Is Trump the GOP’s Frankenstein’s monster?
Commenter “physicguy” has this to say:
Just released over at American Thinker: the article deals with the death of the GOP. I agree, and I think the last paragraph sums it all up very well:
“The real blame rests on the Republican leadership in Congress. They created the vacuum that made Donald Trump possible. Absent opposition to Obama, looking with disdain upon their voters, ignoring all of their campaign promises, and governing against the will of their voters is why Donald Trump is even in the race.
I disagree, at least partly—and my disagreement is almost sure to spark outrage. It’s an outrage and a resultant discussion I’ve had many times here already, long before the candidacy of Donald Trump brought it to a head.
So I would amend that quote that physicsguy offered in his comment to say that it was the perception of what the GOP in Congress was doing or not doing, and at least in part a misperception about what they actually could do to stop Obama, that is responsible for at least some of Donald Trump’s support.
Over the years, I have written on the general topic of the GOP in Congress so many times I cannot count them, both in posts and in the comments section (just a few of the many examples are this, this, and this). Because I am part of the blogosphere and check in with blogs and comments around the blogosphere regularly, and have done so for over a decade, I have long been hyper-aware of the growing and increasingly bitter anger and disdain on the part of what you might call the GOP base.
Don’t get me wrong. I actually share some of it; quite a bit of it. So I’m not saying that Congress has covered itself in glory or has done what it promised. No, most definitely not. But (as I argued in some of those linked posts and comments, and many others) it has done more—and more to stop Obama—than most people realize. I don’t have time right now to write a tome about this, especially since it’s a tome I have written before. Trump is a demagogue, but he has been following a path prepared by other demagogues in the blogosphere, on Twitter and other social media, and on talk shows, who have had their own reasons for whipping people up into a veritable frenzy of rage.
I’ve watched it happen. Trump is the fruit.
Part of the reason the anger is so widespread, however, is that the Obama administration’s success in getting what it wants, and doing that in spite of the GOP controlling Congress, has been almost overwhelmingly galling. I have certainly felt the impotent rage bubble up inside me many times. But I have also weighed the options, and although I think the GOP could and should have done more and are not blameless, the “more” was not always clear and probably would have pleased the base but probably alienated everyone else (shut down government; send bill after bill to Obama’s desk for him to merely veto and in order to pass those bills in the Senate the cloture/filibuster rule would have had to have been suspended for all of them). I think the GOP made the wrong calculation and should have done more of that (see this, for example), but it was hardly easy or simple to say that the results (an Obama veto, for example) would have been worth it, although it would have had its pluses (I’ve written in greater detail about this topic in those links above, and in other posts too).
One of those “other posts” was this one, and I’ll quote what I already said there about a year ago:
I am aware that the Republicans in Congress are split between the conservatives and the others, and so they are not going to unify on all things (especially the tough topics) any more than pundits on the right will or blog commenters on the right will. Perhaps even less. Why would anyone expect a sudden transformation into unity, and in particular unity in the direction you would like to see?
In addition, Republicans in Congress cannot do what is impossible, even if you’d like them to and even if they wanted to do exactly whatever you want. They cannot, for example, pass any law they wish, even though they have the majority, even if they were completely united, because of the lack of 60 votes in the Senate. Cloture and Senate rules mean that the Democrats can hold up a vote a long as the Democrats have 40 votes to do so.
Even if the Republicans boldly changed the rules about that (which would have its own dangers) and made it so that things could come to a vote in the Senate by simple majority, guess what? That wouldn’t lead to Republican success in getting a law in place because the president happens to be a Democrat and he has vowed to veto everything they pass that he doesn’t like. The GOP lacks the votes to get past the veto. Do you really think they should undo the filibuster (a very radical step) merely for the sake of putting bills before Obama that he would then veto? Or should the Republicans use the option of holding back government funding in a battle that would ultimately lead to a government shutdown (not just of a single function, but of many, because Obama would veto every single bill that cut funding of any of his pet projects) that the people””carefully guided to this point of view by the MSM””would almost certainly blame on the Republicans, causing a backlash?
As we know, the Republican Party is currently split between conservatives and RINOS or “establishment” types, so is it any surprise that the latter group would not be fond of the two options I just outlined? Even some conservatives don’t like them, and I can’t say I blame them. I am torn about what I would do myself if I were a member of Congress.
