Posted on 08/18/2015 7:44:18 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Via the Blaze, consider this an open thread for when Hannity interviews Beck about Trump later tonight at 10 p.m. on his Fox show. There are a million fascinating subplots to Trumpmania and one of them is the sometimes friendly, sometimes not so friendly rifts it’s opening up between big-name conservatives in the media. The Beck/Hannity rift is friendly: Here’s Beck’s respectful open letter to Rush, Sean, et al. last week about why they’re excited about a candidate who’s obviously not a conservative and here’s Hannity’s respectful reply. Read them now as background if you’re planning to watch their tete-a-tete later. (For a less friendly example of a disagreement over Trump, see Mark Levin’s justifiably disgusted reaction to Ann Coulter calling Trump’s immigration plan so great that she wouldn’t mind if he performed abortions in the White House himself.) Beck asks a good question here and then offers a good answer to it.
Why, he says, do conservative opinion-makers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity give Trump a pass on his many, many ideological heresies when normally they’re bulldogs in calling out centrists like Romney for lesser offenses? Beck’s answer: Trump has a swagger that Romney doesn’t. When Trump tells you he’s going to seal the border and destroy the Beltway establishment, you believe him because he doesn’t care who disapproves of him or his objectives. He’s going to do what he sets out to do. After trying for decades and failing to make American government incrementally more conservative, some righties are ready to gamble on a guy who, if, if, if he’s true to his word, will achieve more in that vein than any president since Reagan. Essentially, after six election cycles of making low-risk bets on business-as-usual Republicans, conservatives are willing to make a high-stakes gamble on a guy who won’t be business as usual but, er, might not govern as a Republican either.
Let me give you two other takes on Trumpmania, though, to help explain the divide between Trump-lovers and Trump-haters. I think there’s some truth to what Josh Barro says about Trump appealing to a less libertarian cohort of conservatives, which may explain why Beck in particular is having such trouble grasping his appeal.
Mr. Trump’s critique of government differs greatly from that of most conservatives. The conservative argument for small government ordinarily rests on the idea that citizens necessarily know better what to do with their money and their lives than the government does, because the government lacks the local knowledge that individuals have. Under this theory, even a government run by smart people will do lots of stupid, costly things.
Mr. Trump is positing not a general, inherent failure of government but a very specific one. He nearly shouted it at last week’s debate: “Our leaders are stupid, our politicians are stupid.” This is the core idea of the Trump campaign, and it does not necessarily imply that government should be smaller. It implies that somebody smart, ideally Mr. Trump, should run the government.
If Republican voters share Mr. Trump’s diagnosis that the main problem with our government is stupid leaders, and if they believe that Mr. Trump is much smarter and wiser than the politicians who have come before him, they may be fully prepared to forgive his apostasies on Medicaid, taxes and everything else. If their real beef is not with our leaders but with big government itself, his support should fade as his policy moderation becomes clear.
Beck thinks government gallups along inexorably towards failure because that’s what collectivist institutions inevitably do. The best thing you can do with government is shrink it so that it does as little damage as possible. Some Trump fans — maybe not the sort of grassroots conservatives who read blogs like this one but surely some of his moderate supporters — think the problem with government isn’t necessarily that it’s too big but that it’s been badly run and/or run for the primary benefit of the wrong people and that a better steward could straighten things out. Again, the high-stakes bet on Trump is that he’s a guy uniquely capable, through the force of his personality and his ability to build silent-majority mandates, to do the straightening. Assuming, that is, he behaves like a Republican once in office. Beck, wisely, isn’t willing to make that bet. Hannity seems to be.
The other take on Trump’s appeal is my own, something I’ve been thinking about since he announced his immigration plan this weekend. Trump and Ted Cruz are frequently lumped in together (including by me) because they’re both overt populists and both seen as essentially right-wing phenomena even though Cruz’s base is more uniformly conservative than Trump’s is. In an important way, though, Cruz and Trump are opposites. The point of Cruz’s trademark rhetoric about “bold colors, not pale pastels” is that he’s a true believer in conservatism’s power to win over the masses if it’s presented unapologetically, in its strong form, by an able messenger like Ronald Reagan (or, of course, Ted Cruz).
Give the voters real conservatism and they’ll flock to you, whatever the pollsters or the demographics say. It’s an essentially religious belief in the power of the creed to convert infidels so long as it’s given a fair hearing.
Trump fans, on some level, have given up that belief assuming they ever had it to begin with, I think. They wish Cruz was right but they just don’t think conservatism is an electoral winner anymore, either because the character of the country has changed or because changing demographics have made it impossible. At this point, the best deal you’re going to get is a guy like Trump who’s compromised ideologically but seems to have some conservative instincts, most notably on immigration, and who seems like he really might be willing to push the country in that direction (on certain issues) if he’s given power.
