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Trump Is Now The Establishment
Though I’m not willing to throw-in the towel yet — Lord knows this election has been unpredictable — it’s very nearly certain that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for President of the United States. As a once-and-future #NeverTrump and #NeverClinton, I’m going to have to start thinking hard about what options remain to me (short version: they all stink). But that’s not what this post is about: It’s about you, Trump voters.
First, a bit of preemptive congratulations: You did it. You took your candidate from someone snobs like me rolled their eyes at to the presumptive nominee of the GOP. More impressively, you steamrolled over Jeb Bush and Mike Murphy and their donor-class millions, as well as a bench of fifteen other candidates widely described in Trumpian superlatives (The best! The most beautiful! The bigliest!). You even blew-past National Review and the rest of the “respectable” conservative media. Moreover, you moved the national conversation toward your key issues. At least at the moment, you’re winners.
Which brings me to the friendly advice I wanted to offer: You’ve got a problem with a frustrated, demoralized minority whose concerns aren’t being met and who may sit out the election as a result. If you think defeating Hillary Clinton is as important as you’ve said — and I’ve no reason to doubt you — then you need to figure out how to appeal to this group of people. You need to understand them. You need to take their concerns with the kind of gravity you felt the GOP denied you for so long. And you need to figure it out quickly.
Now, again, I’m a lost cause here but libertarian squishes in Massachusetts aren’t going to turn this election (As Trump might say: Sad). But there’s a much larger number of people who have been opposed to Trump so far, but who might reluctantly fall in line if he gets the nomination. You need to figure out how to persuade enough of them to put their misgivings aside so your candidate gets over the line. That won’t be easy, and you should have started yesterday.
For illustration, consider what’s going on in the alternate reality — no, not that one — where Donald Trump tragically died in a meteor strike and Senator Marco Rubio is in the same position as Trump is in our universe. Over there, would-have-been Trump supporters are furious and some Rubio fans are starting to feel buyers’ remorse. “Why on Earth,” they ask each other, “Did we think it was a good idea to support a member of the Gang of Eight amidst a national freak-out over immigration? Romney after ObamaCare was bad enough; this looks even worse.”
Those Rubio supporters are in serious trouble. Their party is breaking apart because they chose one of the two most compromised candidates on the one issue that makes Republican voters reach for their pitchforks and torches and it’s their fault. “If we’re going to beat Hillary,” they say, “We need some real answers and we need them now.”
However, that’s an alternate reality. In this one, Trump supporters are the establishment, or just about to be. You’re not going to convince everyone — again, lost cause here — but you need to start taking #NeverTrump concerns seriously. Don’t tell people that Jon Gabriel, Claire Berlinski, Mona Charen, Kevin Williamson, Robert Zubrin, and I are jerks. That hasn’t worked and it’s probably not going to start working any time soon. You need to show #MaybeTrumps that we’re wrong.
Convince them that Trump gives a damn about the constitution. Demonstrate to them that he’s not going to wreck the economy or get goaded into a war with Vladimir Putin. Persuade them that he’s going to use the powers of the federal government to run vindictive little wars against anyone who insults him, only now with the added threat of guns and the IRS.
It doesn’t matter whether you think those concerns are valid, or if you think they’re a mote compared Hillary Clinton’s log. Their concerns are what they are and you need to grant their worries the attention they feel they deserve.
In short, you need to try to understand non-Trump voters.
Best of luck.
Published in Politics
There was a joke circulating right after the 1980 election:
“What’s flat, black and glows in the dark?”
Answer: “Iran on January 21st.”
Reagan brought a very hawkish reputation into office and then began a much needed military expansion.
That reputation, plus a couple of actual interventions, scared our enemies and made them risk averse.
Because of that. Reagan didn’t need to fight a big war.
I gratefully accept your correction.
Well, I suppose. But the point here is that Reagan refrained from attempting to force unpopular policies upon the country after people had made their displeasure known, and avoided the sort of relentless nastiness McCain has deployed against those who disagree with him.
Hence, Reagan never mortally wounded the Republican party as his successors have done.
I’m not sure why you get this idea. I think if we are going to make war against an enemy we should make war against them, and not engage in large scale foreign aid missions after we are attacked.
Never has a country spend so much effort on military operations as the United States in recent years while accomplishing so little. Our enemies have neither been deterred nor destroyed, by airstrikes or invasions.
I ascribe this to the witless globalism of our political class, who believe the United States is the global hegemon, responsible for bringing all the people of the world into a glorious future, whether they like it or not. Thus, they simply cannot bear to harm their subjects overseas simply because they are killing Americans and seek to kill more.
I say that simply because I can’t think of a better reason why they’re so gobsmackingly incompetent.
Shrug.
I, for one remember Reagan persevering against massive and vocal public opposition to do what he thought needed to be done. The nuclear freeze movement and the opposition to supporting the Contras definitely made their displeasure known.
You made a point of saying Reagan was successful attacking Libya with an attack that did not leave it churning in bloody chaos. My point is, the same tactic was attempted against Iraq (for 12 years after the first Gulf War) and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. The tactic did not work against these opponents as it had against Libya.
Ask yourself if you believe Reagan would have escalated had Libya responded by attacking Americans again.
You can’t? Have you considered the following explanation, which I will explain in depth: Obama.
Oh yeah. I remember that. The phrase “derangement syndrome” had not been coined yet, but people understood the concept just the same.
Reagan had a united party behind him, the support of the lawfully elected governments of Europe, and the majority of the American people as well. He was also a competent politician who was able to make a case to public and win the argument.
Not so for Bush or McCain. They were not able to convince rank-and-file Republicans to agree to yet more amnesty, nor did Bush win the argument about Iraq- significantly because he refused to respond to leftist lies.
Spot on- and I wondered if you’d bother to notice the gaping Iraq-shaped hole- which I lacked the time and words to discuss- in my argument in #514, because we did destroy our enemy of the Hussein regime. But that was thrown away, because Bush so thoroughly mishandled the politics that the public believed our success was a failure. And now we have ISIS.
Absolutely. But he didn’t have to, because our enemies believed we would smash them.
Our enemies today do not.
Xennady, you just said something I agree with. You feeling Ok?