The above—as well as the post I’m writing now—is not some sort of apologia for the GOP in Congress, offered because I’m in their thrall or even especially fond of them. I’m not. In fact I’ve never been an admirer of politicians as a whole and only admire a relative few, and then with reservations. But I try not to expect the impossible just because I might want it, even if I want it a lot. Unfortunately, what I’ve observed over the years is a growing desire for the unreasonable and/or impossible and then a growing demand for the unreasonable and/or impossible. This, coupled with an ignorance on the part of too many people in the US today on both sides about how government actually works (not the readers here, of course)—that is, ignorance of things as basic as what it takes to override a veto and that sort of thing—has helped to feed this enormous rage. It is a rage so great that it is leading to the success of Donald Trump, something that would not be occurring without that rage.
[NOTE: I’m not naive enough to think that this post (even if people were to read and ponder every single link in it to all my previous pieces on the subject) will convince a single angry person who previously disagreed with me. But I’m writing it anyway because it describes what I have seen over the years, which has been dramatic.]
Neo,
I’ve read many of those posts over the years, and I’ve slowly come around to your point of view. As much as I’m loathe to say anything positive about Boehner, He did keep the Republicans in congress unified and voting against Pelosi during the years that they had congress, but not the Senate. It’s one of the reasons the Dems had to pass Obamacare in a midnight session on Christmas Eve using sketchy tactics. The R’s don’t have enough votes in the Senate to steamroll the Dems, and NO Dems have shown any interest in crossing over. I’m not sure they’ve done everything that they could have, but I’m sure they did a lot. Now we’re gonna burn shit down when we have an EPIC shot at controlling all three branches, because we’re mad and we’re having a little temper tantrum. It’s not surprising that these mad little kids, stomping their feet, are supporting an idiot like Trump with his school yard bully tactics. This country does not turn on a dime, and it never will. It’s going to take a loooong time to turn things around, IF they can even be turned around. The Dems are smarter than we are, because they understand two things. Take the small short term gains and work the long game. They always stand in lock step together. We had a phenomenal shot at a really incredible president, and we pissed it away on Donald trump.
You say the Republicans can’t do anything? Well how about this? Last month they passed Obama’s “Electrify Africa Act” which will spend untold billions of dollars (the bill gives Obama a blank check) building power plants and electric grids in Africa. Meanwhile, Obama is busily shutting down power plants in the U.S. The bill passed the both the House and Senate under “suspended rules” (Didn’t Ryan promise not to do that?) with a VOICE VOTE. NOT A SINGLE REPUBLICAN stood up and demanded “regular order” or a roll call vote. Is it any wonder that Trump is winning?
No, neo, Trump is the monster created by the left mainstream media and the American mind. Any politician who dares to talk about the issue of immigration and the failure of multiculturalism will be labelled as “extreme far-right”, any statement will be exaggerated, changed or manipulated, if not directly made up. The only type of candidate that can survive such a thing is one that enters the game and trolls the media.
Check UK: Nigel Farage plays the media with some trolling and a lot of humor, same way Trump does. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have survived in the political arena. Of course, while Farage is a gentleman, Trump is a cowboy. After all, US and England are not the same. Trump is the logical consequence of making immigration a taboo in the “cowboy” landscape of american culture.
And if you don’t think Trump will lose in the general election, read this by Megan McArdle….
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-02-29/the-die-hard-republicans-who-say-nevertrump
Mitch made a giant mistake by not getting rid of that 60 vote rule.
It would have forced Obama to veto bills and have given voters the perception of progress.
Due to the practice of trotskyites.. ie. the left opposition in soviet politics (and called the left in US politics), entryism has made a farce of our system as you have X on the dems side, and democrat operatives in the GOP in which they ran as republicans as there is no tests or oaths, or such… this allows the left opposition to control the whole thing… as controlling both sides of an issue, means you control the issue.
the odd thing is how did they manage to do this and trick people? easy. they relabeled their collusion against the people as “reaching accross the aisle” forgetting what we have is an adversarial system.
reaching across the aisle sounds all nice and such, but in our political system, collusion of both parties against the public is reaching across the aisle… how else could you collude against yoru own people if you said, we are colluding with the democrats and accepting their policies. and when a leftist masquerading as a GOP puts up something leftist, the leftists get to act all nice that they too reach across the aisle
for years i been watching smart people played for idiots using this.
if you were in court, would you wnat your lawyer to reach across the aisle and collude against you but look all so nice together?
its good cop bad cop, or rather good dem bad dem (republican)… and we are so acclimated we blindly accept it withotu review as we spend our time blaming the wrong people for things they never did or might do cause the two sides chime in with the same message
trump makes it very clear that what you have is dems on both sides playing their roles to appear a certain way to the public and cover for each other… which is the apple cart he will undo even if he doesnt want to as he is not privy to the collusions and will trip over them as he goes.
