Bush is a “very low-energy kind of guy”
No way you can disagree with this, from Donald Trump:
[Jeb’s] doing very poorly in the polls, he’s a very low-energy kind of guy…
Bush comes across as the most boring teacher you ever had, a fairly decent sort but a big snooze. As he talks, you can almost feel the juices ooze right out of you.
Trump, of course, has a ton of energy. Whether you think he’s worth your vote or not (and for me it’s “not”; I much prefer several other candidates), he has an energizing, fun, lively quality.
Make no mistake about it: a great deal of politics rests on personality. It may seem irrational, but it really isn’t. We are always judging people in ways that we barely understand. Some of it leads us astray; I still find it mind-boggling that so many people trust Obama and think he’s basically a nice guy, when the opposite seems so apparent to me. But personality, and the energy it expresses, would logically carry over into other endeavors. That isn’t always the case—sometimes the most phlegmatic, calm people get a lot done, and sometimes the most peppy dissipate all that energy in restless, unfocused actions. But personality is still a guide, and people react to it.
One of the many reasons people detest Boehner and McConnell is this very same thing: lack of energy. They must have done something to get to their present positions—something rather Machiavellian, I’d imagine. But it certainly doesn’t come across in anything that would give people the impression that they will fight for them. They don’t just fail to walk the walk, they fail to talk the talk.
The only reason Jeb is around is because he has locked several big donors who are bankrolling his campaign. He is trying desperately to get us to like him, even though it is clear from the polls we have no interest in another Bush candidate.
I think many of us conservatives were severely disappointed by George W.’s lack of interest in actually making big changes to government in ways that were meaningful to OUR way of thinking. He did an excellent job with national security concerns after 9/11. I think Iraq and Afghanistan both were the right call at the time. But I very much disliked that he did not take the opportunity to ‘fix’ social security or truly fix a broken tax code.
This is why we DON’T want another Bush. We need someone who is willing to take the unpopular position (according to the press and the left) and push back on the creep toward socialism. And that takes a TOUGH, MERCILESS stance. I may not agree on all of Trump’s positions, but I think he has proven he would not bend in the wind depending on the poll of the day. I like that about him.
I also like that in Cruz and to a certain extent Carson and Fiorina.
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their Party.
If by now you don’t find Donald Trump appalling, you’re appalling.
If you have reached physical maturity and still chuckle at Mr. Trump’s pubescent jokes about Rosie O’Donnell or Heidi Klum…
– Brett Stephens
The Havoc That Trump Wreaks – On His Own Party
Every sulfurous belch from the molten interior of the volcanic Trump phenomenon injures the chances of a Republican presidency.
– George Will
Donald Trump is porn for nativists… Trumpism is destroying any slim hope the GOP could have a rational immigration debate or cobble together a consensus on policy
– David Harsanyi
Don the armor, mount the steed, lower the visor, extend the lance… CHARGE!
Seriously. What is to be addressed first, what ought be our greatest concern? Should we primarily attend to parochial concerns such as the harm done to the Party by the likes of Mr Trump? Or, ought our consternation be reserved for the big picture — that the Party had, for the last fifty years, failed its comission of being an opposition Party and had played, instead, the part of colluder (Two wrongs don’t make a right; If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.)? Party above country sounds so … you know… LibProgLeft. The colors of Stephens, Will, Harsanyi, bleed through and stain their thin whole cloth.
Which is to be more feared and regretted? Trump dooms the GOP to yet another national election loss? Or, one of the GOP stalwarts saves the day, wins it all, and we find we have subjected ourselves to four years of – talk like Patton, operate like Quisling, govern like Vichy.
If there were not a Donald Trump, he would likely have had to have been invented.
Victor Davis Hanson
Mr Hanson is not expressing a desire but the fact that all voids will be filled. That anyone should complain of not liking the matter of Mr Trump, look first to the void the GOP had sucked into existence. The non-vigilant, the delinquent, have neither cause nor standing to complain.
If you would deny the demagogue a seat at the head of the table, attend first to denying him a reason to exist. Demagogues are not created ex nihilo. A stitch in time saves nine. Beggars can’t be choosers. Necessity is the mother of invention.
I’m proverbed out.
