Let Us Not Be Consumed By the Mob (Author decries voter revolt against GOP-E)

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | Saturday, January 2, 2016 | Salena Zito

[kristinn]

Every political movement has a tipping point. It goes too far, or it loses its original purpose -- or it becomes so self-enamored, under the influence of anger and mob rule, that ugliness shades all the good of its original intent.

Such is true of the populism that peaked this summer in America.

Years of incompetency and a tin ear at the White House, along with a Republican-controlled Congress accused of not accomplishing much, drove people to figuratively or literally shout, "Enough is enough!"

Never mind that many of the loudest shouters likely did not vote in 2008 or 2012 against Barack Obama. Or apparently they do not understand that, despite Republicans holding a sizeable House majority and a slim Senate majority, institutional voting rules often prevent those majorities from enacting sweeping changes.

With Donald Trump's emergence, and with a chorus of talk-radio hosts suddenly behind him, the mob-rule crowd deems everyone who was ever elected to office (with the exception of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas) to be a Republican-in-name-only or part of a dark establishment cult intent on crushing the souls of average white voters.

Never mind that this same GOP "cult" helped recruit candidates from a range of ethnic and racial backgrounds to run and win more than 900 additional state legislative seats, 70 additional congressional seats and more than a dozen additional governors races -- many of them in districts and states that Republicans once had no hope of competing for, let alone winning.

The mob-rule crowd gnaws on any piece of political red meat thrown out as truth, never checking to see what kind of flesh it just consumed. None of this represents true conservatism. All of it is pure populism, and it is radically contaminating conservatism's values.

[Billthedrill]

None of this represents true conservatism.

Drink!

I remember Salena's posts. Here she is simply mistaken. It is not unreasonable for a polity that elects representatives to expect them to represent. Certainly there are institutional barriers to perfect success, but what we have seen is nearly perfect and deliberate failure, the recent Omnibus Spending Bill being a perfect example. Here the minority party in both houses was handed literally everything they wanted to the point where they've been publicly crowing about it. Mr. Ryan, apparently alarmed when the tsunami of voter outrage breached the protective Beltway walls, has promised to re-introduce such details as Planned Parenthood funding in a separate political action that is doomed by those institutional rules to failure, having squandered an opportunity to use those institutional rules to express the clear will of the voters. This is not a case of the voters failing to comprehend how difficult things are in D.C., it is a case of successfully comprehending that we've been had.

Hence the anger. The institution has made it clear that it holds nothing but contempt for the voters and acts instead in the interest of its proprietors. A solution for this must be extra-institutional, and that is precisely where populism of all varieties thrives, and so it has throughout American history. What Zito offers us as a hallmark of success is the election of Republicans in districts where they have had problems in the past. So what? If they vote with the Democrats and the upshot is such abortions as the Omnibus Spending Bill, it makes no difference at all.

Mr. Ryan, like his predecessor, has performed magnificently in a role the American voters did their best to discard. It has lifted his status within the establishment political machine but will hopefully cost him his job. I wish him a happy retirement and I just wish that the entire lot of them would get the hell out of the way, but they won't, and so they will be displaced by the electorate they've betrayed. There's nothing mob-like in that.

[Paladin2]

Zito is now a GOP appoligist. Congress has abrogated their responsibility for at least 50 years. The peeps to take to task are those who voted for Hussein the second time. The Makers are about to go on strike. Let the takers wither on the vine, Zito included.

[FrankR]

Watts...was “mob rule”; Furguson...was “mob rule”; Baltimore...was “mob rule”.

The revolt against a tyryanical and traitorous government is, the people of, for, and by the people invoking their power as designed in the constitution.

The Bill of Rights is a preventive measure to tell us to reject a government that is not in keeping with our laws and constitution - a point supposedly sworn to by each and every government elected official.

The “mob” is the entity that has pushed the Patriots to the point of “enough already”!

[skeeter]

To the writer of this essay I can only say kiss my angry white arse I am never coming back.

[tumblindice]

And she was a screwball in 2012 too.

[nopardons]

She’s a complete and mordant IDIOT !

[Paladin2]

BINGO. Trump is the candidate attractive to the middle thzt the GOPee always claims they need. That they would reject same is unbelieveable.

[Olog-hai]

No, McConnell didn’t “allow the rats to bulldoze him”. He exposed himself as a Rat. There’s a reason the GOP-e is the GOP-e.

[nopardons]

You couldn’t be more WRONG if you tried.

[The_Media_never_lie]

Yeah when I read that the b.s. meter pegged.

If the GOP(e) had any balls at all Mitch the PostTurtle McConnell would have used the nuke option to reverse Everything Dirty Harry Reid pushed thru using it.

Instead he allowed the rats to bulldoze him. All so he could push thru trade and spending bills that favored his Masters ie. Chamber of Commies/open border shills.

Exactly.

[Yogafist]

Well said!

[Eddie01]

Well said.

[hal ogen]

Ms whoever deserves to be smashed just like her rino/gop-e friends who are traitors to their electorate and traitors to their oath of office. Screw’em.

[glorgau]

institutional voting rules often prevent those majorities from enacting sweeping changes.

