Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Buchanan on Trump, Or, Could the Good People of Ricochet Help Me Figure This Out?
From Pat Buchanan’s latest column:
…Trump has connected to [a]…powerful current … That is the issue of uncontrolled and illegal immigration, the sense America’s borders are undefended, that untold millions of lawbreakers are in our country, and more are coming. While most come to work, they are taking American jobs and consuming tax dollars, and too many come to rob, rape, murder and make a living selling drugs.
Moreover, the politicians who have talked about this for decades are a pack of phonies who have done little to secure the border.
Trump boasts that he will get the job done, as he gets done all other jobs he has undertaken. And his poll ratings are one measure of how far out of touch the Republican establishment is with the Republican heartland.
The Republican establishment, completely out of touch with the Republican heartland.
In re which, two questions:
1) What is “the Republican establishment?” I’m serious here. How would you define the term?
2) Depending on your definition above, what do you make of Buchanan’s assertion? Is the Republican establishment out of touch with the Republican heartland? Or does Trump’s polling reflect something else–maybe the desire of a lot of Americans of both parties simply to vent their frustrations to pollsters?
Published in General
How so? The commentor made a declarative statement on how to define an Establishment Republican. I agree that Mark Levin should not be considered an Establishment Republican, but by the commentors own definition he could be considered one.
The entire point of Peters post is to seek clarity on this term – those particular definitions do not help.
Care to point out the actual problem with it rather than resorting to ad hominem?
I found your characterization and the parallel insulting. That it’s obvious you don’t understand is known to everyone here who disagrees with you.
You deny that there is a clear pattern and wish to focus on peicemeal debate. You wish to claim it’s not a forest because there are different trees, oak maple spruce, and there is the underbrush – not even trees! In Locketts Forest we are taken through and every time we say it’s a forest, you just want to talk about trees. I see the trees. You just don’t see or perhaps deny the concept of forest.
There are obvious exceptions to that particular members criteria. It’s the preponderance of those things and obviously someone’s residential status can’t be used as a sole criteria.
Yeah great, you found the weak link and are nipping at it, yet you admit that you understand the basic concept about Levin.
It’s the argument of someone who wants to poke holes and nitpick, not of someone trying to understand or even debate the fundamental concepts.
Maybe if people could actually produce a decent definition of the term (as Peter requested) this wouldn’t be happening. Instead we have people advocating Donald Trump as a crusading conservative (a Pro-Choice, Pro-Single Payer, Pro-Higher Tax, Anti-Free Trade, Crony Capitalist) while lambasting Jeb Bush (a Pro-Life, Anti-Single Payer, Pro-Tax Reform/Lower Taxes, Pro-Free Trade etc. etc.).
I’m no fan of Jeb Bush but the term Establishment Republican has no meaning other than “Republican I Don’t Like” when you look at the actual positions to those it is applied to.
You can’t even define the concepts correctly! How can we have a debate about it?
Folks, stop the name-calling or please leave this thread. You’ve been asked multiple times. Knock it off.
Who here called Trump a conservative?
Obviously you haven’t been reading the many insightful comments here. I don’t know why you believe you can ignore those and try to juxtapose outliers from different categories as some kind of defense.
Trump is shaking up the race and who is most upset? The establishment. Trump is no conservative – I really don’t know what he is – he’s a businessman out for himself that much I know.
Jeb is by many definitions conservative and he definitely gravitates toward the establishment. Ultimately establishment trumps (pardon the pun) conservatism once in office. Governing Florida isn’t the same as being President. But then, who wants Jeb? Look at the donors. You think Jeb will fight crony capitalism? Ha!
I give up. It’s an ABSTRACTION – just like all these other words we freely use. Your way of arguing is unconvincing and looks to me like denial pure and simple.
I’m done intervening.
Well there was the quote in the OP, but also this:
http://ricochet.com/buchanan-trump-good-people-ricochet-help-figure/comment-page-2/#comment-2936747
I don’t have the time to comb through all of the posts on the site for more evidence, but to deny that many consider Trump the voice of conservative populism is pretty difficult.
I have, and I didn’t address those comments because I thought many of them offered pretty decent definitions. I pointed out the flaws in the definitions I found lacking.
I agree with you here to a point – but I think it is folly to rely on rhetoric over actual accomplishment. Do I disagree with Jeb on a lot of issues – yes. Did he actually govern a large population purple state conservatively – also yes. I’ll take accomplishment over rhetoric any day.
In the end I’ll take Scott Walker over Bush because he has both.
Editors
Who has been asked multiple times?
I guess we are allowed to make parallels to liberals misattributing the word ‘fascist’ to conservatives using the word “establishment” and then try to reduce the entire argument to Establishment is just a word for Republicans I disagree with, after 100’s of insightful comments.
I’m not going to debate someone who travels on level. It’s pathetic.
Most of the important points have been made already. So I’m outta here. Unfollowing. PM me if you have something to say to me.
Franco you and I have been having a nice substantive discussion over the last few comments, why do you have to start insulting me again?
Basil- I wasn’t so much comparing McConnell to Burke as I was pointing out that people who criticize McConnell for exercising his own judgment, rather than simply doing what a majority of his constituents want, are making a profoundly un-Burkean argument.
Your comment which I originally quoted suggested Burke adhered to a theory of political representation which he explicitly rejected.
From Burke’s Letter: “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion”.
Sal, I hope my comment didn’t suggest that. I thought I was pretty clearly contrasting Burke’s view of a representative’s duty to do what he thinks is right with Jamie’s view that a representative should simply vote the way a majority of his constituents tell him to vote.
That is an utter mis-characterization of my view. I stated that it is understandable why politicians behave the way they do. I never said it was right.
You may not have specifically said that it’s “right,” but you clearly indicated that it’s the democratic way and that people who don’t vote as a majority of their constituents tell them to vote won’t be reelected. I’ll take that as approval.
That’s ok, you’ve been wrong before.
Basil- In that case, I misread the point of your comment.
As an aside, the electors of Bristol did not re-elect Burke.
But his admirable career continued.
Basil: “But his admirable career continued.”
… because he was given a safe seat within the gift of the “establishment” Marquess of Rockingham.
I think the East India Company is rather representative of today’s “establishment.” At least in the context of the current Ex-Im Bank discussion.
I like that. I think it works for a lot of how the Elite would like things to operate…
That does bring us back to the point that there are multiple ways of defining establishment and that the establishment is far from a united front opposing the heartland.
Again “Republican I don’t like.”
It may not be united in everything, but distain for the heartland is its signal characteristic.
Confessedly, this is so true it hurts.
Or Republcan who doesn’t like me?
Although this thread has been quiet, I’ve come back to reiterate my view of the republican establishment being many of those voters and most federal republican office holders who are openly supportive of Jeb Bush as the party’s presidential nominee for 2016 and who have more in common with the ‘democrat establishment’ than with conservatives. Titus Techera has a post focused on Angelo Codevilla’s treatise on the ruling class, and Codevilla says most democrat party voters are pleased with elected officials representation and that only about one-quarter of republican party voters are pleased with their republican representation. So, again for me at least, it looks as if the ‘republican establishment’ is those officials who sit comfortably with the ‘ruling establishment’. The total of the voters in those two groups mentioned above is less than forty percent of total electorate.
We really do need to recognize who these people are so we can replace them with someone who works for us.