In particular, by calling for all illegals to be deported and immigration to be reduced, Trump would drastically reduce the number of future voters from Mexico and the third world, most of whom would end up voting Democratic given past trends. (Coulter makes this point pretty explicitly in praising Trump’s plan.) If you’ve given up on conservatism’s power to persuade and have come to see national politics chiefly as a power struggle among different demographic groups, Trump arguably makes the most sense. He may not be a conservative but he’ll protect what’s left of the country and the people who still care about it from being preyed upon domestically and abroad, which, at this stage of American decadence, is the best you can hope for. Essentially, and very ironically, he’s the guy standing athwart history yelling “stop!” Not my candidate, but I think what I’ve described is a core part of his appeal.
We know you dont get it, Glenn. We know.
I don't think it's arrogance...We don't butter their bread...The GOP hasn't represented the working class in my lifetime...No need to expect it of them now...
The working class who vote Republican, in my view, do so only because the Democrat Party is what it is...There are not many options to chose from...
Yes, AllahPundit, yes!
"Trump fans, on some level, have given up that belief assuming they ever had it to begin with, I think. They wish Cruz was right but they just don’t think conservatism is an electoral winner anymore, either because the character of the country has changed or because changing demographics have made it impossible. "
No, AllahPundit, no.
Conservatism hasn't failed. Nor have people given up, nor has the nation's demographic made conservatism untenable. (That is wishful thinking on your part I believe.) The people who are supposed to be representing conservatism have failed. Glen Beck is now pro-gay marriage so is Gov. John Kasich. They claim to be conservatives but they fail at least one leg of the conservative test. They are not social conservatives. Though Kasich talks out of both sides of his mouth. Marco Rubio claimed conservatives love amnesty. Any conservative thinking that way is a liberal. There is a big problem with these liberals pretending to be conservatives.
There are a whole slew of pundits, politicians and talking heads who claim they are conservative, but really are closet liberals, democrats, elitists and establishment supporters. They are the ones who have caused conservatives to lack trust. No one can trust them because as soon as people give them their support the traitors stab their constituents in the back. They like calling themselves conservatives. They like usurping the word, but they have no love for conservatism nor do they have any understanding of conservative principles. Mitt Romney was the worst practitioner of this.
If Ronald Reagan can be considered the best example of conservatism, then Romney, the man who left the republican party because conservative Reagan became president and party leader, should never have been considered a conservative, severe or otherwise.
I wish there were a truth serum all politicians had to take so that we would know whether they truly were conservatives when they run for office. There are too many wolves in sheep's clothing out there. And do you know what AllahPundit, Beck and anyone else? You can't trust any of them. The ones who kiss up to, get their money from, work for and hire those who have backstabbed us again and again can go home. We already know we can't trust them. They've proved it. We're giving Trump a chance because at least he's fighting the ones who have shown hatred for conservatives in the past. At least he opens his mouth and talks about the things that concern us. If he hadn't decided to run, we would never have heard about some topics, like a conservative response to immigration, at all.
I realize this is not really about the e/e pretend conservatives ever getting it. It's not that they don't understand it. They could if they wanted to. They won't /will not understand it. Because like the two most recent presidential loses the republicans have suffered, it is all their fault. They won't admit it. They'll try to blame it on anything or anyone else. But their lying, backstabbing, traitorous behavior has brought them to this point. I'm glad and I hope they never figure it out.
Also notice that he’s getting advised by some “rock ribbed” conservatives, and they can clue him in on hot button areas that he can evolve on to get the country behind him. There are many months for this story to play out in.
What would it MEAN to “represent the working class” anyhow.
Turning around policies that are stealing their jobs might prove attractive, and I don’t think Democrats are the best poised party for that right now.
Perhaps you ascribe your own motives to Beck. It was a rather empty and childish lash-out at Beck, but it helps me see why you might be inclined to defend Trump. His Twitter account is full of such childishness.
Yes, I'm fully aware of that having once been a liberal. And it's quite possible that Trump has had some reverses in his core beliefs. Or it's quite possible (perhaps probable) that he's an opportunist telling his swooning public the words their ears are so itchy to hear. As he's reminded us over and over, he wrote "The Art of the Deal." He's very adept at negotiating (manipulating?) to get what he wants. And who knows when that's subject to change? IMO, Trump's convictions are a mile wide and an inch deep, and always subject to change depending on whose ears are itching.
Here's how you know if someone's truly conservative. It's a metaphor, but I'm sure you'll pick up on the meaning. When I came over from the dark side, it was completely. So much so that, if I'm cut, I bleed conservatism. It's what I do; it's who I am. Do you really think that's true of Trump?