Entryism (also referred to as entrism, occasionally as enterism) is a political strategy in which an organisation or state encourages its members or supporters to join another, usually larger, organisation in an attempt to expand influence and expand their ideas and program.
ie. have dems run under republican tickets.
in which some republicans throw the race to the key dem, and others put them in as repubs.. but the game is trick you… its a very old soviet thing, which americans have no experience with, so it works VERY well
quite a few of them ran afowl the law as the dems as reps wanted bribes to support dems running under republican tickets!!!
look at sheldon silver and realize that the current candidate had to operate business under silver, and many other of the nastiest dems in the country
Prosecutors accused state Sen. Malcolm Smith, a seven-term Queens Democrat, of organizing bribes as he attempted to force his way on the Republican ticket for the 2013 New York City mayoral race last year.
if it worked we would have said he was a republican, right?
[edited for length by n-n]
Yann:
Oh, the left has certainly had its part. I’ve written about the left for years, too; certainly can’t be accused of ignoring them.
In fact, the left is instrumental in Trump’s success, too. They have covered him constantly and ignored everyone else. They want him to be the nominee, and they probably will get their wish.
Trump’s supporters don’t seem to recognize that, or they think the left is wrong and that Trump will win. The left thinks Trump will lose and that the GOP and conservatives will be much weakened into the bargain. I am not with the left on many things, but I fear they are correct on this one.
Cornhead:
Agreed. I suggested as much here:
I’m not even sure it would have mattered, though, had he done it. The rage has been building for years, and it’s really not something people want to abandon. I mean that very seriously.
Tom:
Thanks for that link. What a good article.
And I completely agree with your first comment on the thread.
Neo, I’ve always agreed with your analysis that for the most part the GOP in congress did not have the super majority needed to over ride the presidential vetoes. What has fueled the anger that leads to Trump, is the lack of even trying. Keep sending Obama bills and let him veto them…one after the other. Over time the obstructionism charge shifts to him and Dems. Yes, it’s all theater, but that’s what the Dems do. The GOP rolled over and had Obama rub their belly.
BTW, Trump scares the sh*t out of me. I sense real disaster when our choice becomes him or Clinton. Either way we are totally screwed.
physicsguy:
Yes, I sometimes think they should have done that. But as I said to Cornhead in my comment above, I’m not even sure it would have mattered, though, had McConnell done it. The rage has been building for years, and it’s really not something people want to abandon. I mean that very seriously.
To send those bills to Obama’s desk, to do away with the filibuster rule only to get some vetoes that would placate the base only a little while (I’m sure they’d find fault with it), didn’t seem worth it to them. And I can understand that reasoning, although I reluctantly disagreed with their decision.
Spot on.
physicsguy: If they sent him bill after bill to veto, he would not become the obstructionist, because the people who level that charge are the MSM. It will always be leveled at R’s. When Reagan was president, he was the one who shut down the government, when Clinton was president, it was the R’s lead by Newt Gringrich. I’ve seen that rerun WAY too many times.
As I have stated before, I think that the September 28, 2015 speech made by Cruz on the Senate floor, sums the issue up.
The question is: given that we have lapsed into a state of left-fascism – if moderate at this point – what is left but victory or thralldom?
What interest has the average male, and I exclude Pajama Boy and those like him of course – in preserving a system in which he is not only exploited for the benefit of others if he participates, but is presumed by law, to have no other option than to either participate or become a criminal?
Suppose Trump destroys the system. What can he destroy that is not already promised to be wrecked by either Sanders or Clinton?
Has anyone listened to Hilary’s Flin,t Michigan speech? To Sanders’ radio ads?
What is so remarkable about the “altruism” of the left, is their staggeringly nonchalant claims against the lives of the populace who – prior to their planned replacement – are expected to fund and cooperate in their own dispossession. To act as interim gardeners and servants till the new owners’ arrival, in what were once their own holdings.
I sometimes wonder if those on the left have ever in their lives done physical work in a context of risk and self-responsibility. The only answer I can come up with is that it is beyond their ken, their range of experience, their mental ability to understand or process, what it means to have actually labored at physical cost, to have operated at risk.
