Posted on 05/30/2025 3:45:53 AM PDT by MtnClimber
And how Trump shattered the Establishment’s manufactured consent.
There was a moment in the late spring of 2015 when I realized that the ground beneath our feet was shifting. During an appearance on Fox News, Charles Krauthammer was asked to predict the Republican and Democrat nominees for the 2016 election. He said rather confidently that the nominees would be “Jeb” Bush and Hillary Clinton. When asked to explain his reasoning, Dr. Krauthammer pointed out that Bush and Clinton had the money, the political infrastructure, and the backing of their respective party elites.
I found his predictions unsettling — partly because “Jeb” and Hillary represent dynastic houses whose mere mention sharply divides the American people and partly because their preordained anointments seem particularly distasteful in a nation that enjoys lecturing the rest of the world on “democracy.”
We were a decade and a half into “nation-building” projects in Afghanistan and Iraq and several decades into our grand mission of “making the world safe for democracy,” and voters were being told that they would have to choose between unlikable scions from two of America’s most despised politico-aristocratic families. Why? Because the moneyed elites had decided that a Bush or Clinton would again rule in the United States. That awful choice appeared indistinguishable from telling the people of Afghanistan or Iraq that they could vote for whomever they wanted to lead their nations — so long as that leader came from one of a handful of noble families preselected by Western intelligence agencies.
Making matters worse, it was well known how chummy the Bushes and Clintons are. President George Bush I reportedly thought of the credibly accused rapist Bill Clinton as another son. President Bush II still refers to Bill as his “brother” and Hillary as his “sister.”
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
“I was skeptical of Trump at first. Wrongo.”
Not me - I knew what Skunk Cabbage would do if she got into power and that was all that I needed that November. As far as the Primaries were concerned, Cruz was the only one that showed any MAGA, yet he seemed to look down on his voters (the 2022 freeze in Texas proved that to be the case), so it was next to impossible to see him winning in November.
“Also thought Reagan would start WW3.”
I was convinced that the Soviets would start WW3, I never worried about Reagan as it was obvious to me, even back then, that the path to peace is through strength.
“The world was safer when he left.”
Absolutely.
When you can buy a candidate, you don’t want someone else coming in who you have to buy all over again. Bushes and Clintons are both for sale. Once you buy the candidate, you have to pay more to make sure they win. And the really big money is not American.
The nice thing now-a-days is that there is a cap on how much can be done with money. Because the time is short, its hard to sway opinion fast and strong with just money. You need a movement. News editors in each network were a conveniently small and powerful group who could alter the news to create a change in public opinion. Now you need to find all those Youtubers and the networks and the party and the candidates, and try to buy them all. The Youtubers are the hardest group to get. And they have been proven to be the most formidable at a national level.
People seem to forget that Trump tested the waters in the 2012 cycle. He actually led some alleged polls in late 2011, specifically targeting presidential aspirant Ron Paul. So there was reason to anticipate a 2016 run, as well as to believe he wasn’t any more serious in 2016 cycle than in the 2012.
This was a nice accurate walk down memory lane. People are finally getting sick of the fake GOP v. Dem contests as they recognize the existence of just one uniparty - the establishment.
Trump has popular polices and even better - he is crushing the establishment in politics and the media and that hopefully will be a permanent improvement for voters.
GOP voters learned that it was fixed by then, after getting Dole and McCain and Bush and Romney - 4 strikes and you're out.
That's what opened my eyes.
That's when I realized that the battle between Republicans and Democrats is kayfabe, designed to conceal what they're actually doing, viz. exploiting the American People, milking them like a cashcow, drawn to the wealth and power concentrated in Washington like a magnet.
That's when I remembered hearing Donald Trump respond to Oprah's question, "Would you ever consider running for President of the USA?" with: "Only if I thought my country needed me."
When Trump announced that he intended to seek the Presidency, I knew that he believed his country really needed him.
When I heard him speak, I knew that he was exactly what the American People need to save the USA from certain destruction.
I also knew that opposition from the Washington Political Establishment and its henchpersons would be vicious, even murderous.
When Trump announced, "The party's over; I going to clean up Washington," it was clear that "vicious, even murderous" would be a vast understatement. It was.
The scariest thing of all is the huge number of Americans who cannot see the kayfabe for what it is. Our best hope is that somehow their eyes will open. The eyes of many have. I'm one.
Interesting.
He won three times, too.
Truth!
In the late spring of 2015, there hadn’t been many polls or any primaries, and Trump hadn’t even come down the escalator. “Predictions” made at that point were bound to be wrong. Had Jeb even raised much money then, or was Krauthammer counting the money that he thought Jeb would get in the future?
Did anyone seriously predict that Rudy Giuliani or Scott Walker or Rick Perry would be president? A few people might have hoped so. I’m put in mind of 2012 when people were talking up Pawlenty and Daniels before anyone knew much about them. A year and a half before the election anything seems possible. In any case, Cruz and Rubio turned out to be Trump’s main competition in 2016.
Okay, I just saw this from June 2015, right before Trump entered the race”: “Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush raised $114.4 million in the first six months of the year to fuel his White House ambitions.” So Jeb was already rolling in dough. That was a lot of money back in 2015.
Jeb Bush raised $34+ million and allied PACs and other independent groups raised $124+ million to get a total of FOUR pledged delegates.
Bush’s & Clintons... ptooey!
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