Posted on 02/23/2016 5:43:26 AM PST by Kaslin
As the returns came in from South Carolina Saturday night, showing Donald Trump winning a decisive victory, a note of nervous desperation crept into the commentary.
Political analysts pointed out repeatedly that if all of the votes for Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Jeb Bush and Ben Carson were added up, they far exceeded the Trump vote.
Why this sudden interest in arithmetic?
If the field can be winnowed, we were told, if Carson and Kasich can be persuaded to follow Bush and get out, if Cruz can be sidelined, if we can get a one-on-one Rubio-Trump race, Trump can be stopped.
Behind the thought is the wish. Behind the wish is the hope, the prayer that all the non-Trump voters are anti-Trump voters.
But is this true? Or are the media deluding themselves?
Watching these anchors, commentators, consultants and pundits called to mind the Cleveland Governors Conference of 1964.
Sen. Goldwater had just won the winner-take-all California primary, defeating Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, assuring himself of enough delegates to go over the top on the first ballot at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.
But with polls showing Barry losing massively to LBJ, the panicked governors at Cleveland conspired to block his nomination.
Michigan Gov. George Romney and Pennsylvania Gov. Bill Scranton were prodded to enter the race. Scranton would declare his availability in San Francisco with a letter accusing Goldwater of hostility toward civil rights -- Barry had voted against the 1964 bill -- and of excessive tolerance toward right-wing extremists such as the John Birch Society.
And what became of them all?
Goldwater won his nomination and went down in a historic defeat, but became a beloved figure and the father of modern conservatism.
Of those who turned their backs on Goldwater that fall, none ever won a presidential nomination. Of those who stood by Barry that fall, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, both would win the GOP nomination twice, and the presidency twice.
And the conservative movement would hold veto power over party nominees and become the dominant philosophy of the GOP.
Folks forget. Not only were there "liberal Republicans" and "moderate Republicans" back then, they dominated the landscape. Yet rare is the Republican today who would describe himself in such terms.
Which brings us back to the anti-Trump cabal.
While their immediate goal is to deny him the nomination, do they really think that if the party nominates Rubio, things can be again as they were before Trump? Do they not see that America and the West are undergoing a series of crises that will change our world forever?
Bernie Sanders is not all wrong. There is a revolution going on.
Late in the last century, when Robert Bartley was editorial editor, The Wall Street Journal championed a constitutional amendment of five words -- "There shall be open borders."
Bartley, who told colleague Peter Brimelow, "I think the nation-state is finished," wanted U.S. borders thrown open to people and goods from all over the world. To Bartley and his acolytes, what made America one nation and one people was simply an ideology.
But what was silly then is suicidal today.
Whatever one may think of Trump's talk of building a wall, does anyone think the United States is not going to have to build a security fence to defend our bleeding 2,000-mile border?
Given the huge trade deficits with China, Japan, Mexico and the EU, the hemorrhaging of manufacturing, the stagnation of wages and the decline of the middle class, does anyone think that if Trump is turned back, the GOP can continue on being a free-trade party financed by the Beltway agents of transnational corporations?
Absent some major attack on the homeland, do our foreign policy elites believe the American people would support new U.S. interventions to defeat, occupy and tutor Third World nations in liberal democracy?
Trump is winning because, on immigration, amnesty, securing our border and staying out of any new crusades for democracy, he has tapped into the most powerful currents in politics: economic populism and "America First" nationalism.
Look at the crowds Trump draws. Look at the record turnouts in Republican caucuses and primaries.
If Beltway Republicans think they can stop Trump and turn back the movement behind him, and continue on with today's policies on trade, immigration and intervention, they will be swept into the same dustbin of history as the Rockefeller Republicans.
America is saying, "Goodbye to all that."
For Trump is not only a candidate. He is a messenger from Middle America. And the message he is delivering to the establishment is: We want an end to your policies and we want an end to you.
If the elites think they can not only deny Trump the nomination, but turn back this revolution and re-establish themselves in the esteem of the people, they delude themselves.
This is hubris of a high order.