And if you look at the population of Democrat supporters, I think you will find that by and large, they are people who inhabit institutional niches, which they have deliberately sought out in order to ensure that they are protected from such eventualities. Yet, they presume themselves to be moral peers of those who do not seek such cossetting.
It’s the old positive right problem; and one which the left seems psychologically incapable of grasping: the right to have something which has been produced provided to you, as opposed to the mere right not to be hindered from pursuing it, entails by the laws of physics, that someone else be saddled with the legal duty of expending their life energies and prospects in order to provide it.
That the left can shrug at the moral implications of this equation is stupefying to even consider.
I support Cruz. I have supported him and continue to support him.
The alternative Democrats are clearly hostile to liberty and pose an existential threat by their own admission , no proclamation, to those who value and need liberty.
So Trump, then …
Freedom with Cruz, “legal” thralldom at the hands of the Democrats ; and what with Trump?
Given that the Democrats are self-proclaimed enemies of classical liberty; what’s left to preserve should the choice become them or Trump? And what could one lose of value with Trump, that the Democrats are not already on record as aiming to deprive you of?
That is the question …
DNW:
Trump would be destroying the only opportunity we have at the moment for a correction, the victory of a conservative as president coupled with a GOP Congress.
We have not had a conservative president and GOP Congess since Coolidge. It probably would have happened in 2016 if one of the conservatives had been nominated by the GOP. It could have been transformative in a major and positive way.
Now it will not happen. Trump is not that person. And I believe his nomination guarantees the election of President Hillary Clinton.
I am sick of these apocalyptic false choices.
I understand, however, that you’re not a Trump supporter; that you prefer the alternative I describe here, had Cruz been nominated.
The budget that passed last fall, even with a majority in both houses, giving Obama everything he wanted in 2016 and into 2017…that was a joke. And it was a culmination of everything the Republicans have not done for more than 15 years. Bush was the biggest disappointment of all. He had a Republican congress for several years and did NOTHING substantial with it. Zero conservative things came out of that.
So when I hear “Trump is not a conservative,” it really carries no weight, because I could point at a multitude of things that Bush did while in office that ‘weren’t conservative,’ but yet no one is claiming Bush wasn’t a staunch Republican.
K-E, this isn’t about Bush, this is about Trump. Bush doesn’t matter, he’s not up for election. What matters is that Trump ISN’T, and he IS up for election. If you truly believe in conservative principals, then what should matter is who we elect this year.
At the end of the day, a plurality, if not a majority, of the American people are getting what they wanted. We must understand that as conservatives we are in the minority, and no matter how clearly we see the logic, or illogic, of the path, our leaders can only steer over a narrow range. I think one statistic exemplifies the problem; i.e. about 43% of Americans do not pay income tax. Nearly half of the electorate have a vested interest in neo-socialist policy; and they will go to the mat to protect it.
Listen to every thoughtful pundit. I heard Brit Hume say a day or so ago; (paraphrasing) A Republican cannot win the Presidency with Republican votes alone. He (she) needs a large percentage of Independents, and some Democrats. That is the reality that the Republican leadership in Congress is facing. They cannot survive without compromising. Do they do too much of it? Sure, I believe that they do; but, it is an easy call from here.
That is partly why I favored a successful Governor who has demonstrated the ability to slow, if not stop, the drift and navigate the narrow path available. A bombastic, crude, and narcissistic bully is certainly not the answer.
Extending the thought, I still feel that the doctrinaire talk radio and blogosphere mavens have done great damage to the conservative cause and its one viable vehicle, the Republican party, with their drumbeat of negativity. The party simply cannot succeed with a disaffected base.
Our understanding of the conditioning process leads us also to an understanding of some of the paradoxical reactions found among victims of concentration camps and other prisoners.
Often those with a rigid, simple belief were better able to withstand the continual barrage against their minds than were the flexible, sophisticated ones, full of doubt and inner conflicts.
