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What Will Capitulation of the GOP Establishment Look Like?
It looks increasingly likely that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for President. He has led in the polls for four months, he has more money than all the other candidates combined in spite of which he is the beneficiary of seemingly limitless free media, and his campaign rallies have the excitement of rock concerts.
As my co-host Todd Feinburg and I discuss in this week’s Harvard Lunch Club Political Podcast, Trump is rolling on. And that no doubt precipitates PVCs from many of the elites on the right (not to mention utter hysteria from everyone on the left).
So my question is this.
Assuming that the Trump trajectory continues on its merry, ballistic way through Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and on through “Super Tuesday,” what, exactly, is the capitulation of the GOP establishment going to look like if and when Trump begins rehearsing for his acceptance speech in Cleveland?
How do Karl Rove and George Will and Charles Krauthammer and Jonah Goldberg and Kevin Williamson (et tu, Kevin?) and Bret Stephens and Daniel Henninger – oh, why not just throw in the whole Wall Street Journal editorial board? – I could go on, but you get the idea. How do these and so many more venerable conservatives reach that final stage (Kubler Ross is trite, I know) of acceptance of the nomination of Donald Trump?
How does Henninger walk back the remark of saying Trump is “beyond the pale” for politicizing 9/11?
How does Goldberg escape his remark that Trump is like a “cat trained to [urinate] in a human toilet?”
During the general election, how does Will equivocate when asked about his remark that “nothing is now more virtuous than scrubbing, as soon as possible, the Trump stain from public life.”
In short, how do these pundits and many more deal with the extreme vituperation they have spewed toward Trump’s candidacy to date?
Because walk back, escape, equivocate and deal with is what they will inevitably be doing if Trump wins the nomination.
Consider the alternative.
Consider first that Trump has a plan to simplify the tax code and (among many other things) lower the capital gains tax to 15 percent. Trump has a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. Trump has a plan to fix the VA hospital system. Trump describes (I assure you this is coming) how he will appoint constitutional conservatives with a sympathy for unborn life – in the mold of Samuel Alito – to the Supreme Court.
And these guys do what? Endorse Hillary?
I don’t think so.
Of course it is conceivable that Rove and others will embark on a third party candidacy with Jeb (?) carrying the banner. Psychologists say that people who are terrified of heights are not really afraid of falling. They are afraid of jumping. Perhaps the Republican establishment is not so much afraid of Trump launching a third party candidacy as they are of feeling forced into doing so themselves.
A third party candidacy from the former GOP is probably unlikely. And with Trump proposing clearly conservative positions on many central issues (as I mentioned above), abandoning the GOP for Hillary Clinton is not, for any of the aforementioned pundits, going to happen.
No, the conservative elites have made a big mistake. Conservatism in the classical sense is very much about tone. But the invective of these conservatives toward Trump, far from having the measured and sober tone that might have separated supporters from Trump rather than driving them to him, has had the tone – so often ascribed to liberals – of a hissy-fit.
I believe that the flashpoint of this rage has been Trump’s announced intention to send illegal aliens back to their home countries – a prospect that Neocons who are soppy-sentimental about Ellis Island and Chamber of Commerce Republicans who are soppy-sentimental about potentially going to jail utterly loathe.
But whatever the specific underpinnings of the calumny that conservative pundits have shown to Trump – and they are not a phalanx, their reasons vary – they are likely going to have to find a way back into the fold. And it could get ugly.
But perhaps there is a way. Charles Krauthammer (whom I truly respect) recently opined about Trump:
“I think he’s a much better candidate than he was at the beginning, much better on his feet in an interview.”
“When he started out, he wandered into a lot of Twilight Zone places, the deportation of the 12 million, the thing with John McCain. He didn’t do that [in the Baier interview]. He was a lot more disciplined.”
In other words, “I was right. Trump was a buffoon. But isn’t it marvelous the evolution he has gone through?!” In other words: “I didn’t join Trump. Trump joined me!”
It’s a bold plan. But it just might work.
But they are still going to have to get used to one thing. The 12 million have got to go.
Published in General
Finally, who says that most of Trump’s support is coming from the Conservative wing of the GOP? I can’t get into the numbers right now because I am about to head to the In-Laws for Thanksgiving, but what I have seen and heard Trump’s support is mostly made up of self-described independents.
