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The Pivot
It looks to me that Trump will now turn on the naysayers in the party. It couldn’t be more deserved. He tried to play nice, but they are refusing to support him. After the 50 national security neo-cons penned a letter denouncing him, and other GOP stalwarts are playing games trying to undermine him, Trump will now use them to differentiate himself from failed Republican policies and attract a new coalition of voters.
From yesterday’s speech:
When we talk about the insider, who are we talking about? It’s the comfortable politicians looking out for their own interests. It’s the lobbyists who know how to insert that perfect loophole into every bill. It’s the financial industry that knows how to regulate their competition out of existence. The insiders also include the media executives, anchors and journalists in Washington, Los Angeles, and New York City, who are part of the same failed status quo and want nothing to change.
Every day you pick up a newspaper, or turn on the nightly news, and you hear about some self-interest banker or some discredited Washington insider says they oppose our campaign. Or some encrusted old politician says they oppose our campaign. Or some big time lobbyist says they oppose our campaign.
I wear their opposition as a badge of honor. Because it means I am fighting for REAL change, not just partisan change. I am fighting – all of us across the country are fighting – for peaceful regime change in our own country. The media-donor-political complex that’s bled this country dry has to be replaced with a new government of, by and for the people.
The leadership class in Washington D.C., of which Hillary Clinton has been a member for thirty years, has abandoned the people of this country.
I am going to give the people their voice back.
Think about it. The people opposing our campaign are the same people who have left our border open and let innocent people suffer as a result.
The people opposing our campaign are the same people who have led us into one disastrous foreign war after another.
The people opposing our campaign are the same people who lied to us about one trade deal after another.
Aren’t you tired of a system that gets rich at your expense?
Aren’t you tired of big media, big businesses, and big donors rigging the system to keep your voice from being heard?
Are you ready for change?
Are you ready for leadership that puts you, the American people, first? That puts your country first? That puts your family first?
Fasten your seat-belts.
Published in General
Trump is a prototypical RINO in the sense that he doesn’t really have any core principles, other than expanding his reach. He will defend his own power, ego, wealth, etc. with the ferocity of a lion. In all other matters, he’s a “squish”. Everything else is negotiable.
Which is why it is hilarious that Trump is now upset that those same back-scratchers aren’t supporting him. It would be like Obama getting angry that the gun and Bible clingers didn’t vote for him.
Maybe that’s what Trump means by a rigged system: A system where the people he denounces and runs against don’t support him.
Reports are that Hillary’s PAC has stopped ad buys in Colorado, Virginia and Pennsylvania until late September – a clear sign that she feels her leads there are comfortable. Perhaps she will refocus on narrower red states to make things uncomfortable for the GOP?
Buckle up indeed.
But he’s only threatening to start up SuperPACs against guys named Cruz, Kasich, and Ryan.
Yes, I can.
This is not to say that the voters alone are blameless; the party and movement leadership also deserves a great deal of blame, albeit for rather different reasons.
But this election should have been easily winnable. Instead, it looks like the center-Right party is going to lose to Hillary Clinton (!!) because a significant number of people decided that 2016 was the right time to throw the panic switch and nominate Donald Trump.
He is the least qualified nominee in a very very long time. I am thinking this will be evident to 50.1% of the electorate in every state.
This is a great example of an empty rhetorical technique. BDB attacks people who disagree with him by implying that they are elites and cloaks himself in victimhood all in one fact-free sneer. Brilliant.
Very true. Ball, it doesn’t become you. Especially when you have legitimate arguments that apparently get neglected in favor of enflamed but relatively nonsensical rhetoric.
And Mike is absolutely correct to point out that we had similar discussions about McCain and Romney. The candidates themselves bore a lot of the responsibility; far more than their most ardent supporters were willing to admit. Of course, I think it should be non-controversial to point out that 3 wrongs do not make a right. Trump’s failings absolutely justify his lack of support among conservatives, and it doesn’t make us fake or elitist or conspiracists or anything else. It’s fine to point out that existing Republicans failed to convince people of their message, and it’s fine to argue that they have failed to live up to their mandate in the eyes of many voters (or at least failed to demonstrate what they’re doing); but if that is ok, then it is also ok to point out that Trump is failing to convince people of his message, or that he would live up to voter’s expectations.