I wrote off Jeb Bush when he responded to the Megyn Kelly “knowing what you now know” hypothetical by effectively stipulating – clumsily – the Dems/Left/Russian false narrative of the Iraq intervention, instead of using his new platform to correct the prevailing narrative by setting the record straight on OIF with the firm clarity needed from a would-be President.
K-E
I have seen Cruz, Carson and Carly in person in the last 30 days. I like all three but Carly best of all.
Eric,
That answer was a turnoff for me too. Shouldn’t a pro have a rebuttal to the “knowing what you know now” question. That makes it sound as if the opposition knew something, when in fact they were just opposing his brother.
Bush is trying to be a nice guy, but in doing so he sells out people who should be on his side.
It astonishes and baffles me that there are people that think of Mr. Obama as a basically nice man. How can they not see Evil when it is in front of them? Making deals with Iran that will lead to a nuclear war, fomenting a race war at home, destroying the medical system of the country, none of these things soak through?
Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance:
“Which is to be more feared and regretted? Trump dooms the GOP to yet another national election loss? Or, one of the GOP stalwarts saves the day, wins it all, and we find we have subjected ourselves to four years of — talk like Patton, operate like Quisling, govern like Vichy.
…
If you would deny the demagogue a seat at the head of the table, attend first to denying him a reason to exist.”
You raise an important point about how GOP loyalists need to react to the Trump phenomenon.
The basis of Trump’s appeal isn’t affirmative. It’s negative.
“Talk like Patton” pretty much is the only thing that Trump offers affirmatively. The substance of his message, as you implicitly acknowledge, is not new nor unique among GOP candidates.
Trump is mainly campaigning on a negative narrative framing of his competitors. He’s employing an ‘other’ identity for “establishment” GOP such that “establishment” GOP candidates by dint of their party identity are automatically equated with “operate like Quisling, govern like Vichy”.
What Trump is as a presidential candidate is disturbingly unclear. Trump is campaigning mainly on what (he sells) he is not rather than what he is.
“Mainstream” conservatives are non-plussed by the obvious bluster of the “talk like Patton” parts of Trump’s campaign. In reaction, Neo and her GOP-loyal commenters mainly cite to better sophisticated “talk like Patton” remarks by their favorite GOP candidates to counter the crass “talk like Patton” parts of Trump’s campaign.
The problem is their affirmative apples-to-apples response elides the negative basis of Trump’s appeal.
In the Trump narrative, slick “talk like Patton” remarks by “establishment” GOP candidates are shiny but intrinsically worthless because they are from the “establishment” GOP. Whereas Trump’s similar remarks are not worthless due to he is not “establishment” GOP, not due to Trump’s own merits.
Trump is a salesman who can modulate his message, so I guess that the low timbre of Trump’s remarks, which may seem obtuse in comparison to his competitors, is purposely crafted that way for the sensory contrast with “establishment” GOP remarks.
The more that Trump’s competitors escalate their rhetoric on key populist-conservative issues, their rhetoric is turned around by Trump supporters to negatively highlight the perceived disparity between “establishment” GOP vote-gathering talk and the record of GOP governance on those issues. Populist appeals by Trump’s competitors are added to Trump’s list of categorical betrayal by the “establishment” GOP.
Meanwhile, the critical issue of what Trump affirmatively is is pushed aside in the assertion of the negative ‘other’ identity framing of the “establishment” GOP.
It’s crude but effective.
Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance is correct that the solution to Trump’s campaign strategy is to “attend first to denying him a reason to exist”.
However, there’s no way for GOP candidates to implement that recommended solution by conventional means within the election setting.
Republicans in government are pretty much strapped by the checks within government and more so, in tandem, the checks surrounding elected officials from without. They’re constrained from the recommended solution, thus their appearance to populist conservatives of “operate like Quisling, govern like Vichy”.
Once again, the activist game is the only social cultural/political game there is.
The only way to implement the recommended solution to Trump’s campaign is for GOP-loyal conservatives to undertake a Right-activist Gramscian march that seizes the spectrum of checks that surround government. Then save the GOP by involving (and equipping) their favorite GOP candidates in the greater American reformation that’s led by Right activists.
Note, the recommended solution only works if the GOP is subordinate to a greater conservative activist movement. It fails if conservatives repeat the Tea Party error of self-neutralizing by seeking entry into the constrained GOP.