The simple man with deep rooted, freely absorbed religious faith could exert a much greater inner resistance than could the complex, questioning intellectualist. The refined intellectual is much more handicapped by the internal pros and cons. RAPE of the MIND… available at amazon.com
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The Pavlovian theory translated into a political method, as a way of leveling the mind (the Nazis called it “Gleichschaltung”) is the stock in trade of totalitarian countries. Some psychiatric points are of interest because we see that Pavlovian training can be used successfully only when special mental conditions prevail. In order to tame people into the desired pattern, victims must be brought to a point where they have lost their alert consciousness and mental awareness. Freedom of discussion and free intellectual exchange hinder conditioning. Feelings of terror, feelings of fear and hopelessness, of being alone, of standing with one’s back to the wall, must be instilled.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Puzzlement and doubt, which inevitably arise in the training process, are the beginnings of mental freedom. Of course, the initial puzzlement and doubt is not enough. Behind that there has to be faith in our democratic freedoms and the will to fight for it. I hope to come back to this central problem of faith in moral freedom as differentiated from conditioned loyalty and servitude in the last chapter. Puzzlement and doubt are, however, already crimes in the totalitarian state. The mind that is open for qustions is open for dissent. In the totalitarian regime the doubting, inquisitive, and imaginative mind has to be suppressed. The totalitarian slave is only allowed to memorize, to salivate when the bell rings.
Tom, I was trying to respond to the idea of why Trump? Why the anger? And it starts with Bush. For me, and for many others. So any time you try to toss another RNC approved candidate at me, I’m going to look back to Bush and be suspect. That is all I was saying.
So a Rubio or a Kasich is not going to fly. Cruz has the conservative background, but he most likely is not going to win.
That leaves us with Trump. And since I am told all the time he is not a conservative, I am pointing to our last ‘conservative’ president who did not do such conservative things. So why the freak out over Trump??? Yes, he is conservative. He is not a liberal. He may not be Cruz, but he is conservative.
Look, if someone has information I have not seen, I will be glad to consider it. But the current view is that the Republican establishment prefers Trump, or Hillary, to Cruz. The chance you speak of was (or may have been) lost because the Republican establishment would themselves prefer to see it all go up in flames [liberty for the masses, not their personal sinecures] rather than have an actually principled legal scholar in charge of the Executive Branch.
What does this tell us about the “establishment”?
It tells us that their concern for the rule of law, and a strongly middle class social order is almost as nil as that of the Democrats.
[As to the election of a “conservative” per se? As you probably know, although most of what I say can be characterized as “conservative”, I have little to almost no interest in “conservatism” as a presumably substantive doctrine; and absolutely none in it as mere idolization of any particular pop-culture status quo; but rather see its value if any, in terms of legal cost VS real distributive individual benefit. As with my “libertarian views” my conservatism is merely a kind of “default” conservatism, more Oakeshott, perhaps, as contrasted with Burke.
My own cultural “libertarianism”, is a merely matter of letting the “sons-of-bitches self-destruct if they are determined to”, rather than a belief in some incoherent notion of self-ownership or the idea that a life spent in a marijuana dispensary is as worthy as any other.]
Cruz, though a personal conservative by temperament and principle, has an allegiance to the values of classical liberalism.
Most Americans, apparently do not anymore; if in fact they ever did. Whether they are “liberals” or “conservatives” seems largely a matter of how they prey; and the rules formal and informal from which they prefer to launch.
You say that you are sick of “apocalyptic false choices”. I am not predicting an apocalypse. I am describing where we are now legally; what further is in definitely store for us if Hillary or Sanders is elected, and suggesting that readers calculate for themselves whether preserving a game with Hillary, is worth their personal investment of a candle.
This is an individual judgment each man will have to make for himself, and will depend to some extent on to what degree he thinks he is morally liable to a sacrifice of his freedom interests for the security and support demands of others; and whether when it all comes down to it, preserving a dwindling life in an encroaching jail, is better than allowing in a new management which may, after all is said and done, end up burning it all down.
Certain and continued lawless Left-fascism vs what looks like it might be Falangism.
Or, Ted Cruz
We know what choices the Republican establishment has already made.
another chapter that may be interesting and explain the whole guilt thing is:
Blackmailing Through Overburdening Guilt Feelings
In the political sphere, the systematic exploitation of unconscious guilt to create submission is a utilization of the unconscious confession compulsion and the need for punishment. Continual purges and confessions, as we encounter them in the totalitarian countries, arouse deeply hidden guilt feelings. The lesser sin of rebellion or subversion has to be admitted to cover personal thoughts of crime which are more deeply imbedded. The personal reactions of those who are continually interrogated and investigated give us a clue as to what happens.
other parts:
Mass Conditioning Through Speech
Political Conditioning
The Urge to Be Conditioned
The Therapist as an Instrument of Coercion
The Upset Philosopher
It was then that Spinoza realized the existence of the emotional beast hidden beneath human reason, which, when aroused, can act in a wanton and destructive fashion, and can conjure up thousands of justifications and excuses for its behavior. /// For, as Spinoza sensed, and as was later discovered, people are not the rational creatures they think they are. In the unconscious, that vast storehouse of deeply buried memories, emotions, and strivings, lie many irrational yearnings, which constantly influence the conscious acts. All of us are governed to some degree by this hidden tyrant, and by the conflict between our reason and our emotions.