And yet another thing that keeps nagging at me about Trump: his response to Luntz about asking God for forgiveness. Luntz gave him a couple of opportunities to rethink his answer. That was two too many for Trump. Anyone could observe that that was a foreign concept to him. You see, he's got god in his life. He's that god. He's doing fine without having to bend a knee to ask for forgiveness, thankyouverymuch. But in a desperate attempt to change the focus of the question that day, he shared that he goes to church sometimes and that he has sat under the teachings of the great Norman Vincent Peale! Wowee! I'm sure God was impressed! No doubt that when he needs God, he'll be sure to let Him know. But that won't be until he comes to the end of himself. That could be a long, long time.
Pardon me if I don't want another self-absorbed, immature individual in my White House. As conservatives, we've legitimately griped for 6 1/2 years that we need an adult in the White House. To be backing Donald Trump whose as thin-skinned as the current resident would render our last 6 1/2 years of griping pointless. The presidency is a busy job. When would he have time to monitor Twitter and respond with his childish insults -- although perhaps he could create a new cabinet position and appoint a 10-year-old boy as Secretary of Twitter Communications.
The Presidential elections prove that the GOP can’t get along without the working class and their elitist snobbery keeps them from admitting it. Of course, I could be totally wrong about the cause.
Speaking of childish..... Beck has that in spades...
http://clashdaily.com/2015/08/glenn-beck-calls-trumps-wife-a-lesbian-porn-star/#
Glenn Beck has literally become an “out of touch” DUMBA$$!
Sometimes I could kick myself for not going with my intuition. I considered adding a notation on my post that the entire text was about Trump and about neither Glenn Beck nor Sean Hannity. Then I thought, “No, that will be self evident to anyone reading it.” How silly of me! Here’s the disclaimer I should have included on my post:
******************************************
PLEASE NOTE: THE ENTIRITY OF THIS POST IS IN REFERENCE TO DONALD TRUMP. IT DOES NOT DEFEND GLENN BECK, NOR DOES IT TAKE A SWIPE AT SEAN HANNITY.
******************************************
Note to self: go with your intuition and cover all your bases. There will always be someone who needs the explanation.
And I believe the country will get behind him...
Like many of us, Trump doesn't care about the Republican Party...Trump cares about America...
What it's meant for a long time...Democrats represent Labor, Republicans represent (big) Business...
Turning around policies that are stealing their jobs might prove attractive, and I don’t think Democrats are the best poised party for that right now.
Neither are the Republicans, and more so...The last thing the Republican Party wants is to deprive their financial donors of cheap labor...And since I had to 'labor' for my livelihood, I'm not to big on cheap labor either...
Trump recognizes that 'cheap labor' is destroying our middle class...I am sure there are many Republicans who recognize it as well, they just don't care so much, as long as they can make a buck off it...
I put the Country; the Sovereignty of the Country before any political Party...We all know that neither Party works for the best interest of the Country...As long as Trump is pro-Constitution/Bill of Rights, he's far ahead of most politicians...Even conservative ones...
I’m almost tempted to post this as a private message since it is a little off subject, but, also, Glenn Beck said in the same Hannity show that he came out with a new book on Islam and I am tempted to get it.
I think Trump is tapping into a deep emotional need amongst conservatives. We are right, we should win, we deserve to win, we’ve been repeatedly reviled and slandered. Leftists are out to destroy all that is good, and this nation is a gift that we must protect and preserve.
I believe all of that. I just don’t see Trump as the vehicle to get us there. If he is, God bless him.
Quite frankly I look at him and see a flim-flam man, plain as day. I expect many people to fall for that, but not smart people, or so I thought. I guess I’m just immune to demagoguery and most people aren’t, it fails to elicit an emotional response in me to hear PT Barnum speak pretty words.
Romney was fairly liberal, converted or so he said, liar we called him.
Trump, not held to the same standard?
The things he spoke about concerning Islam and the Koran and the Hadith were beyond disturbing. It sounds like a book every American should read. Surely Islam is from the pit of hell.
Thanks you for sharing this me.
Trump is the king of the con man. He got many here worked up in 2011 and then walked always to his TV show.
He is like Satan dressed up in whatever you want him to be for the moment:
Needful Things Formats: Hardcover / Paperback / Audio / Movie / DVD First Edition Release Date:1991
That is not that I trust any of the others, but I know that a con man like Trump will not leave us with anything good.
Like in 2011 when he promised us proof that Obama was not illegible to be POTUS , then he walks away just to tell us that he has other things to do like his TV show.
Today at work a young Obama twice voter who is strongly for gay marriage and abortion tells me that Trump rocks.
How long can that last?
Rush needs to do more Shanklin ... since he lost his hearing he has changed
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