Posted on 03/04/2016 4:09:28 AM PST by elhombrelibre
Donald Trump had by far his worst debate of the 2016 campaign on Thursday. He was defensive and vulgar, evasive and condescending, rude and imperious. He moved drastically to the center on immigration, repudiating his position on H-1B visas on stage and saying “everything is negotiable,” including the border wall and the fate of illegal immigrants already in the United States. He defended his calls for expansive torture and the killing of civilians related to terrorists, saying the military “will do what I tell them” even if his orders contradict the law. He dismissed his opponents as “little Marco” and “lying Ted” and bragged about his manhood. Over two hours he provided reams and reams of material for Hillary Clinton’s ad writers. And through it all he was cheered by a raucous and heckling audience that seemed to have been transported straight from the courtroom scene in “Encounter at Farpoint.”
The spectacle made me ill. On screen I watched decades of work by conservative institutions, activists, and elected officials being lit aflame not only by the New York demagogue but by his enablers who waited until the last possible moment to criticize and try to stop him. And even then it may be too late.
I sometimes wonder whether Trump chose to run as a Republican because he identified the GOP as the weaker of the two parties. His politics line up favorably with Democrats, and he has supported Democrats in the past. But the Republicans had been so buffeted by 20 years of inattention to the costs of globalization, by the growing estrangement of traditional constituencies who have lost status and resources in the twenty-first century, by the mistakes and narrow-mindedness of the party elite, that clearly the party of Lincoln was the easier mark. Trump called the bluff of the Beltway establishment. He proved that the ghost of Jack Kemp doesn’t move the party base. The ghost of Nixon does.
There was no winner at the debate, but there was certainly a loser: The GOP. It started this election cycle in a strong position, and is now on the precipice of nominating a political neophyte, a caricature of everything liberals hate about Republicans, whose unfavorable ratings are sky-high and who loses to Hillary Clinton in practically every poll. The best hope of the anti-Trump forces is to somehow prevent him from winning the number of delegates necessary to secure the nomination outright, and deliver the nomination to someone else at the party’s convention. I’m skeptical. It’s a last-ditch attempt, and if the party wants to nominate Trump, that’s its choice. But in doing so it would crown as the heir to Lincoln and TR and Eisenhower and Reagan a man who every day finds new ways to polarize, repel, infuriate, exhaust, shock, and horrify.
There wouldn’t be any help for you from anywhere frankly.
Hate for the opponent does not a plan make. This stuff coming daily, hourly almost is just wishful thinking biased opinions whored out as facts and the gospel by a bunch of interconnected elitist dilettantes whose sole purpose is to make money of people foolish enough to think they have any genuine ethics or ideals to start with.
BTW, you sure as heck didn’t have a comeback for the little Kristol in-law, did you?
I’m aware. I’m not saying it is. I’m saying that what Donald says makes sense...they can lop heads off but we have to make sure they’re not causing stress? Who’s nuts here?
A valid one too. Maybe you didn't watch. But Trump was awful.
Got it. The (many) people who don’t support the (D)onald because he’s an immature liberal retard of a candidate are writing “hit pieces” not coherent reasons why this guy is a disaster for conservatism.
Check.
How is this different from the legions of hopenchange kool-aide drinkers that elected Obama?
“I sometimes wonder whether Trump chose to run as a Republican because he identified the GOP as the weaker of the two parties. His politics line up favorably with Democrats, and he has supported Democrats in the past.”
This author is the son-in-law of William Kristol. Kristol and all the neo-cons infesting the republican party came over from the democrat party. All of them support abortion, gay marriage, gun control, open borders, political correctness, you name it.
I know you weren’t saying it was. I was just embellishing your argument. Few people know we used it for many years to train some of our own troops to resist interrogation.
The part that shocked me was Trump agreeing with Rubio’s flexible immigration plan. No doubt the Trump people around here will not care about that but it sure shocked me.
Well, not exactly. Most of them came over for those types of reasons, and you may not remember that Trump has been a Republican about as long as Bruce Jenner has been a woman. Trump also has funded politicians working to support all those things you try to impugn those neo-cons about.
Get some therapy. Obsess about you? You live on FR 7/24. Impossible to avoid your increasingly nutty and disgusting threads and posts.
Trump has their support pegged correctly. He’s not a principled conservative, and he hasn’t minded pointing out that they don’t care about that. He could shoot someone, after all, he’s said and not lose them. Their loyalty is to him, not principles, not values, not conservatism. They’re with him because of his putative going in position prior to him working a yuge deal.
You only care because I’m not in the Trump cult.
GO TRUMP
But it did make the rats come out....so he could see his target.
I watched decades of work by conservative institutions, activists, and elected officials being lit aflame
I’m tired of these people pretending they’ve done something by getting paid to write about it. What they’ve accomplished is $19 trillion in debt, de-industrialization of America plus a massive welfare state and 30 million illegal aliens compounding the welfare state. They’ve been patriots for China, not the USA. They need to be disintered and go try their hand at the American economy they’ve foisted upon the rest of the citizenry. 30 years of work my a$$....
Good practice for the Hillary debates.
Missed the debate but the dearth of the usual crowing cult threads after a debate - everybody obsessing about Ted not spitting an unchewed bit of cookie at the mic - did Trump renege on his 42ft WALL?
buyers’ remorse setting in around here?
All except for Cruz need their Mother to grab their ears and pull them home to do the Hickory Stick Dance.
He always “awlful”, always “terrible”, always having these gigantic “meltdowns”, and the Cruz crew on FR runs around screeching about it.....and then act stupefied when people that are not filled with rage against Trump, simply don’t care.
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