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Save the Party; Abandon Trump
The reason the United States has not become just another European-style welfare state is that one of our two major parties is officially committed to limiting the growth of government while encouraging the growth of the private sector. Moreover, only the GOP has anything like a faithful approach to the Constitution, and it has appointed judges with a sound view of the Constitution. Republicans often betray these core principles – the list of GOP failures is long – but having core principles has moved the party in the right direction: tax reform, welfare reform, school choice, block grants, and even spending restraint (at least when compared to the Democrats).
Politics is a long game. Notwithstanding all the usual RNC hyperbole about this being the most important election ever – and the apocalyptic visions of a President Clinton – the survival of our republic is not at stake. The survival of the Republican Party, however, is.
If Trump wins, the Republican Party will own everything that Trump does. He will define the party. What does that mean for the GOP? Donald Trump is not a conservative. He is not pro-growth. Like European politicians, he sees the economy as a zero-sum game. He doesn’t talk about growing the size of the pie, he speaks for those who believe that somebody – an immigrant, a politician, a financier – has deprived them of their rightful slice of the pie.
To the extent he has articulated policies, they would be disastrous. He wants to rip up trade agreements and provoke a disastrous confrontation with Mexico – using cash remittances from the US as a bargaining chip to force Mexico to pay for “the wall.” He would attempt mass deportations of Mexicans and impose a religious test on new immigrants.
He has said almost nothing about shrinking the role of the federal government (except in education). Tellingly, he resists all calls to cut entitlements. What makes anyone think that a President Trump – a man addicted to power – would do anything to undercut his own power by shrinking the federal government? What makes anyone think that a President Trump would not eagerly follow in President Obama’s footsteps in ruling by executive order?
Abortion? He asserts that he recently became pro-life because of one acquaintance who decided not to abort her child and who, instead, gave birth to a child who became a “total superstar.” Classic Trump: Would it be ok to abort a child if somehow you knew the kid was going to be a “total loser” (e.g., if the kid had a disability like that reporter Trump made fun of)? His understanding of the issue is so shallow that he has suggested that mothers, rather than abortionists, should face prosecution for abortions.
Which brings me to the one issue that so many people consider decisive: the Supreme Court. Come on. The Constitution and social issues are simply not priorities for Trump. Does anyone really believe that a President Trump would expend political capital to nominate a conservative justice? Why bother? Far more likely, he’ll nominate someone who will breeze through confirmation so that he can make “deals” with the Senate about things that really matter to him. Even Ronald Reagan settled for Justice Kennedy. I have absolutely no confidence that Trump judges would be materially better than Clinton judges.
So, what to do? We save the party. Give all your support to down-ticket Republicans and none to Trump. Hope that Trump loses badly – so badly that he and his biggest supporters walk away from the GOP in disgrace. And hope that principled conservatives are there to rebuild the party for 2020.
Published in General
See —–> Mike Pence and his strong words of praise for the ” thrice married, twice bankrupt casino owner”.
Most billionaires have declared ( business) bankruptcy at least once. You don’t get that rich and successful without enormous risk assumptions. Seems he had no trouble getting contractors , investors and creditors to line up for more developments. Wonder why? How many billions have you earned ? While earning the praise of integrity from Rudy Gulliani?
How many divorcees get the praise from former spouses that Trump has ? The common denominator of the three ex’s are his children. If his children do not strike you as incredibly impressive? As a major, impresive reflection of the character of the man? I think you are missing the overarching point.
Does Hillary’s character strike you as preferable for being married once ?
Methinks thou dost protest too much.
Don’t be a scrub. Trump did nothing illegitimate to win this primary. He is in may ways a perfect foil for Hillary. He has no filters and says what comes to mind. This can be painful, but what of Hillary’s complete lack of candor, her heavily scripted, intentionally obtuse, manipulative speech? In fact, there is wisdom in much of what Trump says, even as it burns the ears of political correctness, and when he is wrong, he backs off. He never retracts, but he softens and retreats. We’re not used to that in a politician, but we see it often in our lives. Watching it in Trump is unusual and uncomfortable. Politics is often uncomfortable, a rhetorical minefield, and the press cannot wait for a politician to blow up. Trump strides into that minefield, sets off mine after mine and emerges unmolested. It’s something to behold.
Also, who ever said that the Republican Party is made up of Buckley conservatives? Other than Reagan (who only meets these criteria in retrospect) does anyone even come close? Cruz (and I was an early Cruz supporter) was a scrub yesterday. I may not forgive him. Rubio is cute, but he failed the test with his early immigration capitulation. Kasich disqualified himself by taking the Obamacare-Medicare money. Conservatives never trusted Christie. Walker lacked gravitas. Perry was again incoherent. Huckabee had little to offer outside of social issues. Newt recalled too many old wounds. Carson never had a chance. On and on.