Eric,
Trump is mainly campaigning on a negative narrative framing of his competitors.
What else is there?
Trump is campaigning mainly on what (he sells) he is not rather than what he is.
If your opponent is Mephistopheles, not much more is required than that you make it a point that you are not. It is the age where the essential condition of the candidate (from a GOP/Con point of view) is that he is all he needs to be if he is the lesser evil.
Trump’s similar remarks are not worthless due to he is not “establishment” GOP, not due to Trump’s own merits.
If you hadn’t contributed to the track record, the steeply declining trendline, whatever your own merits, you merit serious consideration. You cannot say the man who had not been an accomplice before, during, and after the fact, is an honest man but you may consider him a better bet than those that had been (accomplices).
However, there’s no way for GOP candidates to implement that recommended solution (denying him a reason to exist”) by conventional means within the election setting.
No way? One, or more, or all (GOP candidates), might take advantage of the stage upon which candidates find themselves. Trump had made his stage a soapbox from which he fulminates. Imagine if one or more of the candidates had made their stage a pulpit; had made the case Trump had made, not in tone, but eloquently, with substance, and unequivocal, without nuance. Several of the candidates have demonstrated a gift (of gab). None has demonstrated his heart is in it.
the recommended solution only works if the GOP is subordinate to a greater conservative activist movement.
Couldn’t agree more. But why wait for the long march. Allow Trump to bloody the GOP/Cons. It may lead to a long needed purge of Rove, the media consultants, the triangulators, the bundlers, the handlers, and the bunglers.
Please TRY THIS LINK
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/213673/
and you will smile – if not LOL!
(At least I am – AGAIN!)
Seriously. LOL!
Sheer COMIC GENIOUS!
ROFLOL.
Eric:
I try to keep up, but I missed it.
What activist scheme are you doing and how can I join?
Eric:
This might be the singularly most depressing analysis for me. Especially because of neo’s repeated endorsement.
Trump is campaigning by telling the truth.
Illegal immigrants steal our jobs, break our laws, collect our welfare, and murder our citizens at horrendous rates. They make the 9/11 hijackers look look wimps with their body toll. With murders and DUI deaths, you are looking at at least 10,000 Americans killed by illegals since 9/11. Trump stood up and said this has to stop; they have to go home; we need a wall.
The GOP didn’t want to talk about it. The Democrats never want to talk about potential Democrat voters flooding into the country.
Trump talked about it and did it in a non PC way. He said Mexico was sending their criminals across the border. By not protecting their side of the border, that is exactly what Mexico is doing.
He said Mexico would pay for the wall, and the pundits went crazy.
Then he talked about Ford building a billion dollar plant in Mexico, instead of America. And then he talked about tariffs on cars coming out of Mexico.
And then you realise he is already negotiating with Mexico. You build a wall like the one you built on your Southern border, or you are toast.
He’s not explicit, obviously, but the message is there.
What the electorate hears is Mexico is stealing American jobs and Ford is the proof.
Amazingly, a majority of Americans agree with Trump on illegal immigration. They want them sent home. I say illegals always have a path to citizenship. It is called “GO Home”.
Full disclosure: I am a New Zealand citizen with a Green Card, which means I went through a health check and background check before I could land on these shores. I’m married to a US citizen. I met her at the Covent Garden Opera House in 1988, quite by accident.
I haven’t become a US citizen because I regarded my New Zealand citizenship as an escape hatch, if the US went down the tubes. Well, under Obama, the US has gone down the tubes.
Under the Left, the US was always going to be destroyed. It was inevitable so long as the power of the Left was unbroken.
Bush is a “very low-energy kind of guy”:
ZZZZ.
Then you have the The Jeb Cavers
When THE weird guy thinks you’re weird …
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Speaking of weird energy, wouldn’t it be great if someone linked all the shots of Obama prancing up and down the steps of Air Force One? Maybe 90 seconds worth with a Bananarama sound track. It’s SO weird!
There will also be a limited edition Pirate Glazed Doughnut available through Sept.
One type of adult games that you can play measures your compatibility with your partner.
“Vaccines for use in avian flu are grown on virus strains developed from pus-laden animal tissue mixed with the above mentioned deadly chemicals.