The Law of Survival Versus the Law of Loyalty
The Mysterious Masochistic Pact
The Public-Opinion Engineers
Psychological Warfare as a Weapon of Terror
The Indoctrination Barrage
Cultural Predilection for Totalitarianism
The Totalitarian Leader
The Common Retreat from Reality
Wild Accusation and Black Magic
Verbocracy and Semantic Fog — Talking the People into Submission
Logocide
Labelomania
The Downfall of Justice
the whole book is a littany of what we discuss in parts and dont realize they can all go into one can as defined by a man who was a prisoner in a nazi camp, and who wrote about these steps and processes to warn people.
just the table of contents is/should be enough
how illogical is the left
how much are you subjected to the message
the carrot and the sticks
the use of medical and experts
the death of logic and the illogic of the left
all that and more…
and all very old by today standards. (1950s)
I’m not looking for a hero, just someone who seems to understand the Constitution. I’m not sure if it goes 3rd for Trump after the Bible and his book on his list of great things to read.
Robert Byrd failed us too. He was the guy upset with Czars and that Obama had no right to appoint Czars as pseudo cabinet members who did not have Senate approval, and he was a keeper of the Senate’s rights. And then he let that pass.
Trump is an opportunist who came along at a time Americans have lost their way, as did Obama before him. Even though the political class seems corrupt and devoid of character, voters aren’t really much better.
I plan on voting for Cruz, and then a write in if it is Hillary and Trump. I’ve been lectured that it is a sin to be a republican and let Hillary win, and maybe now, I don’t care. If the idea is to burn the place down, I won’t give a match, but I won’t come running with water either.
DNW:
The “establishment”could not make Jeb Bush into a winner because they wanted to, nor could they make Cruz into a loser just because they wanted to.
If Trump wasn’t there, I believe Cruz would have been the nominee. He would have drawn all of Trump’s voters PLUS many conservatives who don’t like Trump. And the establishment could not have stopped it.
The GOP could have done far more to counter Obama and the democrats. Budget wise they have given Obama everything he desired. They have offered little in alternative legislation. They have not publicized what efforts they have made, allowing the MSM to define them as do nothing and obstructionist.
The Senate democrats have already trashed the cloture/filibuster rules and will do so as soon they regain a majority.
Tom,
It’s too late to turn around the country, a balkanized public lacks all consensus. Consensus will only return, when terrorist attacks arise to a mortal threat and then, the majority will embrace martial law in exchange for empty promises of greater ‘security’.
McArdle’s article demonstrates that RINOs would rather serve their Marxist masters, than watch it all fall apart under Trump. But… they wouldn’t vote for Cruz either.
“Trump would be destroying the only opportunity we have at the moment for a correction, the victory of a conservative as president coupled with a GOP Congress.
We have not had a conservative president and GOP Congess since Coolidge. It probably would have happened in 2016 if one of the conservatives had been nominated by the GOP. It could have been transformative in a major and positive way.”
That is an assumption; that a GOP congress led by McConnell and Ryan would work with a real conservative President. That assumption is disproven by their repeated willingness to give Obama what he desires. They’ve repeatedly caved to Obama not because they fear him or fear being characterized by the MSM as greedy, selfish and evil but because a smaller, limited governance is utter anathema to the GOP establishment.
K-E,
Trump is NOT a conservative. He’s a crony capitalist who is aware enough to see that the policies of the democrats will destroy capitalism and make America into another third world nation. He’s operating out of what is known as “enlightened self-interest”. Which is infinitely preferable to the Left’s plans for Americans.
On other issues, he’s a clueless liberal.
Should be: ‘The Senate democrats have already trashed the cloture/filibuster rules and, will unhesitatingly do so again, as soon as they regain a majority.’
K-E:
Our last conservative president was Ronald Reagan, not George Bush. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Bush described as “conservative.” He was considered more of a moderate, something like his father but just a little more conservative.
And our last conservative candidate before that was Barry Goldwater.
And prior to that, our last conservative president was Calvin Coolidge.
In my lifetime we have never had a conservative president and a GOP Congress. And because of Trump, we have lost the chance to have one, and I think it was a very good chance because the Democratic candidate is so weak.
