Posted on 03/07/2016 4:59:29 AM PST by Kaslin
This election is the Republican Altamont, where conservatives got knifed by the Hells Angels. Its our own fault too the GOP teased its base, looked down upon it, lied to it, and when it turned out it wasnt playing games and pulled a blade the establishment wasnt ready.
I spent the last few days at CPAC, surrounded by conservatives, and there was a clear preference for focusing on the symptom Donald Trump and his myriad failings rather than the disease. Our problem is not this digitally-challenged, bizarrely phallocentric clown; its our failure to represent the people left behind as we got ahead.
Donald Trump is the fault of the GOP elite, including movement conservatives, who failed to listen, who failed to follow through, who thought we were meant to lead the benighted past their narrow self-interests and unseemly prejudices to a wonderful new world reflecting our benevolent self-interests and elite prejudices. Funny how the conservative, globalized utopia we sought to impose always worked out really well for us. Except those left behind arent laughing.
Trumpism isnt merely about unfocused anger it would be super-convenient to write this off as a temper tantrum that will soon blow over and allow us to get back to the business as usual of ignoring the pleas (which are now demands) to stop the immigration disaster, to address the fallout of free trade, and to stop the useless sacrifice of our sons and daughters in wars were too damn gutless to win. But it isnt. Again and again Republicans promised to solve these problems and yet every single time theyve lied. Rubio got elected in Florida promising to oppose amnesty then not only fails to do so but stands up with the Democrats and did the exact opposite. And were surprised a candidate comes along and points that out?
Think of this as, in large part, the struggle between the haves and have nots of globalization. Amnesty was a great idea for bubble people who think illegal immigration satisfies some sort of libertarian ideal, or who only experience its impact by being able to hire a cheaper nanny. Its a pretty great idea for the illegals too. But leave your nice neighborhood and go where a high school grad who was born here cant get a job as a roofer since any general contractor who doesnt hire illegals is going to go broke because his competition will. Tell somebody whose daughter is shot dead in front of him by an illegal who got arrested five times but never got deported that its an act of love.
If we had built the damn wall we promised our base back then, we probably wouldnt have that damn Trump now.
Free trade is great, in a macro sense. It sure helps enrich the donor class. But go tell the guy who lost his $25 an hour job because NAFTA let Carrier move its air conditioning plant to Mexico about Milton Friedmans Free to Choose. Whats he free to choose? Long-term unemployment? Making a fake Social Security disability claim? Or taking a job greeting at Wal-Mart for $8 an hour?
Immigration and free trade are generally good, but they impose real costs and our base is getting handed the bill. These folks have been asking us for help, and what was our response? Shut up, stupid racists. Well, they finally found someone who is taking their side. His name is Donald Trump, and we made him possible. Hell, we made him inevitable.
But hey, talking about the real problem us is hard, so lets focus on peripherals and hope against hope that we can put the Republican Partys accounting off for another cycle. Lets talk about Trumps weird penis fixation, because thats easier than introspection. Lets jump on the ridiculous KKK disavowal train or run a picture of people raising their hands and hint its a Nazi salute, even though not one of us actually believes Trump supports the KKK or is a Nazi, because maybe we can tar him (and his followers) with charges we damn well know are false and that will let us avoid the reality of our predicament for a little while longer.
The ultimate denial manifests in the idea that the reckoning can somehow be circumvented if Cruz or Rubio or even Cruz /Rubio wins the nomination. Who goes on the ballot to satisfy Trumps rebels? Not Tiny Hands no, hell never take veep. How do you keep the yuge numbers of voters motivated by Trump and his willingness to at least talk big about taking the left-behinds side from walking? We cant simply will them and their concerns into silence.
Worse, there are those of us who want to go third party. So, lets play this out. Trumps people win the nomination fair and square and then are told, yet again, No, you still dont get to win. Sure, you played by the rules, like you always do, but when we elitists saw the outcome, we changed the rules to make sure we won, as we always do. Good plan. Thatll end well.
The Republican Party is a round hole and its base is a square peg. They no longer fit together, and there has to be a reckoning. Change must come. Political history students are going to be reading about this seismic shift in decades to come, assuming the world doesnt end in fire and blood. And do not think the Democrats are in any less trouble we just arent seeing the fractures and the fissures in Team Donk thanks to a mainstream media that wont report them and DNC superdelegate rules that have ensured the fix is in for Hillary.
Individual conservatives have every moral right to act on their principles and refuse to vote for an unprincipled, unconservative individual. Though I intend to vote for the GOP nominee, each new round of appalling idiocy by that vulgar human troll doll tests my resolve. But as much as we wish to focus on the flawed messenger, the problem is that we have refused to heed the message he has adopted (and which I have little doubt he will abandon if elected). Its not the illegals who are living in the shadows; its our own base, the guys and gals who got the short end of the globalization stick. The vast majority of Trumps supporters are good people who we have let down, and as free agents in the political free market they have found someone who saw a need and is filling it.
