conservative votes by attacking G.W. Bush, because he believes his best chance of winning against an ascending Cruz candidacy in South Carolina by pulling Democrats voting across party lines, and he may be right. But again, Alinsky-leftist methods are NEVER justified, period. Those comments about the war tells America more about Trump than it does about "W's" successes or failures as a war time President.

As to my personal preference for the GOP primary, it's irrelevant. I have two concerns about "the Donald": In my observation, his life has been lived 180 degrees out of phase with Christian principles, and therefore, he's inherently untrustworthy. Second, he reminds me way too much of Arnie Schwarzenegger, who entered California politics as a "conservative", governed like a (Ted) Kennedy-Democrat, and took the California GOP down the rabbit hole of political irrelevance in the process. Yet, Trump's "conservative" credentials are thin when compared to Arnie's.

If Trump pulls the same routine as Arnie, if it's "let Trump be Trump" time after the election, the national conservative movement may also be toast for decades as well. Support Trump if you wish, but please do so honestly and with decorum. If you're going to call someone a liar and cheat, and particularly another FReeper, then you'd ought to have links and specifics in that charge, or you're just another troll.

If Trump wins the nomination, I hope he is more like Reagan, and much less like Obama (i.e. coarse behavior, narcissism). I hope Trump allows Arnie Schwarzenegger's Kennedy-Democrat policies no where near the Trump White House. It'd be a nice start if he started acting with the graciousness and decency of Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II, as he campaigns against his "fellow travelers" in the GOP.

I'll conclude this little screed with this: FReepers, we've got to stop it. We have to cease with the ad hominum personal attacks on each other, AND each other's candidates. We have to unite in our common values.

Disclaimer/disclosure: Hi ya all. Yes, I'm "new" here, but not really. I was on board here about 3 months after JIMROB set up shop in 1997, and never really left. I've always been reading FR to keep in the "thick" of grassroots conservative thought. I was "conservative" back when Bill Buckley was a lone prophet in the wilderness. Well, not quite that far back, my first voting election was in 1976, and Reagan was my "first President" and also the CINC who personally signed my Officer's Commission in 1980 (cool document to have!). Reading Buckley and the editorial page of the WSJ used to be the only way to "hook up" with the conservative movement back before FR led the way.

Unfortunately, I was "bounced" off FR by Jim in 2005. I made a single post stating that "I'll never vote for Schwarzenegger" because he had betrayed the conservative movement and was by the time of his reelection, clearly running policies to the left of his Democrat predecessor. My post was not bombastic, and I didn't attack anyone. I simply stated that I wasn't going to go along with the GOP-e bandwagon, much as some Trump supporters are doing now. Jim replied: "You're not being helpful" in the cause, and ZOT, I was gone. I've stayed away since (reading, but not posting), because I felt that since this was Jim's forum, if he didn't want me here, I'd respect his wishes and leave.

Why change that now? Because FR is not FR anymore. It's morphed into some sort of alternative Democrat Underground universe, with personal attacks on the character and intentions of other conservatives, supported by half-truths and wholesale lies. I hope folks can regain their sense of common purpose and values. The discord is damaging FR, and I believe, hurting the conservative movement. Your attitude and words here are influential, reflecting on every conservative.

In JIMROB's own words, "you're not being helpful" to the conservative movement, nor respectful to the honorable institution that FR has become, when you imitate Alinsky's disciples.

With that, Jim, you can ZOT me again, and **poof**, I'll be gone again for ... ah ... at least ten years if I'm still alive. Best wishes, and FReegards (note: I was the first, actually, to coin that term in maybe my 3rd post back in the 1990's.). PS: Jim, I was still right about Arnie. Hope no hard feelings remain.

Thank you for your post. Like many around here, I had decided on my candidate, but knew I’d gladly support “the other guy” if mine didn’t get the nomination. I felt like those two candidates would be best for the country. Once the gloves came off between Cruz and Trump (about the time Cruz starting gaining on Trump in the polls), however, the gloves seemed to come off around FR, too. It’s been almost unbearable lately, but like a train wreck, I can’t help but watch. You are right that Trump and his supporters have driven away plenty who would have voted for him should Cruz lose the nomination (I’m sure the reverse is true, too). I now have no more enthusiasm to support him in the general election than I do Clinton or Sanders.

