Posted on 01/19/2016 7:59:42 PM PST by Isara
Back in December, I was at a small event in a Las Vegas bar; CNN's Jake Tapper was interviewing Sarah Palin. He asked which candidate she'd most like to grab a beer with. Her answer? Donald Trump.
Trump, of course, has been sober his whole life. But the moment perfectly encapsulates the Palin-Trump romance. Because in addition to endorsing a beer run with a man who doesn't drink, she also just endorsed for the presidency a man who is neither a committed conservative nor an anti-establishment rogue.
Trump's long history of liberalism is well known. He was once a registered Democrat who supported Democratic candidates, from Bill de Blasio to Hillary Clinton. He has said publicly that the economy usually does better under Democrats. At times he's supported legalizing drugs, raising taxes on the wealthy and embracing isolationist foreign policies.
But what's most jarring is the positions he's held on a number of issues that are particularly important to Palin.
In the past, he called himself "very pro-choice." Yet Palin - who made the very courageous and compassionate decision to have a baby she knew would be disabled - is unbothered.
On guns, he once supported a ban on so-called assault weapons and longer waiting periods to purchase a firearm. That should be deeply disconcerting to Palin, a Second Amendment firebrand who once said, "If you control arms, you control the people."
And Trump has supported universal health care - expressing admiration for Scotland's single-payer system as recently as last year. Palin spent years denouncing Obamacare, which is many steps short of a single-payer plan, as "socialized medicine."
These aren't minor policy differences. The beliefs long embraced by Palin and long eschewed by Trump are fundamental to conservatism. That Trump has suddenly gotten religion - on issue after issue - should be met by Palin with suspicion.
If his world-view weren't enough to make Palin cringe, Trump's inauthenticity as an anti-establishment candidate should be. Palin admirably took on what she called the "good old boy network" to become Alaska's first female governor. Now, she leaps to support a guy who helped create that network and who thrives in it. In what bizarre world is a billionaire real estate mogul who donates money to Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid "anti-establishment"?
Over the past eight years, Palin's influence within the Tea Party has remained strong, but her favorability rating among all Americans has dropped 40 points. Worse, her rating among Republicans has declined more than 55 points.
But despite that waning influence, I've supported and admired Palin for defending life, religious liberty and gun rights, and for being a strong mother to a disabled son and another serving overseas.
The Sarah Palin I knew in 2008 - the one who campaigned tirelessly and many times thanklessly for John McCain, a war veteran Trump has openly mocked - would have seen through Trump's charlatan candidacy. The Sarah Palin I knew in 2008, a devout Christian whose faith was constantly scrutinized by the secular left, would have no affection for a man who is constantly scrutinizing the devout Christian faiths of other conservative candidates.
The Sarah Palin I knew in 2008, who was a passionate and fearless voice for hockey moms, mama grizzlies and women everywhere, all while enduring patently sexist attacks from the left, wouldn't have supported a man who calls other women bimbos and slobs, thinks women who breast-feed and go to the bathroom are "disgusting," and criticizes another candidate for her looks.
That Sarah Palin is gone. Maybe one day, over a beer, she'll tell me why.
So now we are supposed to love a touch back amnesty, crony capitalist, K St ethanol loving guy who says he no longer supports outlawing guns, Hillary, third trimester abortions?
is John Boehner posting?????
I'll bet Beck would let SE make him & Stuey a couple of sammiches.
She'd have to be barefoot in the kitchen, though...
BUMP
You, sir, get it.
Sarah Palin is gone, and she has taken all the media's testicles with her.
That's why SE Cupp and the NY Daily News laments.
Did she finish her term as governor? No? Failed.
So is Trump. Does that bother you?
Or, I've forgotten more about The Media than you'll ever know.
One of those two. :)
You ready?
Trump captures teapartiers with this. And pulls people like me in who hate the liberal dogs of hell and have no affiliation.
Bec is trying to pull in the teapartiers but everyone knows he is a puke fat pasty of a weak-sauce- like a Jeb of talk radio.
Now all Trump needs to do is rake in the minorities of the left.
Conservatism will not advance until conservatives vote for conservatives and not some huckster who one year ago had positions no different than Hillary.
That means Cruz.
That means opposing the cult leader.
Posting dribble from a GOPe hack like Cupp to attack Trump? Is that the best Team Cruz has got now?
It only took one. I have already won.
After she was banned, I never forgave Romney and the RNC for the deliberate snub. I now only give to candidates that I know and no money to the RNC.
I've been a Cruz guy, but this kind of sickness in Cruz supporters, this kind of mental midgetry has really got me on the edge of saying screw you all.
Okay. Screw you all. You're just nuts, just bonkers, so totally beyond help it's pathetic.
So you think Palin endorsed Trump because he is taking it to the media that tormented her? I had not thought of that, but it makes more sense than her supporting him because of his past stance on issues.
f’ the establishment, better dead than red.
f’ the establishment, better dead than red.
She died today to conservatism in my eyes.
I no longer admire her... period.
CRUZ was right....even though he is being a gentleman, she has sold her soul out to the devil.
After the tremendous announcement tonight I suspect many of the regulars who suffer from TDS are in their “cupps” tonight.
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