Wishful thinking.
We did not pick the wrong nominee in 2012, given the choices we had. Mitt Romney would have been a fine president, and the other candidates probably would not have won either. If Romney were running against Hillary, he would probably win. This year, Hillary was set to lose, but now will probably win, and the only reason why is Donald Trump.
I may vote for Trump and I may not. I’m still computing as best I can whether the damage he does to conservatism will be more or less than what Hillary does. Yes, I know Trump the person is better than Hillary the person. However, Trump is inside the Republican Party, and takes up space that might otherwise be filled by a competent conservative. Hillary is outside the Republican Party, and does not have the power to eat at the conservative movement from the inside.
Yes. It seems like nominating Trump is a wild Hail Mary pass, in a year when we didn’t need a Hail Mary pass.
Many had hoped that Trump would pivot off the tracks – instead he has pivoted right into the oncoming train.
There is no great pool of white working class voters or Reagan Democrats to put him over 50%. There are a lot of liberals, millenials and minorities to get Hillary to 50% + 1. The GOP has won the popular vote exactly once since 1988 and that was nailbiter with an incumbent against a Dem candidate who was almost as bad as Hillary.
Republicans have to thread a very fine needle to win the presidential election nowadays. Since Hillary is so compromised and unpopular the GOP had 2 or 3 candidates that may have been able to win another squeaker. Instead an angry minority of GOP primary voters decided to nominate the 70 yr old celebrity fake rich guy with an orange comb-over who tells easily refutable lies. They were sick of “RINOs” so they nominated the guy who’s picture is next to the word RINO in the dictionary.
Turn out the lights, folks, the party’s over…
Well then, you have chosen the least effective method to redress the situation. This is like blaming clouds for rain. By the time voters vote on something it’s too late. Then, what do you do? Tell them they were wrong? Tell them they were/are stupid?
I’m not so sure this election was so easily winnable. I know that Jeb would never have beaten Hillary, Cruz, as much as I supported him, may have had a hard time too. Marco? Not sure he had it in him either. Trump can still win.
He doesn’t need your support nor your endorsement. This is all about the vote. Voting is about the country’s needs and it’s not about you nor your support nor your endorsement. Disconnect your self from the process and do what is best for the country.
Yes, of course.
Note:
Personal attack. EDIT: On reflection, we realize this response could just as easily apply to the argument as the person making it. We, therefore, rescind the earlier note.Pathetic.
That is really funny. No one can possibly really truly believe that.
Surely, you are pulling my leg here. Pride is not a requirement for elections nor is it the right way to think about elections.
He’s telling you its true, why don’t you engage with him in good faith?
Note:
Ad hominem.Yes, full blown left-wing tactics.Wrong, yes; stupid, no.
I’m confident Rubio would have won and I think either Walker or Perry (my first choices) would have; I agree Cruz would have been an uphill fight and that Jeb would almost assuredly have lost (among the many reasons I never supported him).
While I agree with a lot (though not all) of Avik’s post, I don’t think that formulation really works.
Trump is running as a nationalist and he’s playing several sorts of identity politics, but “white nationalist” seems to me to imply something separatist and explicitly racist.
Admit it, Tom, you would give your left arm to vote for Jeb in November. I know that I would.
I do long for the halcyon days when my biggest fear was another Bush-Clinton election.
I am more likely to vote for Trump in November than I would have been for Jeb if he had won the primary.
Whatever. The voters clearly don’t care about the country any more, I’m not sure why I should. The country will get the president it deserves in November.
It may be different in the sense that Margaret Thatcher liked the soldiers who were captured. She didn’t put out rumors that Edward Heath’s father was involved in the assassination of Lord Cavendish. She didn’t focus on the ethnicity of the judge in her court case in which she was accused of fraud. She didn’t accuse Winston Churchill of lying to get us into World War II. She didn’t brag about how rich she was. She didn’t call all of her opponents pejorative nicknames like a third grader. She didn’t blame the media for all of her own shortcomings. She didn’t refer to her genitalia during a debate in the House of Commons. (I’m not positive about that last one. Maybe she did.)
In other words, it’s not all about the positions a candidate takes, crucial though they may be.
Follow the evidence!
He is both. With a long paper trail to prove it.