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For Trump Supporters, a Reckoning Is at Hand
Townhall.com ^ | March 2, 2016 | Jonah Goldberg

Posted on 03/02/2016 5:20:51 AM PST by Kaslin

Is Joe Scarborough having his Colonel Nicholson moment?

That's what I wondered Monday morning as I watched the host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" insist that Donald Trump's inability and unwillingness to simply and plainly denounce the Ku Klux Klan in a Sunday CNN interview was "disqualifying."

For those who might not have seen "The Bridge on the River Kwai," it's partly the story of British Lt. Col. Nicholson, played by Alec Guinness. Nicholson, a prisoner of war held by the Japanese, convinces himself that he and his men should help his captors build a strategically invaluable bridge over the Kwai River. Nicholson thinks that if he shows the Japanese what good British discipline is all about, he will win some kind of moral victory. Of course, if they finish the railway bridge, the Japanese military will win an actual victory.

Only at the last minute -- spoiler alert -- does Nicholson realize the error of his ways. "My God, what have I done?" he says with his last breaths as he falls on the TNT plunger, destroying the very bridge he built just seconds before a Japanese train goes over it.

Nothing so dramatic transpired on "Morning Joe," where Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski have been among Trump's most valuable boosters for nearly a year. And will likely remain that way. Indeed, it may be too late to stop the Trump train anyway.

But it would be nice to hear "My God, what have I done?" from a lot of people. A rich mixture of resentment (both misplaced and well-earned), incompetence, wishful thinking, greed and celebrity worship has led us to where we are: An intellectually and ideologically unqualified, and often unhinged, demagogue is poised to become the Republican nominee for president.

For months, GOP pooh-bahs, cable personalities (including some friends and colleagues of mine at Fox News), talk radio hosts and politicians stood by and watched -- or cheered -- as Trump built his populist cult of personality almost unopposed. Now that Trump has a personal relationship, as it were, with his followers, he can do no wrong.

Trump famously joked that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose his support. That remains to be seen, but he can play rhetorical footsie with the KKK, reveal that he thinks judges "sign bills," subscribe to vile "truther" explanations of 9/11 and the Iraq War, embrace the health-care mandate, traffic in reprehensible sectarian tribalism and vow to weaken the First Amendment so he can exact vengeance on journalists who don't kowtow to his Brobdingnagian ego -- yet not shake loose his fans.

That "success" has bred more success, as politicians jump on board the train. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie set a torch to his integrity by endorsing a man who stands against nearly everything Christie once claimed to believe, Christie has confirmed all the darker aspects of his reputation as a cynical, self-interested, spiteful bully.

Many decent and sincere Republicans, in and out of the Republican leadership, have been operating on the assumption that Trump will fade and that the gravest threat is a third-party run by the dean of Trump University. There was a time when that concern was defensible. But once it became clear that he was favored to win the nomination outright, Republicans should have realized that a third-party run was more like a best-case scenario.

Better the GOP do battle with a know-nothing bigot (and lose the presidency) than become the party of know-nothing bigots (and still lose the presidency).

That's why I embrace the Twitter hashtag #NeverTrump, initiated by conservative talk show host Erick Erickson. For too long, Trump has benefited from the assumption that the non-Trump faction of the party will be "reasonable" and support the nominee. Such thinking paves the road to power for demagogues.

Trump says he gets along with everybody and will unify the country, even as he suggests that an inconvenient judge is biased because he's Latino, vows to ban all Muslims from the country, insists his Central Intelligence Agency will torture people, and boasts that he will declare war on disloyal journalists.

When your opponent is that unreasonable, the reasonable response is not surrender.

I don't know whether Trump will win the nomination or the presidency. But I am fairly certain that if he does, a great many people will one day say, "My God, what have I done?"


TOPICS: Cheese, Moose, Sister
KEYWORDS: 2016election; amnestypimpsonfr; banalltrumpbashers; donaldtrump; election2016; ibtz; newyork; paultardation; paultardnoisemachine; randpaulnoisemachine; randsconcerntrolls; soconcerned; trump; zotalltrumpbashers
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To: jospehm20

These kinds of articles and speeches like Ryan’s, Rubio’s, and Cruz’ make it clear that the GOP is more evil than the Democrats. The bold-faced lying — it takes your breath away. I hate Ryan, Rubio, and Cruz, but did expect that they wouldn’t go out of their way to tell blatant lies.

They think we were angry yesterday at the voting booth? They ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Wait until it’s their turn to be on the ballot. The gravy train is over for them!


41 posted on 03/02/2016 5:46:51 AM PST by MayflowerMadam (Party like it's 1773!)
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To: Toespi

Glad you have feelings,. Pity you continually confuse them for facts.


42 posted on 03/02/2016 5:47:03 AM PST by MNJohnnie ( Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered)
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To: Kaslin

Really stupid poltical tactics by Team Cruz to think they are going to insult people into supporting their candidate.


43 posted on 03/02/2016 5:49:15 AM PST by MNJohnnie ( Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered)
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To: Kaslin

Oh shove it. I voted for Nixon and Reagan. I ain’t a “noob” to anything including turning infantile insults back around on the ones who issue them. Buzz off. Troll.