Unless it's a 51 vote cram down of socializing 1/6 of the entire economy ala Obamacare.

[Democratic-Republican]

There a great deal of truth to her indictment of populism.

People don't want to vote, don't care what their elected representatives do in their name and are disengaged from public life are angry things haven't changed.

Frustration with our institutions and our parties has been channeled into a drive to burn them down.

Populism is not conservatism. Conservatives stand for incremental change and preserving tradition, not catering to the passions of the mob and unpredictable change.

Trump is a liberal. If he should get elected, conservatives may be disappointed with his conduct in office and his espousing policies the opposite of their professed principles.

People are letting their feelings cloud their sober judgment. If conservatives want to be ruled by the darker side of their nature, that is their right.

But they should not be fooled into believing the fury of the crowd equals a dispassionate and abiding respect for conservative values.

We're going down a road we can't see to where it leads and we might regret where we would wind up.

Oh sure, by all means, let's slow down change now that Socialism permeates every governmental function. That's a great plan.

Sure populism sucks when the people rally around an ant-American socialist, but you do not even allow for the opposite case of rallying around a pro-American capitalist. That's just as bad or worse than everything you just said worries you.

If you stop and think about it ...

... Saul Alinsky was precisely targeting you and Salena Zito with his rules for radicals. Were he still alive he would be jumping for joy at the tactical support you just gave him. The procedure? Ram through everything socialist and then when the pendulum swings back and the opposition gets in power call them out, hold them to their higher standards ( their "Conservative" beliefs ) and demand that they slow down, and work for incremental change. Meanwhile like a ratchet wrench, the bolts screwed into America remain tightened and later get screwed even tighter after the next pendulum swing.

Awesome plan.

We saw this back in 1995, when the Conservatives took over the 104th Congress and the liberal (D)ummycrats took on the role of doctrinaire Conservative to block or slow down every damn thing Gingrich and company tried to accomplish. A perfect role reversal. They even called them radicals who were moving too fast.

I don't know where this crazy definition of Conservative or the ridiculous word Conservatism comes from, but I know a pair of handcuffs when I see them. Using our higher standards against us is exactly what a doctrinaire Conservative might do, but also an enemy troll. It would have prevented the original American Revolution and practically every instance of pushback we can envision.

Furthermore, after reading countless examples of Alinskyism from our so-called friends I have to now renounce any association with these words Conservative and Conservatism as they have been co-opted by an anti-Nationalist and anti-American coalition of globalists. This is not what was envisioned by the founders, quite the opposite in fact. High income, estate and gift taxes, illegal aliens, no border, UN, K-Street, Offshoring jobs, Foreign entanglements. We didn't sign up for this.

When will the Conservative (C)oncern trolls realize that events have passed them by? The GOPe is now one half of the uniparty problem. They are in fact uniparty-deniers.

P.S. I can tell you from being in NY that Trump is *not* a leftist or liberal, but politically agnostic. He was an outsider to both parties here, alternating between (R) and (D) when it suited him, but not part of the Carey or Cuomo or Koch crime syndicates, and not part of the Rockefeller or Lindsay ( or Pataki ) cabals either. No-one up here, or anywhere else is without faults ( but feel free to point one out to me ) and I think his track record is a comfortable one of threading a needle in one of the most corrupt northeast liberal cesspools you can find.

It doesn't really matter anyway. Before you can build your castle you need to hire a wrecking ball to level the property. And many or even most of your fellow conservatives have figured that out. So that leaves you and a few others to believe that you are right and everyone else is just crazy.

[Grampa Dave]

Centuries ago some of my ancestors were considered to be undereducated mobs needing to be exterminated by the Insane King George and his murdering Redcoats and Mercs.

If the GOPe continues to act like Insane King George, they may want to, decide to, or have to leave America like the defeated Red Coats and their murdering merc scums in 2017.

[SaveFerris]

I WILL NOT VOTE FOR GOPE (nor DNC) UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

They want to shaft Americans like the DNC, so be it.

[VR-21]

If my desire for honest representation in my government, and fidelity to the founding principles makes me a populist then so be it. Hell, factor in my antipathy for ideologue judges and media cockroaches and I might even pass for a rabid dog.

[headstamp 2]

“despite Republicans holding a sizeable House majority and a slim Senate majority, institutional voting rules often prevent those majorities from enacting sweeping changes.”

Unless they are Democrats who get their agenda through no matter what.

[PennsylvaniaMom]

Selena lives in a very blue Allegheny County (City of Pittsburgh) where we kinda, sorta have a Republican party sometimes (the late Elsie Hillman ruled the GOPe here). The Allegheny County “republican ticket” is really just cross filed Dems. So that is her perspective.

Ms. Zito is also buddies w/the Pittsburgh Dim Mayor Bill “Hey We Want Some Syrian Refugees too!” Peduto (I know this from following both on Twitter) so coming from this “background” it explains A LOT about her mindset.

As James Carville duly noted—PA is Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in between. Trump or Cruz will do fine in the hinterlands...and let’s just say “roll Tide!” (If we can overcome voter fraud in the two big cities —but I think Trump in particulor hits an accord w/disenfranchised blue Union Dems—many left here in the Rust Belt.)