Posted on 12/23/2015 3:21:27 PM PST by SeekAndFind
It is as if Donald Trump just walked into a 40-year conversation on conservatism and instead of standing there, nodding his head politely as he got acquainted with the topic at hand, began shouting over the crowd.
It is essentially what Trump has done to conservative policy gurus this year. Trump has reached over anti-abortion diehards, foreign policy neocons, and supply siders to tell base voters directly what he thinks they want to hear and it's working. But he still doesn't have a grasp on how what he's promoting fits into long-term movement conservatism objectives -- nor does he seem to particularly care. Not only is Trump not beholden to the conservative movement, he seems more or less indifferent to it. And that as much as anything strikes fear deep in the hearts of longtime conservatives who see 2016 as a generational opportunity to control Congress and the White House simultaneously.
"If you are a more traditional conservative, someone who has been active in issues like abortion or tax policy and market regulation, yeah, I could see some of those people being quite anxious about Trump because he is a total wild card," said Matt Dallek, an professor of political management at George Washington University who studies the conservative movement. "They don't know him and he doesn't know them. It is not clear that he supports their policies on many issues. Conservatives who have been successful politically did not spend years shouting from the hilltops."
Typically, Dallek says that candidates who catch conservative lightening in a bottle do so because they spent years building a network and immersing themselves in the lingo. Take Ronald Reagan, for example, who Dallek says spent years talking to conservative organizations and emerged out of the anti-communist and pro-market wings of the conservative party, or Pat Robertson, the 1988 evangelical challenger to George H.W. Bush, who emerged from the Moral Majority movement.
Trump has come right out of left field.
The problem for conservatives goes beyond Trump's own positions, which over the years departed from the conservative orthodoxy. Trump lacks a basic sense of the values of the conservative movement, its jargon, or the deals struck over the years to hold the different elements of the movement together as a unified force.
As conservative columnist George Will put it, "Trump is indifferent to those conservative tenets."
For at least two generations, conservatives have been playing the long game on taxes, the judiciary, and abortion, to name a few pillars of the movement. They have carefully crafted plans to make incremental gains when the political winds were against them, and be well positioned to make dramatic gains when the winds shifted in their favor. They talk about their issues in highly refined, well-tested ways, and avoid the rhetorical pitfalls they've discovered the hard way.
Does any of that sound like Trump or his modus operandi?
Like so many other aspects of Trump's confounding rise, the business mogul has somehow captivated primary voters without fully following the movement's rules or understanding it. Trump says the words and attracts applause, but conservatives aren't convinced Trump truly grasps the gravity, the intricacies, and the nuances of the policies he's promoting.
In a Meet the Press interview in August, Trump said that “as a real estate developer and as what turned out to be a world class businessman based on what I've done, you don't ask questions about, ‘Gee, are you pro-choice? Are you pro-life?"
"It's just something that is not really discussed. As a politician, they discuss it all the time," Trump said.
On foreign policy, Trump's saber-rattling rhetoric carries echoes of conservative candidates of the past. How will Trump handle the Islamic State? He's going to "bomb the shit outta them." But past the surface similarities, it's not clear that Trump embraces any particular foreign policy school of thought, or has even given it much thought.
“I don't think he can get up to speed," says Dov Zakheim, a Republican national security advisor who has worked for GOP heavyweights from Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney. “You cannot view a few slide briefings or an oral briefing and become a national security expert. It does not happen. You need some experience.â€
Other candidacies are plugged into the conservative tenets of foreign policy and most have their own crew of advisers to turn to. Trump, meanwhile, still has not publicly announced a foreign policy team and in August when NBC's Chuck Todd asked Trump to disclose his military advisers, Trump responded, "I watch the shows."
"He has made it pretty clear that he follows his own advice," Zakheim says. "He rejects Washington-type policy people. So the very people he would need to get him up to speed are the people he holds contempt for.â€
The Club for Growth, whose super PAC spent $1 million in ads against Trump in Iowa highlighting his past positions such as supporting single-payer health care, eminent domain and higher taxes, says Trump is taking conservatism off track just as the GOP has a chance to retake the White House in 2016.
"I think the conservative movement has waited long enough and if there are these concerns that Trump is not the full-orbed conservative he claims to be, then people need to be making that case," says Doug Sachtleben. "It is not like we are left with no one running. There are good choices. That argues all the more for why the conservative movement should speak up."
Some have tried. The anti-abortion movement, specifically, has shown a lot of skepticism toward Trump, who more than a decade ago billed himself as pro-choice.
"There are a lot of folks that distrust where Trump stands on life because of his track record and even his recent vacillations on Planned Parenthood," Lila Rose, a prominent anti-abortion activist, told TPM in August.
But other key conservatives have been reluctant to jump in to attack Trump's lack of policy knowledge or his detachment from their movement. David Keene, the longtime chairman of the American Conservative Union and a former president of the National Rifle Association, says the while he is always worried about any candidate coming up short on Second Amendment rights or seeing a candidate "talking about something they don't understand," he feels comfortable with Trump's basic stance on guns today even if Trump once supported a ban on "assault weapons."
"We believe in redemption," Keene said.
That's more than we've been getting from anyone else.(Obama is actually allowed to attack and make harmful decisions about our country, Republicans are afraid to act))
My country needs help really, really fast or it will become a place I cannot live without being persecuted and lose my freedom.
I'm a White, male, Christian, Veteran and 'pop' culture is presently disparaging everything about me.
People that are patriotic are treated as goof-balls, if not worse.