Trump was Hillary’s only chance of being elected. Good going, Trump-supporters! Maybe he’ll pull it out and beat her, but I doubt it.
Cornhead Says:
March 1st, 2016 at 10:45 am”Mitch made a giant mistake by not getting rid of that 60 vote rule.”
You make the assumption that Mitch cares more about what his constituents want than what his Senate buddies and his donors want. I don’t make that assumption. In my opinion he is simply a member of the World’s Oldest Profession and goes with the highest bidder. He has no Principles to follow. He would rather offend us than his buddies in the Senate or MSM.
Much like Cantor who simply changed hats and became a Lobbyist to his friends, there was no real shame felt in his loss.
When Washington clowns tell us they care, we know better. And right or wrong, Trump is the result. I voted for Cruz today but I doubt he will come in #1. And once again I will hold my nose and vote for the lesser of two evils. 🙁
“If Trump wasn’t there, I believe Cruz would have been the nominee. He would have drawn all of Trump’s voters PLUS many conservatives who don’t like Trump.”
Perhaps. Perhaps even a probability.
“And the establishment could not have stopped it.” neo
Perhaps not but they might well have engineered another Romney like effort. The GOPe wants a Pres Cruz far less than they want a Pres Trump. In fact, the only real reason they are opposed to nominating Trump is because they are uncertain as to how good a deal (for them) that they can get out of a Pres. Trump.
Failing that, if they couldn’t later seduce a Pres. Cruz, they’d obstruct him in Congress from all but minimal changes. No balanced budget or only a temporary one, certainly there would be no effort to amend the Constitution. A minimal reduction in the rate of debt and little to no reduction in regulations, much less the elimination of entire departments.
The GOPe establishment doesn’t merely like big government, they are committed to its growth.
Geoffrey Britain:
I wrote a post on the subject of the GOP and ending the filibuster, I believe (or maybe it was a draft; can’t remember at the moment) that went into the following in greater detail.
This is why it would not have been such a good idea for the GOP to end the filibuster rule while they don’t have the presidency (which they don’t at the moment). All it would have done was to lead to a lot of vetoes, and it would mean that if they (a) lose the Senate in the next election, and (b) lose the presidency as well—two things that could easily happen—the filibuster would be gone and it would be they who had taken it away from themselves. They couldn’t even blame the Democrats.
What a laugh that would be for the Democrats! And no doubt the “trash the establishment” crowd would criticize the GOP members of the Senate for it, too, without thinking it through (something they almost never stop to do). And all to gain what? A bunch of bills that Obama would immediately veto and say they were just wasting his time rather than doing something productive?
MikeII:
Please see this.
Oh my goodness…it’s like people cannot understand what I’m saying at all. You just want to trounce on me because I am okay with Trump as a candidate.
Don’t tell me we all didn’t think Bush was ‘conservative’ when he got elected and put into office. I did. Then I saw him create a whole new department (DHS) and do nothing to fix social security, medicare, the broken tax system and rescue the banks before he left office in 2008. Don’t tell me that most Republicans who voted for Bush in 2000 and in 2004 even didn’t think of him as ‘conservative.’
Why can’t you just take my reasoning and accept it? That is why I am where I am…as are many other voters. Many of us are Tea Party supporters. I am pointing out that Cruz is definitely a conservative, but I don’t think he can win the nomination. That leaves you with Trump, and it would be a huge mistake to let Hillary become president by either not voting or adding in a 3rd candidate or whatever it is some of you plan to do.
Trump is not the end of the world. He does have conservative policies…maybe not conservative enough for you…but his tax policy is conservative, his backing of the military and the VA is conservative, his immigration policy is conservative. Yes, he’s a businessman, but he has already made his billions. He owns dozens of hotels and golf resorts. There is nothing wrong with a successful businessman being in the role of president. Just as there seems to be no problem with another lawyer being president for many of you.
Neo / Cornhead / Physicsguy – I suspect that in the average voter’s mind, the Republicans in Congress haven’t done anything over the last 5 years other than pass futile legislation to overturn Obamacare.
Well, that was not my argument. My assertion is merely that the “establishment” was so hostile to Cruz, that they (insofar as we have some supposed insiders on record) themselves prefer Trump or Hillary to Cruz.
