Poll’s Warning for GOP: Back the Trump Agenda or Face Defeat in 2018

Townhall.com ^ | September 8, 2017 | Timothy Daughtry

[Kaslin]

You dance with the one who brung you to the dance.”

The wisdom of that old political adage might seem outdated in this age of expensive consultants, focus groups with instantaneous tracking of reactions, and micro-targeting of voters.  But the McLaughlin & Associates poll released this week reinforces the wisdom of that adage for any Republican who wants to avoid defeat in the 2018 primary season and in the general election that follows.  

The message of that McLaughlin poll could not be clearer or simpler for Republicans as they choose in the coming weeks between the agenda of President Trump and the agenda of the Beltway insiders:  The base that brought you to the dance supports the Trump agenda.Dance with your base and win.Dance with the Beltway and lose.

To be fair, elected Republicans face many practical pressures inside the Washington Beltway.  There are always K Street lobbyists for various special interests and for large corporations wanting special favors, all offering generous campaign contributions.

And there are the Alinskyite Democrats and their leftist media threatening personal attacks, smears, and ruin for anyone who crosses their socialist agenda.

And then there are some old hands who have learned to thrive in that environment, whose advice is to tell the folks back home anything they want to hear but do the bidding of the Beltway insiders in order to survive.

Candidate Trump called all of that a swamp, promised to drain it, and stunned most of the political experts with a victory those experts said was impossible.  And now Republican officials are doubtless hearing from those same experts that the Trump phenomenon is a fluke, an aberration, and that the smart move is to wait it out.Maintain your distance from the Trump agenda and it will all go away

But the McLaughlin poll of likely voters tells a different story.  Here are just a few highlights:

• Voting to increase the debt ceiling without new constraints on spending will make 62% of voters less likely to vote to re-elect a Member of Congress.
• “Bailing out health insurance companies without repealing Obamacare” leaves 53% overall less likely to re-elect a representative, and only 29% more likely.That 53% figure jumps to 67% among Trump voters.
• Conservatives (70%) and Trump voters (67%) are less likely to support a Member of Congress who has failed to support President Trump’s efforts to vet immigrants more carefully, especially those from countries with a strong terrorist presence.
• Refusing to repeal the burdensome Obamacare mandates and taxes leaves 75% of conservatives, 68% of Trump voters, and 66% of Republicans overall less likely to vote to re-elect a Member of Congress.
• Eighty-five percent of likely voters still believe that freedom of speech is a fundamental right, even if it offends some people.  Only 9% support restrictions on speech.  That is not good news for the proponents of political correctness, or for those who bow to its dictates.
• In stark contrast to the impression one gets from the leftist news media, when voters are reminded of the violence of the ANTIFA protesters, 81% of conservatives and 63% of voters overall oppose ANTIFA.  Only 21% overall support them. 
• And, as things stand now, 49% of likely voters see the Republican Leadership as “supporting the swamp that President Trump promised to drain,” with only 22% seeing them as helping to drain that swamp.

And those are just the highlights. 

Now here is the point that Republican officials cannot afford to miss.The issues of concern to the GOP base – conservatives, self-identified Republicans, and Trump voters – are the same kinds of issues that gave rise to the Tea Party movement in 2009 and led to GOP victories in 2010 and 2014.  The Trump phenomenon is not just a fluke, but is instead a sign that the sleeping giant of mainstream America is waking up and demanding that Washington get control of our spending, secure our borders, repeal and replace Obamacare, and stop giving in to the stifling demands of political correctness.  Trump’s agenda is their agenda. 

Elected officials who have not helped to carry out the Trump agenda will not only be going against President Trump; they will also be pitting themselves against the movement that elected him. 

The Democrats have become increasingly radicalized and unified since the 1960s.  And when Democrats are in power, they enact their socialist agenda.  Their voters get what they vote for, with no waffling and no excuses. 

And, even with all its internal debates, the Republican party is still the political vehicle for the center-right mainstream.  But mainstream America is beginning to wonder why the results they are seeing do not match the rhetoric they heard during the campaign.Why is it that the Democrats can enact the socialist agenda but the Republicans cannot carry out the agenda of mainstream America?

Looking at the McLaughlin poll, “the Democrats won’t let us” will not play well during the primaries, let alone in the general election.

The music is starting for the 2018 election.Base or Beltway.  Choose your partner.

[Logical me]

Most of the Republicans are really damn Democrats and are liberal as hell. I’m sick of these dirty nitwits.

[TomGuy]

I’d bet that the majority of the Republican members of Congress actually don’t care if they lose. They’ll retire with their comfortable pensions.

Or get high-paying jobs with their K Street cohorts.