44 posted on 03/02/2016 5:49:20 AM PST by TTFlyer
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To: LostPassword
It is too easy to dismiss Trump using all those neo-Fascist terms. Yes, the man is uncouth, sometimes insulting and ego-nuts BUT, the US is so far in the hole, there is no light reaching the pit of the hole. America has reached a point of no return as an empire. It has committed suicide under Obama. What do people think must happen next? Let another Obama assume the office of the President (Hilliary??). Let a Ted Cruz or Mark Rubio run the damn country? America must take charge of itself and if that means putting a rough neck, the likes we've haven’t seen since Teddy Roosevelt, then so be it...
45 posted on 03/02/2016 5:49:35 AM PST by Netz
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To: Kaslin

46 posted on 03/02/2016 5:50:46 AM PST by Donglalinger
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To: Kaslin

The reckoning is coming for the crony capitalist career beltway crowd. Buh-bye!


47 posted on 03/02/2016 5:51:17 AM PST by Wolfie
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To: Toespi

Trump is about the only person Republicans could nominate who would make Clinton look like a sympathetic character.


48 posted on 03/02/2016 5:51:24 AM PST by Nickname
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To: Kaslin
That question is better directed to Mitch Mcconnell, John Boehner, Bob Corker, John McCain, Lindsey Graham. This is what results from lying to voters to get elected and then turning their backs to them once in office.

-PJ

49 posted on 03/02/2016 5:51:35 AM PST by Political Junkie Too (If you are the Posterity of We the People, then you are a Natural Born Citizen.)
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To: CIB-173RDABN

Same thing was true for Obama. They knew nothing of the man, either. And still don’t in many respects. But we called that a cult of personality.


50 posted on 03/02/2016 5:52:28 AM PST by 5thGenTexan
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To: odawg

There must be a Watering Hole off K Street in D.C. where all these people go to commiserate with each other. In their Drunken Cups they write this screed and then they feel good about themselves for a bit till reality rears it’s ugly the next morning and they do it all over again.

PATHETIC!!!!!!!!!!!


51 posted on 03/02/2016 5:52:56 AM PST by Captain Peter Blood
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To: Kaslin
Numbers don't lie.


52 posted on 03/02/2016 5:54:28 AM PST by McGruff (It's clear Trump Derangement Syndrome has no limits.)
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To: Kaslin

I’m a Cruz guy, Trump is my #2.

We have Trump because we didn’t have a GOP for the last 7 years. We kept sending people to Washington who keep promising to stop the obamists and the moment they arrive they fall into line and give him everything he wants.

So, no one believes anything GOP has on offer.

Even mounting a coup d’état against Boehner bought nothing, as his replacement continued the Boehner policy of giving Obama everything he wanted. So people are fed up.

Cruz is part of the rebellion. But to many ears he sounds like just another politician. What he says in paragraphs Trump says in short punchy pithy sentences and repeats over and over. While the press can ignore Cruz they can’t bring themselves to ignore Trump, they can’t help themselves. And every attack just spreads his message more.


53 posted on 03/02/2016 5:56:11 AM PST by marron
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To: MayflowerMadam

These a$$hats STILL do not understand how BETRAYED their base feels!! WE put them in office to STOP OBAMMIE we got THE MIDDLE FINGER they are now paying the price!!! I hope EVERYONE of their heads explode GO TRUMP!!!!!


54 posted on 03/02/2016 5:58:37 AM PST by Kit cat (OBummer must go)
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To: DrewsMum
So “he exposed the media” is a bunch of hogwash.

He demonstrated how to fight back at the media. Typical Republicans knuckle under at the slightest ginned up controversy but Trump was having none of that.

Would you prefer that we allow the media to distort our intents and statements unchallenged? That was the standard in a GOP before Trump.

55 posted on 03/02/2016 5:59:35 AM PST by BlueMondaySkipper (Involuntarily subsidizing the parasite class since 1981)
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To: soozla
If Trump wins, that is the question. There is still a long way to go. Also many democrats changed to republicans, so they can vote for Trump. Will they change back to being democrats in the general election in November to give Hillary Rodham Clinton the victory? It would not surprise me
56 posted on 03/02/2016 5:59:42 AM PST by Kaslin (He needed theThe l ignorant to reelect him. He got them and now we have to pay the consequences)
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To: Kaslin

Only a true twerp like Goldberg can get all worked up over a loss. In their distorted world up is down and their man is never behind.
What will these maggots do when Trump wins BECAUSE of their opposition not just in spite of it?


57 posted on 03/02/2016 6:01:00 AM PST by jmaroneps37 (Conservatism is truth. Liberalism is lies.)
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To: Kaslin
"almost unopposed"

Really, Jonah? Really? In the beginning he was mostly laughed at. But from about September of last year on, as polls indicated the actual decision making voters weren't laughing, he's been more than a little bit opposed but to no avail.

His rise has had an almost Roman quality to it. His fans are like the Roman mob, swayed by promises of building a wall to keep the barbarians out, restoration of American supremacy not on the basis of virtue but for supremacy sake, and bread and circuses from a man who has been a circus performer himself for years.

He's been opposed, most often with a with snarling and condescending rage that has only fed his popularity, by both the privileged GOParty expense account class (Brutus & Crassus) and those among us who still value the Constitution and republican decorum in the same sort of nostalgic way that Cato revered the Roman Republic. To say he has reached this point almost unopposed is the worst kind of denial of facts.

58 posted on 03/02/2016 6:01:32 AM PST by katana (Just my opinion)
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To: Kaslin

When Trump says journalists are lyin’ scum, this article becomes a great example...


59 posted on 03/02/2016 6:02:50 AM PST by Iscool (Trump will Triumph)
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To: marron

Nailed it.


60 posted on 03/02/2016 6:10:13 AM PST by relictele (Principiis obsta & Finem respice - Resist The Beginnings & Consider The Ends.)
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