So, your analysis actually concedes the point, yet contends that 1. The establishment K-Street teat suckers alone are not enough to stop Cruz; and 2, that an authentic and organic Republican insurgency minus the Trumpsters invasion of Republican territory and their sucking up the oxygen with their emotionalism could, or should, have left Cruz as the last man standing; since under that scenario the enraged and the emotionalists (those attracted to personality) would have had nowhere else to go.
Well then, we don’t actually have an argument, because we don’t have a settled question between us.
As far as I can see the Trumpsters, are in significant measure, still non-ideological “invaders”, who are using the Republican Party to express their rage at the fact that the social welfare system which they were satisfied with, has been wrested away from them and turned against them.
They have a point. Just as those who describe McConnell and Boehner as flaccid surrender-monkeys, concerned above all to make sure they don’t have to fight the press in an Armageddon like battle (which they believed could not be won) over a so-called “government shutdown” have something of a point as well.
Well, see what their ongoing moral cowardice and perhaps ulterior motivations and loyalty to financial corporations has bought them, and us?
Trump!
K-E:
I have never heard Bush referred to as “conservative,” although I suppose someone somewhere has. He was clearly the “establishment” choice, and only “conservative” as in “compassionate conservative,” like his father.
This was all quite explicit during the campaign:
The conservatives in the race were Alan Keyes and Gary Bauer, and Forbes was doing his flat tax thing.
Bush was the establishment candidate par excellence.
Well, I see I have certainly used the word “well”, a lot.
Maybe I should go back to “Now, …”
Well, that’s something I’ll have to think about.
I find it hard to believe that you people can vote your way back to constitutional government particularly by voting for CONSERVATIVES! The GOP displaced the Whigs by being a RADICAL party. So radical in fact, they touched off a civil war.
The left’s gains will never be rolled back through incrementalism. Only through cataclysm.
I say you people because we in the Peoples Soviet of Washington get no real say in candidates or winner. I’ll never forget listening to Carter’s concession speech while enroute to vote. Thanks to all mail balloting, now if you vote on Election Day your vote won’t even be counted for two or three days.
Lurker:
Just try having a GOP-dominated Congress and a conservative president, something that hasn’t occurred since Coolidge, before dismissing it and doing the “burn it down” thing, especially with someone as unreliable (and liberal) as Trump.
neo,
If the GOP never even considered ending the filibuster rule it wouldn’t make a particle of difference to the democrats. As soon as they have a 51% majority in the Senate and another democrat President, they will end the cloture/filibuster rule for as long as it suits them.
So, the GOP has nothing to lose because the only question is whether the republicans will match the democrats or continue to operate at a self-imposed disadvantage. Whether they do or not, the democrats will ignore the prior cloture/filibuster rule.
The GOP is refusing “to hit below the belt”, while the democrats have a field day in, for them, an anything goes fight.
The “trash the establishment” crowd would not criticize the GOP members of the Senate who sent Obama a bill whose sole provision was funding the military. Followed by individual bills to fund the vital functions of the government. Another bill that brought severe criminal penalties against employers who hired illegals. A bill that abjured benefits for illegal immigrants. A bill that halted H-1B visas for foreign workers. And a bill that severely restricted Muslim migration into America.
When Obama vetoed all of those bills, where the GOP stood on those issues would be beyond dispute. And, the responsibility for any shutdown that resulted would, in the minds of those inclined to vote for Cruz AND Trump… be clearly upon Obama’s head. That would hold true for those voters regardless of the predictable MSM propaganda. And, had the GOP done all of that, Trump never could have gotten his foot in the door.
“Just try having a GOP-dominated Congress and a conservative president, something that hasn’t occurred since Coolidge, before dismissing it and doing the “burn it down” thing, especially with someone as unreliable (and liberal) as Trump.” neo
You might want to reconsider the assertion that, today’s GOP-dominated Congress bears any ideological resemblance whatsoever, to the GOP-dominated Congress of Coolidge’s time…
Once you’ve done that, it forces a reconsideration of what a Pres. Cruz could actually accomplish with a bunch of self-promoting ‘Vichy’ style collaborative ‘legislators’.
I think of W as a conservative. Definitely, if you look at his record before the housing bubble burst, you’ve got a consistent social conservative and strong foreign policy guy who cut taxes to stimulate the economy. Cross out the Medicare expansion and the first term and a half was a solid B+ or higher.
When Bush II stopped doing the “conservative thing” in 2006, the Left’s war chest ballooned due to deficit spending.
What a lot of people like KE are ignorant of, is what really goes on in this country. But then again, we can all blame the media and public education for that.