I have a large American flag in my yard and I think some/many don't like that either.
- Go Trump -
www.DonaldJTrump.com
Jim I don’t recall Reagan running on the label Conservative, but his agenda was clearly Conservative.
He ran against the Liberal agenda and dogma.
His task will be to lead America
Ms Fox seems to be as long winded as our dark won. When they began to ramble they forget the time and continue to dig.
Ms. Fox, honey - So TRUMP is a fake Conservative. I would say he seems to be A FAR BETTER FAKE than the ones we have sitting on the right side of the aisle in DC. Those guys havent a clue as what this even means it as been so long since they have seen it. Take this piece of advice, chew on it a while and go home to wait for Santa. or the Tooth Fairy. But get outtahere! When you realize you havent a clue what you are talking about your face will be as red as the oo pResidents diapers.
WE STUMP FOR TRUMP
AND CANNOT LOSE WITH CRUZ.
THE TWO ON A TICKET WILL SHOW WHERE TO STICK IT
AMERICA WANTS JUSTICE FOR HER COUNTRY AND PEOPLES.
DESTROY ALL WHO WISH HER DAMAGE...ALL OF THEM!! NO PUNISHMENT IS TOO SEVERE!
MAKE AMERICA GREAT FOR GREAT AMERICANS
WE*RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!
The so-called "Conservative Movement" is so tarnished, so irredeemably corrupt and generally anti-American...as to soon be dead.
The Conservative Movement is embodied in the GOP: Open Borders, Free Trade, Regime Change, Crony Capitalism.
Should I go on?
No, Trump seeks to lead the nascent Nationalism Movement.
Trying to be elected President is not the same thing as trying to lead an ideological movement.
I call BS on that. There’s a conservo bible written by Will somewhere that’s supposed to be on my bookshelf? Trump was in biz doing stuff, not penning essays, not running for office. Who gives a crap about that? I’m a right winger, Trump’s a right winger, we’re all right wingers here and he’s fighting the damn leftists tooth and nail - we’re supposed to care what George friggin Will thinks about it? That bow tied p$ssy didn’t even support President Reagan when he tried to save the nation. Only later did Will become a supporter.
“I thought that most FReepers agree that conservatism is what it TAKES to make America great again...”
Well you would be wrong about that. What it takes is getting all stripes to pull together. The president should represent all the people, conservative and liberal black and white.
Sadly, conservatives have their own brand of political correctness too, and a self-appointed priesthood. Trump is more like Reagan than so many of those who have attempted to capture, domesticate and patent Reagan’s ideas. (Remember “Evil Empire” . . . how it harelipped everyone . . . or SDI . . . or Reykjavik?) Every one of Reagan’s speeches still brims with power and originality. Not so for many of the copycats.
In the long run, we’ll have to determine what his impact is. Some of will be good and some of it will be bad.
The good may be very good. The bad may not be the kind of bad we’ve had under the Leftists for the last twenty years. I may be groan stuff that we know isn’t right, but isn’t the despicable type stuff the Left really wants.
His instinct to be for the nation first, is good. That will be very helpful.
If he can get the border under control, get the illegal alien problem dealt with, it may be worth the price of admission. If he can get spending under control, bring jobs back and pay down some of the debt, he may wind up being a very well respected president, even if he doesn’t all the expectation we have for a Conservative.
I suspect he’ll be the best since Reagan. He may surprise all of us.
LoL.
Why does (almost) everyone want a leader?
This government was formed to execute the will of the people within the Constitutional framework. And by “the people” I don’t mean “the parasites”, so people who are on the dole should not be allowed to vote.
There won’t be a country, conservative or otherwise, if we third-world ourselves to death through immigration and multi-culturalism...
Why not Bush, Rubio and others are trying.
1. Pass a federal law allowing prayers in school, Christmas parties, birthday parties, etc.
2. Make English an official language and make it a felony to not follow English in all things. (Yes I can speak Spanish but even I don't want to hear it constantly in this country).
3. Make abortion completely illegal.
4. Be forceful to the World. Get rid of the UN at least in America, the International Court, NATO, and all the other garbage we are involved with other countries.
5. Make Catholic Church the official church of America......I know that won't pass which is a pity.
6. Get rid of all taxes and have one 10 percent on every purchase including clothes and food. But that is it. 3 percent for the states.....but that is it. Nothing more. Social Security stays as is.
7. Dump Global Warming nonsense. Even if it is true, we can't afford it so we must take our chances.
8. Make it a felony for criticizing Christian Religions or people. Too much of it going on.
9. Ban Atheism, Kwanzaa, and Festivus (Yes I loved Seinfeld, but its been 20 years....get over it).
10. Order all state houses to allow nativity scenes, 10 commandments, etc anywhere they want. 30 year jail term if you disrupt this in anyway.
That would be close to my perfect America as a Conservative. I would imagine you would love the majority of it too. We can have this we just need a true conservative to make those things happen.
This is why I don't trust this clown for a minute. He's clueless when it comes to conservatism. Trump is not to be trusted.
“the deals struck over the years to hold the different elements of the movement together as a unified force. “
Yes: this conservative establishment has been a total disaster and should be rejected for it’s failure to do anything but feed itself.
What arrogance to even speak!
It has neither advanced conservative causes, principles, or candidates.
Oh, they did succeed at getting Cantor and Ryan elected.
The 40% effective conservatism of Trump looks mighty good after over a decade of 0% effective conservatism.
Whoever wins, 99% of this ‘movement conservative’ establishment must be culled so a new force can replace it.
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