[nathanbedford]

Donald Trump is simply not conservative, he is an opportunist but he is an ideological and philosophical opportunist as well as an opportunist of personal ambition. He is not a deep thinker, he is ignorant of history, he is akin to any huckster, like Bill Clinton, who can read an audience and summon up the sociopathic skills necessary to persuade by pandering. Some of those emotional hot buttons about which he panders include issues with which you and I both agree such as our trade relations with China but about which I decline to be bamboozled.

I expressed these sentiments long before Donald Trump announced his campaign but I was not alone, many conservatives have read Donald Trump right from the beginning. But Jonah Goldberg misses the point.

Conservatives and disillusioned Americans are not flocking to Donald Trump because he will cure what is wrong with the Democrats' governance, they are desperate to find someone as an antidote to elitist, statist one-party rule waxing more intrusive than tyrannical every day. The Republican Party in Washington was given Congress to stop Obama care and, as one FReeper has already observed, gave us Obama trade instead.

The wreckage of the Republican Party is not the work of Donald Trump, it is the work of John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, George Bush and Karl Rove and many others who are considerably wealthier today than when they started.

Jonah Goldberg, where were you when we were being sold out?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Which makes Donald Trump an opportunist, not a hero.

[stig]

Conservatives and disillusioned Americans are not flocking to Donald Trump because he will cure what is wrong with the Democrats' governance, they are desperate to find someone as an antidote to elitist, statist one-party rule waxing more intrusive than tyrannical every day. The Republican Party in Washington was given Congress to stop Obama care and, as one FReeper has already observed, gave us Obama trade instead.

The wreckage of the Republican Party is not the work of Donald Trump, it is the work of John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, George Bush and Karl Rove and many others who are considerably wealthier today than when they started.

Jonah Goldberg, where were you when we were being sold out?

Amen!

[wastoute]

I posted that we would be able to tell what Trump is up to a week ago if he took advantage of the breach he created in the enemedia/Rat defenses and quickly turned to peel the enemedia cover off the Rats. Still waiting. Chump. Not The Man. Either he knows not his enemy nor himself or he is not what he wishes us to believe he is. The opportunity of a lifetime squandered on yet ANOTHER narcissist. Now because of the utter failure of our political leaders there will be “politics by other means”.

[Samurai_Jack]

“The wreckage of the Republican Party is not the work of Donald Trump, it is the work of John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, George Bush and Karl Rove and many others who are considerably wealthier today than when they started.”

WELL SAID SIR!!!
And Worth Repeating!

[TalBlack]

NUT meet SHELL:

Conservatives and disillusioned Americans are not flocking to Donald Trump because he will cure what is wrong with the Democrats’ governance, they are desperate to find someone as an antidote to elitist, statist one-party rule waxing more intrusive than tyrannical every day. The Republican Party in Washington was given Congress to stop Obama care and, as one FReeper has already observed, gave us Obama trade instead.

That’s the whole thing right there.

[Alas Babylon!]

So good, I'm going to repeat it!

Conservatives and disillusioned Americans are not flocking to Donald Trump because he will cure what is wrong with the Democrats' governance, they are desperate to find someone as an antidote to elitist, statist one-party rule waxing more intrusive than tyrannical every day. The Republican Party in Washington was given Congress to stop Obama care and, as one FReeper has already observed, gave us Obama trade instead.

The wreckage of the Republican Party is not the work of Donald Trump, it is the work of John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, George Bush and Karl Rove and many others who are considerably wealthier today than when they started.

Jonah Goldberg, where were you when we were being sold out?

Seriously, if there's anyway to get these three paragraphs to him? It sums up exactly what has happened to get us to this circus we see today.

[odawg]

Except for Ronald Reagan, and even he changed his stance on abortion, you can not find a politician — one who studies the impact of his statements — who has not uttered inconsistent beliefs. How much more so than with someone like Trump, who has only dallied with it in the past.

After the November election, when the democrats were handed one of the biggest defeats in history, and it was COMPLETELY NULLIFIED by the Republicans, what on earth do we have to lose with a guy who at least is PREACHING the right thing. Which one of the Republican candidates can you count on to break out of the RINO mold? With the immigration crisis, this will be out last chance to preserve our nation. Literally.

Goldberg completely negated any perceptive ability he claims to have about Trump when he suggested Trump is a stalking horse for Hillary Clinton; he also wrote that Trump is a “failed man”. How is it possible to regard Trump as a “failed man’? And so he whines when Trump belittles him (he left him no choice) and he whines about Trump hurting the Republican brand, and as you point out, Trump is no where in the league with Boehner and McConnell for accomplishing that.

[odawg]

By the way, I just read a column by Mark Steyn. He writes about Trump, per immigration, in about the way I just posted to you. And he was not negative, about Trump, the way Goldberg implied he was in his article.

[Enlightened1]

Well said! Hear, hear!

You certainly one of the best posters on Free Republic.

[EBH]

And it is that desperation that is being played like a fiddle in Dixieland.

That desperation is the conservative weak point.

[aquila48]

And like him or not he’s the only one that has taken an issue that conservatives care about and is leading the fight and winning.

Who cares if he has no sense of history or is a student of philosophy.

He’s a pragmatist. He sees today’s problems and attacks them without a lot of navel gazing.

We’re in dire straights - we need a doer right now not a thinker. No need to ponder and analyze what the problems are - they’re staring us in the face.

[khelus]

“Conservatives and disillusioned Americans are not flocking to Donald Trump because he will cure what is wrong with the Democrats’ governance, they are desperate to find someone as an antidote to elitist, statist one-party rule waxing more intrusive than tyrannical every day. The Republican Party in Washington was given Congress to stop Obama care and, as one FReeper has already observed, gave us Obama trade instead.”

Amen