You see, much as you hate to admit it, Trump emerged because the rest of the crowd drowned in the race. This is not the end of the Republican Party. It is, however, the end of your silly fantasy that someone else is better. Trump, for all his many faults, will sign Republican sponsored bills. Trump will appoint conservative judges. Trump will support our military. Trump will support law enforcement.
That is quite enough.
Gosh, your slam was sooo effective. I am sooo initimidated and impressed…
But really, I made my billions in oil and gold and didn’t blow through daddy’s legacy to do it. as for Trump following through on conservative SCOTUS appointments…
[cue canned laughter]
Save the Country; Discipline the Party
Clearly we have different definitions of “illegitimate”…
Well said. Folks like me, conservatives who saw Bush 41 immediately seek to distance himself from Reagan, and get fired for it, then saw Dole, McCain, W and Mitt selected by our esteemed establishment leadership. And the ideological abandonment of Newt’s contract followed with W. Mitt was the last straw. A feckless, gutless wimp of a campaign. But it pleased the cartel to lose and remain ensconced in government ( taxpayer) crumbs.
This is a change ; a radical change election, a movement.
And the elites who look down on Trump strike me as a wholly selfish lot fearing for their rice bowls . If Trump wins? Lots of folks living in tony enclaves in the DC ‘burbs, driving fancy cars and earning too much money are headed home. Their business models kaput.
That’s why they are in a panic. No other reason. Hillary wins? Business as usual.
“Illegitimate” is just the #NeverTrump term for “something I don’t like”.
I hate to break it to you, but look around you. The people you used to decry as cheating you are now using their usual tricks to silence internal criticism on behalf of your guy. Your guy is outsourcing his campaign to those RNC hacks who he spent the whole primary decrying as corrupt and incompetent. Your team is throwing out all of the old manipulation tactics (Supreme Court!) that your side used to decry when complaining about the old milquetoast moderates that the GOP put up for presidential elections. Your guy is trying to cut deals with the left (come on over Bernie supporters!). I’m sorry, but you’re the establishment now.
I haven’t made billions. Does it mean I can’t criticize a billionaire. I am not a chef. So I can’t criticize bad food? The kids are fine, let’s not overstate it. They got a major push from Daddy and they are not drugged out do-nothings. You don’t get mega praise for that, just an approving nod. It is a little disturbing though that they find nothing to criticize about his rhetoric.
I am more impressed with the kid who started with nothing and made some great leap forward, and is his/her own person instead of traveling life on father’s coattails.
This Main Feed article is so tiresome. How many times do the #nevertrumpers want to scold and correct the voters? They’ve been doing it non-stop since October.
Mr. Freedman, the Republican party nominated Donald Trump, a private citizen with no experience in electoral office, fair and square. You don’t like him and think he’ll be a terrible president – OK, we get that. Heck, we got that a long time ago.
Enough already. Vote for Hillary. Your family will be very proud of you.
You ( unsurprisingly) screwed up the attribution. That quote was mine.
And given gold’s horrible long-term, real, track record, I assume you were short financial gold derivates to make your billions.
There was a group of people who tried to change the rules in precisely this way. The RNC shut them down at the convention.
Its been a long time, maybe my memory is off. I remember a lot of talk about party unity and the 11th commandment. I certainly don’t remember any implication that Republicans should withhold their vote for the nominee?
I don’t claim to be a political prognosticator. But I don’t think there’s any evidence that Trump will draw huge support from people who stayed home last time. Maybe they’re there, but I see no evidence of it. Besides, even if he gets many of those people to vote this time, it’ll be counter-balanced by all of the voters (including me) who voted last time but won’t this time. We’ll simply have exchanged one group of abstainers for another.
Trump surprised the pundits and experts during the primary season, because while the polls said he had a lot of support, they all assumed that his numbers would eventually go down. But that was the surprise – his numbers didn’t go down. Or, in other words, Trump shocked people because his numbers turned out to be telling the truth about his upport.
Well, that was during the primaries. Those same polls, in the general election, show that he doesn’t have the numbers to win. He may surprise people by not fading, but even so, he doesn’t have the numbers to win.
That doesn’t seem an unambiguous word. What did Trump do that was illegitimate en route to winning the primary.
No executive fiats is what I’m saying. Enforce the laws, don’t make new one with a pen and a phone.
I’d like to see the p-value for a #NeverTrump / Huntsman correlation.
