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Posted on 12/27/2025 8:39:32 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
When the people vote against democracy.
The social media hashtag #NeverTrump first appeared in June 2015, days after Donald Trump announced his presidential candidacy. For the balance of that year, social media derision attracted less attention than Trump himself, mostly due to the widespread belief that Trump’s campaign was self-extinguishing, which argued against pointless efforts to bring about an already inevitable defeat. In election cycles since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide victory, unlikely protest candidates for the GOP presidential nomination—Pat Robertson, Ron Paul, Herman Cain—had briefly surged in the polls, only to give way to a conventional politician who ended up as the party’s nominee. Bill Clinton observed that, when selecting a presidential nominee, there is an almost anthropological difference between Democrats, who fall in love with a previously obscure politician (George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama), and Republicans, who fall in line behind an established one (Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney).
By early 2016, however, it had become increasingly clear that Republican primary voters were not going to fall in line. Within the first two months of the year, Trump won primaries in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada, drove presumptive favorite Jeb Bush from the race, and received the endorsement of another vanquished rival, New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie. By that point, Never Trump had become more serious and less obscure. Disaffected Republican donors and campaign professionals started Political Action Committees whose initial purpose was to deny Trump the nomination, despite his relentless progress toward securing a majority of the Republican delegates with primary and caucus victories, and other candidates’ decisions, one by one, to abandon the contest.
These efforts proved futile, predictably, but after Trump’s nomination became a foregone conclusion the Never Trump focus shifted to an even more quixotic goal: fielding a third-party candidate who would allow Americans to...
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They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. 1 John 2:19
Maybe a bit much for talking about a political idea or maybe not.
What does seem to be true is that many that we thought were of us were only on the side of their bank account.
As long as we gave them money they said they were on our side.
When we stopped they ran for the other side as fast as their twiggy little legs would carry them.
Conservatives are going to have to start being alert for con-artists.
Trump was ceded the enforce the border vote. None of the other GOP candidates in 2016 would buck the big donors which underlied the establishment. That gave him a solid core of at least 30% of the GOP primary voters right off the bat.
I voted for this, three times.
“That gave him a solid core of at least 30% of the GOP primary voters right off the bat.”
Then there were those of us tired of the gentlemen losers. Even when they won they were gentlmen losers. Wouldn’t fight back and let the Democrats lies and smears stick to us. Looking at you, Bush dynasty.
So did I.
Correct.
Those gentlemen losers became a very tiresome lot and never really cottoned to the "draining the swamp" concept.
Now, to the amazement of everyone, we have President Trump "kicking ass & taking names."
You’re very seldom see articles describing exactly why Trump has the appeal he has, because the writers of the articles dare not acknowledge it.
Drain The Swamp. This eclipsed all other issues in 2016.
In 2024 it’s shared the prominence with border enforcement.
But the swamp dares not talk about this. There is only one way to know who is swamp and who is not and therefore why they should be heard.
Strictly and only, the period of time in politics. I arbitrarily declare it to be 6 years. Anyone in politics over 6 years is disqualified for the presidential nomination for 2828. Vance just barely qualifies. Pretty much every other candidate you have ever heard of does not.
Draining the swamp remains the number one goal if we really expect the nation to survive. It is the swamp that gave us 39 trillion in debt. It was not ideology. Both parties created that and neither party is making an effort to stop it.
Drain the swamp remains the yardstick for selecting candidates.
JD became Senator in 2023.
And yet the swamp lives on minus a few 5 gal buckets...Populism was never about draining the swamp, not really. Draining the swamp made a great campaign slogan to feed masses looking for pie in the sky but was never a serious pledge...or even possible as corruption is so embedded in Washington DC and out on Main Street.
None of the analyses really said, “We were simply arrogant, elitists and we never really escape from it!”
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