They arent going away; we need to reintegrate them. To bring them back into the GOP is going to require us to examine our ivory tower policy preferences as well as our prejudices about our own base and its going to require us to start keeping our word. We had no sympathy for the plight of the base, and thats why now we have the devil.
“When decades and decades of empty promises have gone unkept, when lies and scheming and outright sabotage is going on and when they collude with media to continue thwarting us, I for one, don’t want to nor will give them another chance. They’ve already shown they can’t ever be trusted.”
That’s a fact.
Trump has Enemies in all the right places!
Foreign diplomats are expressing alarm to U.S. government officials about what they say are inflammatory and insulting public statements by Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, according to senior U.S. officials.
Officials from Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia...
Go Trump Go!
Free Traitors please note.
1. If the only thing Trump does is build a barrier between the US and Mexico (and surely he will try hard to do so because otherwise he would never have a chance at reelection), that alone would be a great advance for the conservative movement.
2. Where was all this conservative angst when George W. (”Compassionate Conservative” Bush or Mitt “Romneycare” Romney was nominated? There was grumbling but nothing like the current conservative anti-Trump hysteria.
3. What states would Cruz win in the general election that McLame or Ronney did not? It is plausible that Trump makes wins attainable in the Northeast and Midwest rust belt. Assuming that Cruz is a more consistent, authentic conservative, what good is that if his nomination leads to a Shrillary victory in November?
4. I fully realize that many great legal minds disagree, but my own reading of the Constitution is that children born outside the USA are not natural born and not eligible to be president (unless they were born overseas due to a parent’s military or diplomatic service).
I never needed any sympathy.
The hundreds of millions of innocent, natural unborn Americans slaughtered by abortion/abortifacient, they needed some sympathy.
It’s funny that the GOPee are trying so hard to wrap themselves in the magic cloak of the word “Conservative” that they don’t deserve. But it’s what they do. Run as Conservative, rule as leftists.
There is only one party, the DC Uni-Party, made up of the GOPe, the DNC and their propaganda arm, the MSM, including FOX News and Hollyweird.
There is a genuine need for a second party. It will be one that represents We the People.
Democrats also crossed over in record numbers to vote for Reagan. That’s the Democrats supporting Trump. They are working Americans that are getting screwed no matter which party they vote for.
LOL.
Like Libertarians could ever get that organised.
But hey, talking about the real problem us is hard, so lets focus on peripherals and hope against hope that we can put the Republican Partys accounting off for another cycle. Lets talk about Trumps weird penis fixation, because thats easier than introspection. Lets jump on the ridiculous KKK disavowal train or run a picture of people raising their hands and hint its a Nazi salute, even though not one of us actually believes Trump supports the KKK or is a Nazi, because maybe we can tar him (and his followers) with charges we damn well know are false and that will let us avoid the reality of our predicament for a little while longer.
Argue with that. Just try.
Different time. World with the social media networks we have is not going to have a 1968 style police riot. The lawsuits would bankrupt the GOP and the city of Cleveland.
I won't say "gullible dupe," but I was thinking of it.
“appalling idiocy by that vulgar human troll doll” Gee Kurt! I thought that only Trump supporters engage in unhinged ad hominem attacks. A close reading of the article reveals two things: 1) After things settle down, the establishment expects us to fall back in line to suffer the equivalent of benevolent child abuse at their hands. 2) The establishment (which includes a large swath of conservative media) still looks down on the rest of us, but with “love in their hearts”.
You call Col. Schlichter an Ass clown? Talk about physiological projection
..Its our failure to represent the people left behind as we got ahead...
Trueer words have never been said by the GOPe/RINO.
Left the base behind as they got ahead in power, lies, broken campaign promises, and corruption.
It’s a well worn axiom that it is much easier to dupe somebody than to convince them that they have been duped.
Trump has been losing steam and support as the effects of the Big Schlong’s kool-aid wears off and as the campaigns go on, more and more proof emerges that Duh Donald is a fraud playing everyone for saps
But it will take much more than truth and facts to deter most Trumpers from their aggressive and determined ignorance.
Trump leads the people who have decided that, if we get many more Third World immigrants, the demographics of the US will have shifted so that the takers outnumber the producers by so much that no conservative will EVER AGAIN be elected, until the US goes down in flames.
Trump appeals to the people who are primarily concerned about having a job, and having their families safe, and who care much less about gay marriage and abortion than they do about their primary issues.
The Dems got creamed in ‘68. If that is the GOP Convention in ‘16, the result will be that they get creamed this time. (or schlonged)
I have yet to see one dyed-in-the-wool, lily-livered, country-club, establishment loving republican support Trump.
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