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“Wreck-It Donald” Is Breaking Conservatism from Within
It’s always easier to destroy than to create. GOP frontrunner Donald Trump has spent his candidacy showing Republicans just how easy it is. Media organizations, think tanks, and the electoral process itself have seen decades of hard work reversed in months by Wreck-It Donald.
Consider this partial accounting of the wreckage he’s left behind, starting with Fox News:
During a discussion about the fractured GOP today, The Five‘s Greg Gutfeld brought up how the current GOP fight has been a source of tension not just on their show, but on Fox News as a whole.
“We as a show,” he said, “are facing internal strife, from a micro level to a macro level… Look at The Five. On any given day, we have tension over this nomination, over this candidate. You can look at our network as a whole.”
He said this is true of pretty much “every area where there is conservatism” these days, but pointed to specific “issues within a family of anchors” that has fractured the anti-Obama unity they once enjoyed.
Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields has resigned from the conservative news site over its response to her alleged assault by Donald Trump’s campaign manager.
Three of her colleagues also resigned from Breitbart: editor-at-large Ben Shapiro, national security reporter Jordan Schachtel and Jarrett Stepman, an editor.
In his departing statement on Sunday, Shapiro said the site should be “ashamed” of “their treatment” of Fields, whose allegations of assault came amid escalating violence in and around Trump campaign events.
The chairman of Liberty University’s executive committee is knocking the endorsement of Donald Trump by the Christian school’s president.
“Donald Trump is the only candidate who has dealt almost exclusively in the politics of personal insult,” Mark DeMoss, who sits on the Liberty University’s board, told The Washington Post in a story published Tuesday…
“I’ve been concerned for Liberty University for a couple of months now, and I’ve held my tongue,” DeMoss continued. “I think a lot of what we’ve seen from Donald Trump will prove to be difficult to explain by evangelicals who have backed him.”
Longtime conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly’s endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has led to internal strife — and what she claims was an attempt to oust her — at the organization she formed nearly a half-century ago to help defeat the Equal Rights Amendment.
The 91-year-old said six of the Eagle Forum’s 11 board members, including one of her daughters, met improperly by telephone Monday “to wrest control of the organization from me” and “seize access to our bank accounts.” She said in a statement she was kicked off the call when she objected.
Following a fawning editorial endorsing Donald Trump in the New York Observer, which is owned by Trump’s son-in-law, the paper’s national political reporter, Ross Barkan announced he was leaving.
“I knew going into this there would be complications with covering Donald Trump and working for the New York Observer,” Barkan told CNNMoney. “I did not imagine that the events would transpire the way they did.”
Republican National Convention:
Donald Trump warned on Wednesday that his supporters could riot at the Republican convention in Cleveland if he is not “automatically” made the party’s nominee if he arrives with the most votes but fails to secure a majority of convention delegates.
Speaking to Chris Cuomo on CNN, Trump said that he hoped to win the nomination outright before the convention in July, but warned that if he goes to Cleveland with more delegates than any of his rivals and the nomination goes to anyone else, “I think you’d have riots.”
Longtime Donald Trump ally Roger Stone is threatening to make public the hotel room numbers of Republican National Convention delegates who switch from Trump to another candidate.
“We’re going to have protests, demonstrations. We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal,” Stone said Monday in a discussion with Stefan Molyneux on Freedomain Radio, as he alleged that Trump’s opponents planned to deny the democratic will of Republican primary voters.
“If you’re from Pennsylvania, we’ll tell you who the culprits are. We urge you to visit their hotel and find them. You have a right to discuss this, if you voted in the Pennsylvania primary, for example, and your votes are being disallowed,” Stone said.
Wreck-It Donald seems to break another conservative institution each week, not to mention the continuing damage to years-long efforts promoting limited government and civic virtue, denouncing crony capitalism and personality cults, and reaching out to women and minorities. Much of movement conservatism has outlived its usefulness, but 2016 isn’t a case of free-market “creative destruction.” It’s just destruction with nothing to take its place except dyed hair, a fake tan, and a big mouth.
As damaging as President Obama and Secretary Clinton have been, they were never able to infiltrate conservativism and tear it down from within. Sure, they could peel off a squish here and there, but imploding right-leaning media was beyond the limits of even the most statist IRS commissioner or NSA director. One big-government liberal was able to slap an R at the end of his name and leave chaos in his wake.
Breaking stuff is easy, but building things (e.g., state campaign infrastructure, detailed get-out-the-vote strategy) takes a lot of hard work. Despite the tacky buildings sporting Trump’s name in all caps, Ted Cruz is the only candidate who is creating institutions to advance conservatism.