Exactly. Its a protest movement as powerful and earthshaking as the movement that propelled Alex Tsipras and SYRIZA into office in Greece.
Left wing and right wing populists are united around a rejection of the Davos agenda, unfettered neoliberal capitalism and the relentless erosion of national sovereignty.
To call it a revolution is in an understatement. The GOP is being turned inside out and is being transformed by a huge wave it can neither control nor understand.
And Trump is at its head.
The thing is, if the GOPe wants to deny him the place on the republican ticket, as long as Trump stays in the race, he can still be voted for. He can utilize a different party or he can be written in, IF people are willing to look outside the box, and vote for him inspite of the GOPe.
Should the GOPe pull something like that, it’s like a shout from the rooftops that they are not at all concerned about the people, or freedom! In which case, there is absolutely NO need to ever vote for a republican candidate ever again.
It’s a loud shout to the citizens and voters of this country that they have zero interest in a representative government. They will stand naked, and exposed for being nothing more than a repressive arm of lobbyists and the NWO. Any doubts people might have will no longer exist.
So long GoleParty, can’t say it’s been nice knowing you these past years!
Good article, Travis. Please check it out.
In Europe on the Right its has roots in the UKIP, in France on the neofascist front, the National Front and in Slovakia from Communist roots Social Democracy-National Direction. What unites disparate strands of populist rage at the system?
Whatever their ideology, they demand an end to unbridled immigration, an end to reduction in the standard of living and earned benefits and they stand four square for upholding national culture and state sovereignty.
Populism has arrived to stay for good.
Pat Buchanan may be the finest political writer in action today. Next to Mark Steyn, that is.
If he’s the nominee, I’ll vote for Trump.
But I’m not deluding myself about him.
He’s much closer to a Mussolini than a Reagan.
Yep and Yep.
And they are surpassing Conservatism as the GOP has managed to trash that brand in the minds of many voters.
“He’s much closer to a Mussolini than a Reagan.”
Trump doesn’t have the totalitarian vindictiveness that Mussolini had.
If he’s the nominee, I’ll vote for Trump.
But I’m not deluding myself about him.
He’s much closer to a Mussolini than a Reagan.
I’ll vote against Clinton/Sanders.
I would be quite surprised if at some later point
should he achieve office that a lot of his supporters
aren’t going, “Whoa, we didn’t know he’d do THAT!”.
I can’t believe you actually wrote that. The FIRST candidate who wants to control this invasion and you call him Mussolini? You’re too good for that.
If we get a wall out of it, along with deportations and a Hillary prosecution and the death of TPP...it will be worth it.
We are at an national survival inflection point. And, by extension, the survival of all Western Civilization is at stake.
Just watch him in action. He cares no more about Constitutional strictures than Obama. We just like what he’s saying more, but to me, he is a budding Mussolini.
Given a choice between Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini, I’ll vote for Mussolini.
That’s why I’ll vote for him. But I’m not for a moment going to believe he wouldn’t wipe is butt with the Constitution when it suits his purposes.
Trump has never had the power that Mussolini had.
Yet.
You and I disagree very seldom but I must say I don’t get that vibe from Trump. I also don’t come up with Mussolini when I look at the myriad of personal stories of kindness and generosity exhibited over a lifetime by Donald Trump.
There is not one person who knows Trump who has come forward with anything negative to say about him. If there
were CNN, Fox and MSNBC would be looping the interviews 24/7.
5 years of military school during his formative years would likely have ingrained the constitution into Trump as well as esprit de corp.
My assessment of Trump’s slash and burn campaign style is that he knew from jump street he was going to be going up agains’t the GOPe mob aided and abetted by the MSM and all the chattering class. That’s a powerful machine that has managed to annihilate every previous outsider. He is just doing what he has to to win.
I fully expect to see a much more measured persona in the Whitehouse. Trump’s whole life is making deals. He will do the same with Congress. And hopefully accomplish what he says he will do.
Trump has given the movement a focus.
Note that Buchanan correctly groups Cruz in with Kasich, Rubio and Bush. Cruz is one of them, the cabal, the establishment, as Pat knows.
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