Just add up the support for conservatives as opposed to Trump who is a new and much more relevant populist progressive than the broken, twisted, enumerate, ignorant, self serving, corrupt, rent seeking people in the Democratic party. While Republicans frequently capitulate preemptively, they shouldn’t in this case. Beat him, but not for his political incorrectness but for his embracing of big government progressivism.
Unfortunately, yes.
Last Oct. 31 I saw several walking around. I believe they have a hierarchy. One guy clearly can’t do all of the stuff that is going on by himself.
Smart staffers are already quietly on loan to the Donald. His immigration plan, for example, reads mostly like it came from Senator Jeff Session’s office.
If Trump wins the nomination, then I suspect most of the Establishment will publicly make peace—but will use Trump’s back as a knife block. But I’m still not convinced Trump will go all the way. Given how crummy polling has been, I don’t think anybody’s a front runner until he or she has won a few primaries and caucuses.
If you’re point is that Ron Paul isn’t bad on defense, ok (though I disagree… he basically said let Iran have all the nukes they want) . But the broader point is that for president (and only president) you have to vote for whomever is best on defense, regardless of party, if the other candidate is dangerously flawed in that area (as I believe Ron Paul is.) Obama kills ’em by the boatloads with drones. Would Ron Paul? The damage that libs can do domestically is bad but it’s slow and can be rectified. A bad defense president can cause immediate catastrophe.
The landscape for those who have little respect for the DC GOP establishment and none for Trump is bleak and it’s hard to see the first steps towards making progress. A political Christina’s World.
The conservative commentators who took Trump’s low comedy seriously early on should be thanked. At least they fought, especially after Trump’s buffoonish act during/after that first debate. They saw they needed a bigger boat and fired a few harpoons. No number of barrels is slowing this guy down.
The conservative entertainment industry that played Trump for ratings and ad revenues now get a Hilary presidency, also good for ratings and ad revenues.
What if Trump keeps 30-35% through most of the winner-take-all and winner-take-most states and his one-third in the proportional states. Even if he falls 100-200 delegates short, does the DC GOP really try to concoct the nomination for a candidate with 500 delegates?
Trump cries Corrupt Bargain!, runs independent and we win 100 electoral votes and lose the Senate, including the South, massively.
Perhaps Cruz’s can win Iowa with more committed voters, proving the polls are a reality show. He turns NH into face-off, wins and follows up in SC where a NY Democrat could be beaten by a Christian conservative with momentum.
Rubio is like the smart, polite, clean-cut young men I hired hoping my daughters would take notice.
They never did.
Neither will GOP voters this year.
Nope. We’ll elect Republican senators and our representative is Republican and fairly conservative to boot, but I’ve been through enough Kennedy/Johnson/Carter/Clinton/Barry to know that we don’t win all the presidential elections. I also recognized that Dole/McCain/Romney are not hugely endearing candidates to a relatively conservative base who vote but don’t necessarily communicate. And as was noted, it was the Reagan Democrats who don’t show up for some elections, such as the 2012 run by Romney. Those Democrats who did not vote for either Barry or Romney may have cost Romney the electoral votes he needed.
So, no misconceptions here. Too many presidential votes cast by me for people who did not win the election. But I am still able to muster a bit of optimism, but then I don’t live in a suburb in Progressiva.
I am a head of you. I am an independent by choice after resigning from the Republican Party. I was tired of the b.s.
I am however conservative and I cannot vote for a Democrat. At this point the Republicans are the only game in town, even when I hold my nose and vote for the moderate flavor of the presidential season. So, if you cannot vote for the Republican, and find yourself voting for the Democrat, you might have to find the courage to admit what you have become – or have been all along even while pretending to be something else.
Stick to photography Tom.
Since the name Hitler seems to be applied with regularity to various personages one might suspect that Satan is equally usable.
Anyone ever tell you BThompson that you sound a little Trump-esque?
Yep. Or perhaps Trump’s ascendancy is a full-throated repudiation of how the establishment deliberately dismissed its base?
In any case, I’ll be voting for the GOP candidate as I’ve done all my life regardless of how little regard I have for their policies or personal biography. I am always certain the Democrat alternative is worse.
With Hillary Clinton as the Democrat Party nominee there is no room for hope. Any candidate from any party is preferable. Americans know Hillary and her minions well, and she must be defeated for precisely that reason.
(But I won’t rule out Marco or Ted just yet. There is always hope.)
Happy Thanksgiving. ;)
@BThompson that’s meant as a compliment, of course.