Amazing. Well, I am more impressed with Trump’s kids. Of course they are both impressive. But when ‘aint got nothing ? You got nothin’ to lose. When you are a Trump? You have plenty to squander.
You can minimize their impressiveness all day long. Most people see kids of theirpriveledge , acknowledging it, ( as opposed to Hillary feigning poverty on her exit from the White House) and graduating from Ivy league schools with honors as impressive.
Mike Pence isn’t a solid ,moral, conservative ? His strong words of endorsement ? Not good enough for you all?
W’s kids were more impressive? His coke and alcohol days left you wanting more Bushes?
This is hardball politics. We are up against a solidified Democrat party and a lying whore of a candidate who will stop at nothing to win.,
And you want some milquetoast preacher? Sorry. I want to win.
They had plenty of room to fall and fail and become like one of the 400 Kennedy families living off the teat. or a Paris Hilton.
Why yet another post with its predictable resultant screeds about how unfit Trump is? He won. Get over it. For the good of the country, get behind him and join the fight to stop the manifestation of Satan known as Hillary. We are not going to dare the gods by letting her onto Pennsylvania Avenue and hope to pick up the pieces in eight years. By 2024, it will be game over.
Don’t you understand that we who love our country don’t really care about the fate of the GOP? It will transmogrify into something useful and helpful to our citizens, or it will quickly fade into the sunset.
I’m not going to read all the comments this time! Lesson learned.
My firm opinion is that NeverTrump and/or NeverHillary are meaningless and unproductive terms, and denote timidity or cowardice, take your pick. Is leadership now a scary attribute?
I am a conservative and I’ve voted a number of straight R tickets my past couple of visits to the polls, but I’m registered as an Independent, so maybe I’m missing something here:
Before the Republican party there was the Whig party, and before that there was the Federalist party. If the Republican party is no longer up to the task of advancing conservative positions, why not cast it aside and start a new party that is better suited for these times?
It strikes me as pure sentimentalism to fret over the fate of a political party; parties are tools, they’re means to an end. It’s like shedding a tear over a dime-store hammer that’s developing a crack in the handle. If it’s not up to the task at hand, chuck it in the bin and get something that works.
I’m glad that Donald Trump saw the light. But what if that kid had become a “total loser?”
You left out immigration policy. Hillary Clinton’s administration wouldn’t frame its immigration, education and welfare policies so as to expand Democrat voter rolls, would it?
Funny. Pass on memo on how to lose a general election vs a well -funded, serial grifter and congenital liar.
Cynicism is a quick way to lose. If the Dems can rally around Hillary? We can rally around Trump. It’s that simple.
It’s the imperative we have. The unprotected are fed up. The true embarrassments to me as a conservative are John Kasich, and the Bush family.
Being from Miami, I already knew Marco was a scum bag.
RINO culling commenced with the Tea Party movement. And is gaining momentum. Culling is not always pretty. Stand back and turn your head if it is so offensive.
This is a known glitch with highlight-quote. Pointing out misattributions is good to avoid confusion, but it’s the bug which screws this up, not fellow users.
So far you you’ve:
Appealed to authority: “Hey Mike Pence says he’s not complete garbage, who are you to say otherwise?”
Appealed to mammon: “How can someone be bad if they’re that rich? You have less money than him so your argument is invalid.”
And engaged in bad faith ” You’re all just on the take and in it for the money! (… even though I just used wealth as evidence of virtue… but whatever.)”
Do you have anymore logical fallacies or catchphrase gibberish you want to hurl our way?
Your opponents here aren’t beltway insiders on the take (those have all rallied around Trump if you haven’t noticed.) We are private citizens engaged in the culture and the process and will not be bullied into endorsing a criminal madman for president regardless of if he has a capital R in front of his name or not. I suggest you tailor your talking points accordingly.
Save the Country, Elect a Liberal.
Nate Silver’s totally and grossly erroneous polling, showing single digit odds of a Trump primary win. Thats’ your evidence.
Marco? Won just one county in his home state. No one, to my knowledge, polled that big of an ass-kicking.
I am no expert either. Just my hunch.
The United States has already survived people who were worse, in terms of the Supreme Court and various non-Constitutional expansions of political power. Like, every Democrat elected in the 20th century besides Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton being an exception because there was a conservative movement to constrain the worst of his depredations.
The two things to be concerned about possibly ending the country as we know it are the erroding of the rule of law and the expansion of executive power. Trump seems to have no interest in stopping either problem, aside from saying “Crooked Hillary” a bunch of times.
Save your soul; drink malt liquor.
Thank you for that steaming pile of TDS.