For the sake of our Republic, let’s hope he succeeds.
Published in General
You really are classic . . . apparently, to your way of thinking, the GOP bears no responsibility for the fact that a 40-years liberal Democrat with no electoral experience (let alone an electoral victory!) has sustained a huge plurality of GOP voters over a 10 month period. Instead, that was caused by Cruz’ supporters.
The name of your affliction is often conflated with the name of a river in Africa that’s closely associated with Egypt.
This is rich! Pray tell . . . who in your “real world” do you “know” would win in November? And no “nonsense” . . . just to keep this legit.
What is your point? We’ve known the GOP has been fractured since 2010. The question is, are the people who are voting Trump GOP regulars, or new GOP voters attracted to Trump’s reality TV star cred, narcissism, and hatred of freedom?
Who cares? Either way, you’re losing b/c your Party is worthless. Deal with it.
Truly a message that will unite people.
Bingo!
How is Trump’s popularity a reflection on the Republican Party rather than a significant percentage of voters? Should the party have prevented him from running or insufficiently serious people from voting?
This is why the Republican party needs to be split in two.
That way the small government conservatives can have a party that represents them and the big-government authoritarians can have a party that represents them.
The party of Lincoln and Reagan is a party I love and support.
That split already exists
The message you apparently prefer—which disregarded your Party’s majority for several election cycles—united a plurality of GOP voters behind a liberal Democrat from New York who spent 40 years funding your opponents.
But, yeah, sure . . . it’s my message that’s causing the problem.
Big government authoritarians already have a party, it’s called the Democratic Party.
And if that Party ever comes around again, be sure and let me know! The closest thing you’ve got to either is the junior Senator from Texas, so you might want to put your support behind him.
You might want to tell the Trump supporters that.
What message belongs to your supposed “majority”?
I do. Conservatism has never been about nationalism or any other statis philosophy.
You do know that Bucky supports Ted Cruz right?
I guess we have to keep telling them. They do not appear to be listening.
A-Squared- “This is why the Republican party needs to be split in two.
That way the small government conservatives can have a party that represents them and the big-government authoritarians can have a party that represents them.”
Yeah, great, and the Dems can consequently sweep every election.
That is that the Trump supporters want. I say we give it to them good and hard.
And screw ourselves and our country in the process?
How is the fact a 40-years liberal Democrat from New York, who funded the GOP’s opponents, was more attractive to 35-45% of GOP voters over a ten month period than any of the GOP’s other candidates? Hmm . . . might that have something to do with the GOP’s failure to give those voters what they wanted? I know that’s radical stuff . . . this crazy notion that the Party is there to serve its members, not the other way around!
I’m suggesting that when a large percentage of customers don’t want what’s being sold, blaming those customers probably isn’t the best strategy for future success.
Our country has been screwed for a while. Trump is not cause of our demise, he is the symptom. If a plurality of the Republican party can’t find it within themselves to vote for smaller government, we are simply done for as a nation.
This isn’t a business, it’s a political movement based on a philosophy. You argue your points, take wins when you can get them, and fight on. You don’t surrender your ideals to the highest bidder.
You also have not answered me yet, what exactly is the “message” of this 35-40%?
Concur.
No offense, but if you aren’t hearing it already I doubt me retelling it will help you to. But here it is anyway: if you make promises, keep them.
Trump’s relative success in open primaries as opposed to closed contests suggests a significant portion of his support does not come from GOP voters and his inability to speak coherently on virtually any subject suggests it is his celebrity rather any concern for policy attracting support.
Perhaps the sad truth is that we have fallen so far as a society virtually any TV personality can draw 30% of votes in any election.
So your argument is, people are voting for a lying charlatan in order to give credence to the idea of keeping a promise?
And what do you do when a majority of your erstwhile supporters aren’t buying this drivel any longer? What do you do when they’ve figured out this is just the BS incumbents say when they want your vote but have no intention of doing anything “based on a philosophy”? Get mad and lecture them on what a “political movement” is? How’s that working out for you?
Klaatu- “Trump’s relative success in open primaries as opposed to closed contests suggests a significant portion of his support does not come from GOP voters and his inability to speak coherently on virtually any subject suggests it is his celebrity rather any concern for policy attracting support.
Perhaps the sad truth is that we have fallen so far as a society virtually any TV personality can draw 30% of votes in any election.”
God help us, but I think you are as right as Mike Judge, who proved prematurely prescient when he produced ‘Idiocracy.’