I’ll be announcing my candidacy soon. Watch out true conservatives!
Might it be suggested that the establishment lost control a while ago, as in McCain and then Romney and their failure to win elections?
Might the fact that the elites are tied to money more than principle and are equally able to support either side to arrive at the winner lead us to consider that principled people with their values aren’t for sale in way that the elites are?
I think that the antagonism displayed to both the moral conservatives and the taxed-enough already people have served to identify the split within Republicanism. The party wants the votes and the shekels but they want our mouths taped up.
I guess it is time for Jeb! to make his move.
Check his pulse. Does he have one?
Is that lack of a pulse the same as the pulse of his backers?
See: Bull Moose Party. Perhaps another Woodrow is in our future. After all, we are erasing the last one.
I’m disappointed in some of the member responses, e.g. “Stick to photography, Mike”, etc. And the Ricochet contributors have been surprisingly anti-Trump. I think I would rather give my money to the Trump campaign, even though he doesn’t need it, than to a Ricochet renewal, as the invective against a serious business man is almost unhinged at time. I have never seen a candidate bring out the true colors of the establishment like Trump has!
I have seen nothing in Donald Trump’s life or his campaign to suggest he would govern any differently than Hillary would. The fact that his supporters refuse to acknowledge that he is simply telling them what they want to hear is their problem. The man has been a liberal Manhattan Democrat all his life and a “conservative” for about 10 minutes.
If people cannot see this man’s shtick through their rage than all is lost. I will not vote for him if he’s nominated because he is no different than Clinton.
Are we now descending to insulting Mr. Trump?
What was the enduring legacy of the Bull Moose Party? I’ve never seen their calling card on a ballot in my lifetime. In fact I don’t remember seeing a Reform Party calling card on a national ballot since Mickey Mouse came in third, or in Minnesota since a grandee of that party failed to win the senate in that state after Ventura decided not to run for re-election as governor.
These people make a noise, and then go away to wherever such people go. Probably back to the Democrat Party.
Bazel, thanks for the cry for civility (and the implicit defense of yours truly). I recommend you give your money to Ricochet. Trump doesn’t need it. And the neighborhood needs you.
And besides, I hate to see Lileks and Peter and Rob Long reduced to diving for pearls or shaking down motorists with squeegees to keep the lights on.
When schadenfreude becomes almost shagalicious:
When the GOP establishment has to throw their full support behind Ted Cruz to stop Donald Trump.
With a zeal matching the young boy reading (or at least looking at) his favorite periodical towards the end of Animal House: Thank you God!
stick to flying, Brent.
…that felt strangely cathartic….
Let me return to the question posed by the OP in the thread title. It’s a thought-provoking one. Unlike voters, commentators can’t “stay home.” Neither can big donors in most cases. My guess is that they follow the lead already established by Rove and the American Crossroads PAC in the event of a Trump nomination–let the nominee speak for himself and go after Clinton. I think the attacks on Trump (and certainly the tone) will be lowered, in some cases to the point of nonexistence, and the editorial space will be devoted to Hillary-bashing 24-7 (there’s enough material). To the extent there are “endorsements” of Trump, we’ll have: “well, look at the alternative.” These people are not worried about walking back the Trump criticism because they won’t do so, for better or worse.
And if Trump loses, look out.
Woodrow Wilson Progressivism
The reason I could vote for Dole, a moderate who loved Democrat votes on legislation, and McCain, a real maverick and a part-time Republican, and Romney, a real moderate technocrat, is because while I am a full-throated conservative, I don’t always pass the purity test. If I find that I may be a bit inconsistent, a bit wishy-washy, then I might reasonably expect it in others – including politicians – is because human beings are subject to undulation at times.
Rubio probably grew in his understanding from his failure with the Group of Eight.
It would be good if Cruz talked straight across and not always down to people.
Carly was wonderful but unsmiling.
Trump is Trump. Might he grow some talent in politics that he did not previously have? It certainly seems that way.
The good is the enemy of the perfect. I hope our candidate is very good.
As for no different than Clinton, he was not Bill’s chief of staff in his war on women. He is not publicly dishonest like Hillary! He is a lot different than she is. I believe that there are areas where he is quite trustworthy, and that she can be trusted to vie for money and power believing it is due to her.
Stick to being and open source build system, bazel.
So I was right. You found them returning to the Democrats from which they came.