[grumpygresh]

I’ll support good conservatives in primaries, and general elections, but I’m done with supporting or voting for any GOPe.

In the past, I have voted for papa bush all the way through to rino Romney, but I won’t vote for any of those types again. Trump was the only one of the bunch worth voting for.

[Reily]

It may feel “righteous “ to split the GOP but when you split something that at best has a slim “voting” majority you don’t get a larger number in the two parts (Assuming splitting doesn’t end up fragmenting into many parts!) Remember the Rats are 40% to 45% of the electorate and they are far more disciplined & solidified around left wing causes and candidates then the conservatives are around their candidates & causes. So splitting (I will use ridiculously high voting conservative numbers to make a point!) 60% to 55% into at least two parts is not going to create a winning majority.

Better work to take over the GOP! That will take hard persistence & patient work. We do not have a parliamentary system. No coalition of parties picks the head of government and then parcels out power. It can’t the Constitution won’t allow it. Without the ability to had out power how do you discipline 3rd & 4th party members in the legislature? The Founding Fathers created a system to minimize “factions (parties)”. That minimum is two, they may not be called Rats & GOP, but there will always be ultimately two. Minority parties very quickly are shoved to the “fringe”. Who do King & Saunders caucus with? The Rats, that’s who! They are no more true Senate “independents” then Pelosi is Catholic! When they caucus separately put up their own candidates for Senate offices & committees I will retract what I have just said.

All splitting the GOP will do is consign conservatism to permanent disenfranchisement. The socialists(Rats) & corporatist(GOPe) will cut deals and turn conservatives into something that’s laughed at in the history books like - the “Know Nothing” party.

[Seaplaner]

We need to split the GOP by supporting a 3rd party; just like when the Whigs were destroyed and gave birth to the Republicans.

The Dems and the Losertarians would just love it if we tried to support a third party. (They would even add some of their own straw candiates.)

Reclaiming our own party of Reagan and Lincoln, from within, is the only viable path.

[Psalm 144]

Crush the Deep State quislings in the primaries. Jebicide them all. If Ratface Ryan survives, replace him.

[tennmountainman]

Go Roy Moore!
Trump sent the first shock wave in DC.
Moore will send the second.
Hopefully many more will follow.

[TennTuxedo]

Tennesseans are going to primary and defeat UniParty Rino Corker.

[Impy]

Voting to increase the debt ceiling without new constraints on spending will make 62% of voters less likely to vote to re-elect a Member of Congress.

But, isn't that part of the Trump agenda now?

[Beagle8U]

Enjoy POTUS ‘Grey Beaver’.

[JPJones]

I’ve said it before:

Trump is a basass muthafu$$%r, anyone who messes with him, including and especially GOPe, will regret it.

[Rockitz]

Now how many conservative patriots will step up to face these schmuck incumbents in the primary?

[where's_the_Outrage?]

Moore is not an angel. I have some personnel issues with him back from 2001, there are lots of sides to a coin.

However, I cannot help but support the guy that was fired because he posted the 10 Commandants.

Moore has F’d up enough such that his core values are what I agree. So go Moore, help get rid of the Turtle.

[Reily]

I just hope he doesn’t have an “Atkins Moment” in the general. Something I am sure he is capable of doing given his past history. Even if he does I think he can survive it given that its Alabama & not Missouri.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

My fear and loathing of Mother Government continues to grow, unabated.

Save us, Obi-Wan Trump-nobi! :)

[cp124]

1) The entire Federal government is corrupt.
2) Trump letting his big lib daughter/son-in-law influence policy is a huge mistake.
3) Letting Jeff Sessions war on Marijuana continue while letting corrupt government officials go free is what Trump ran against.
4) Trump teaming up with the worst of swamp is a poke in the eye.
5) Letting the corrupt congress fix Daca is against what he ran on.

Trump is becoming part of the swamp and not what I voted for. Elections are now to make the serfs think they have some influence on their country. We do not.

[grumpygresh]

“Reclaiming our own party of Reagan and Lincoln, from within, is the only viable path.”

I’ve heard that one for the last 20 years, and until this year, I believed in this approach. But we have seen how the rinos have acted with respect to health care, taxes, border fence, etc. More people are giving up on the GOP because once in power, they have failed to act in the people’s interest. It has never been more obvious.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"We need to split the GOP by supporting a 3rd party; just like when the Whigs were destroyed and gave birth to the Republicans. The GOP has has too many second chances, and their leadership is still essentially the same deep state establishment." *BUMP*

[Twotone]

This article should be printed & mailed to Ryan & McConnell. By EVERYONE!

[cp124]

The election process is corrupt and a waste of time. If you expect the same corrupt politicians to fix the corrupt system they created you are naive and want the country to continue on the path of the last 50 years.