Look, this apparent need to trash everyone who isn't Donald Trump or one of his supporters is a malignancy that really turns me off him as a candidate. Trump himself is openly courting GOP politicians -- all "members of the Establishment", to support his candidacy. And if someone does, it's hailed as a positive, and a sign that he can unify the party.
But if the exact same person were to back a different candidate, then it is just prove that other candidate is "the Establishment" candidate, and unworthy of support. It is the grossest of double standards. If Chris Christie or Rudy Giuliani had supported one of the others, Trump supporters here would be cackling, and saying that proves those candidates are just tools of the Establishment and unworthy of our votes. We all know that's true even if some might not want to admit it.
The truth is that even a President Trump isn't going to be able to do much of anything unless he has the support of Republicans in Congress. But then -- at least according to the prevailing thought-processes here -- their support should mean that he is now a tool of "the establishment", and should be unworthy of support. At least, if there was a modicum of intellectual honesty.
I absolutely detest this "if you're not with me, you're against me" mentality, where honest disagreement is just taken as a sign of corruption or evil intent. It's a disingenuous, vacuous, self-destructive mentality that is gong to do long-term damage to attempts to righten the course of the country.
It's amazing. Every time I convince myself that maybe I could vote for Trump in the general election, I come here, read posts by Trump supporters, and change my mind.
The desire to hammer Cruz as “establishment” stems from being told that we aren’t conservative for the past six months. That was an insult from the start.
My sense is that the Bush family is the first family of the establishment. That is why he was the huge odds on family to win the nomination when this process started. It’s why his poor performance was denied in the media, in the punditry, in the debates, in the polls, and even in the actual voting until everyone else in the world could see reality clearly. They had to come around.
Treating a Bush as if he were the same as everyone else simply doesn’t recognize the power and position they have accumulated.
No one denies that Christie is a liberal republican, but I can deny that the establishment ever had him as a serious opponent to ANY Bush.
Shouldn’t make your mind up on what these chumps around here say...