When typing a post on FR, there is a message under the text box that says “Please: NO profanity, NO personal attacks, No racism or violence in posts.” Those guidelines for decorum have really gone out the window lately. It’s not that I’ve never heard coarse language before, it’s just that it’s disappointing to see such vulgarity here, of all places. Posts that would have been deleted before now sit proudly diplayed. Last night I saw G*D* (spelled out) in someone’s post for the first time. That, on top of other words that have shown up this election cycle for the first time, have made FR look bad. It isn’t that I am too “Christian/uptight/girlie” to appreciate the language of the fed up conservative electorate; it’s that I hate sounding more and more like DU.

Thanks again for your reasonable post and the reminder that we have to pull together NOW or there will be nothing worth getting out to vote for in November.

Well, maybe we "average" FReepers can help out the overworked mods by pointing out, for example, the logical fallacy of an ad hominum argument, e.g.:

"The number is 100."

Response: "But you're nasty, fat, and ugly!"

Logical result: Number is still 100. (The response was illogical, meaningless.)

Good people say and write stupid things. We can all do better, and gently encourage our conservative brothers and sisters to do better as well.

As I've pointed out in my original post, we have many decent conservative, and in a pinch, acceptable candidates. We don't need to destroy each other, or FR, to elect "The Donald" or any of the other GOP candidates.

FReegards.

"I disagree with you, Trump canâ€™t win in the end, his negatives are two high." - dila813

Not sure what point you're disagreeing with me, exactly. I'm not currently a Trump supporter.

As another FReeper pointed out, there's nine months left (but really, only a couple before a candidate has too many delegates, or no candidate will be able to obtain enough delegates resulting in a brokered convention, but I digress). The game is still young, not static. Trump COULD change, garner new support, and win both the primary and election.

The "he can't win" argument is logically unprovable from where we stand now. We know no such thing, and when a candidate uses "I can win; the others can't" as primary election plank, he's arguing from a position of weakness.

I suggest we FReepers focus on what we can logically debate and evidentially prove. We're less likely to find ourselves supporting a lemon candidate. Heck, if we can't articulate what a "conservative President" should look like, how the heck are we going to be able to elect one of those rare critters?

FReegards.

"I skipped the irrelevant wall of text because one hundred percent of candidates running are divisive."

Don't blame you. I can't stand to read my own crap. I'm out of practice, but will try to improve.

However, I'm not sure what point you intended to make.

The observation: "100% of candidates running are divisive". It's the nature of the beast, it's what an election is all about. However, it's one thing to point out your opponents record vis-a-vis your own, or his own advertising, and it's a whole nuther thing altogether to say:

He's just nasty.
He's a liar - he's the worse liar I ever met.

He's lying about my record (i.e. without clarifying the falsehood - usually the "lie" is not made up of whole cloth").

... and etc.

This is not a "normal" election. What's going on in the FReeper's blogs is not "normal" argumentation. My point is that we're better reset the tone and tenor of civil discussion back to evidence and logical argumentation, REGARDLESS OF WHAT OUR CHOSEN CANDIDATE is emitting, or conservatives and FR are ... um ... lightbulb, turned, around ... screwing? ..ed. (We're all gonna lose again, big time!)

The standards out on the Trump campaign, for example, are not those we conservatives tolerate, on this forum OR in real life. We need to be "consistent conservatives" ourselves before we start harranging our fellow conservatives about policy or candidates.

FReegards, my friend.

Conservatives have had an abundant number of excellent candidates for the Presidency, this election cycle.

From successful Governor's like Walker, Jindal, and Jeb Bush, to Cruz, Rubio, Carsen, on down the line.

Then came along, Donald Trump.

I simply stated that I wasn't going to go along with the GOP-e bandwagon, much as some Trump supporters are doing now.

So Trump and his supporters are the GOPe...And his presence wrecked everything... Could have been a nice, quiet election like we are used to where the most liberal candidate wins...

Because FR is not FR anymore. It's morphed into some sort of alternative Democrat Underground universe, with personal attacks on the character and intentions of other conservatives, supported by half-truths and wholesale lies.

Hear, hear! If you get zotted for this post, then I might as well go, too.

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.