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Surveying the Wreckage of Hurricane Trump
Noah Rothman has an interesting look at Donald Trump’s candidacy, and how it has turned around the Democrat tactic of pining for the “Republicans of old.”
With Donald Trump’s defeat all but assured, the left has become bizarrely resentful of their own effective messaging against the Republican nominee. “There will be no accountability for Trump, for what he has wrought and almost wrought. It will disappear down the George W Bush memory hole,” mused MSNBC host Chris Hayes ruefully. “I think the scale, scope and depth of the disastrousness of his presidency has been weirdly forgotten.”
The Democrats have thrown everything but the kitchen sink at Trump, and there will be few attempts in the future to look back at his candidacy as a paragon of GOP virtue. This presents an opportunity for the GOP to forge their own narrative for the future. Unless things change dramatically between now and November 8, the Republicans are going to have even more of a blank slate to work with than they did in 2016 and 2012.
The obvious front-runners are Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and whoever picks up the banner from Donald Trump. This provides a good opportunity to form a fresh narrative about what the GOP stands for, rather than than what we oppose. Our candidate in 2020 will be able to run free from the comparisons to the Republicans of the past and set his or her own agenda. It will better be an agenda based on growth and expanded liberty, or else we are certainly doomed to fail once again.
Democrats, however, face an even bigger challenge when it comes to their candidate for 2024 (or possibly 2020), because aside from Tim Kaine, who do they have that is Presidential timber? Their lack of quality candidates for Senate races this year is so obvious even the New York Times has noticed it, and the best they could run against Hillary was Bernie Sanders, an aging Socialist who isn’t even a real Democrat.
That’s the problem with machine politics: Buying off votes and dirty political tricks work well when the machine is built around the goal of keeping one person in power for as long as possible. But once that person is gone, the machine quickly breaks down. The Hillary machine works really well when it’s devoted to electing Hillary, but after it has completed its mission, it serves no purpose. It will leave a huge power vacuum inside the Democratic Party, with no one standing by to take up where it left off.
The Republicans have a blank slate when it comes to their choice of a future presidential candidate. The Democrats, however, have an empty cupboard to chose from.
Published in General
And maybe read the post election autopsy this time?
I don’t think she’ll make it through four years. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Bill take over much like Eleanor did for FDR and Edith Wilson did for Woodrow.
Oh I don’t think that. He’s worse off than she is health-wise. Syphilitic dementia if I had to guess. Plus I don’t think you could pull that off in the panopticon that is the 21st century presidency. I do see her running out of steam in 4 years or less though.
I subscribe to WSJ, usually read Noonan, but in the last few years she is disconnected. Too insulated, just like a lot of the rest of the Acela corridor folk. She thought Obama was the Second Coming. And, what is the alternative to the Trump entire?
Bill Clinton appears in this comment courtesy of Red State magazine and a grant from the Clinton Foundation through the generosity of residents of Haiti.
I thought he would be Hillary’s choice for VP. She probably erred in choosing Kaine as he is an idiot. So is Booker but he is the right shade.
I think she will be the first President elect who is not sworn in to office.
Cory Booker is way too dangerous as VP. He could easily develop a hardcore following and begin to upstage Grandma Hillary. She picked the most boring, least presidential candidate she could find who was still plausible. Hillary will brook no distractions in her Presidency.
It was my understanding that Kaine works for the Soros-Obama group and was selected by them. Hillary , like Obama will be another front person for her major donors.
Or as I call him, “Specious”.
Don’t look now but he has another response up. And I believe JPod refers to him as “Putz” on Twitter while tag team insulting him with Jonah Goldberg.
As well JPod might. Mister Specious gets to hide behind his pseudonym while everybody else catches flak from the rabid Trump supporters.
So sayeth Podkayne of Israel. Actually, Jonah himself tells us that the secret identity of Decius is “known to anyone who cares to know it . . .”
Noah Rothman’s agenda: “Self-described conservatives, too, are resigned to the notion that the president’s executive orders are not going away….Meanwhile, the vast majority of Hispanic voters contend that they will only support a candidate who would keep the president’s immigration action in place. For Republicans who need to win Latino support in order to retake the White House, promising to reverse the president’s immigration actions is going to seem increasingly suicidal.”
I was a big fan of Rubio, but the NR postmortem of his campaign was troubling, and really put his failure to win week after week in perspective. If we could have Rubio with the iron will and desire to get the ground game right that Ted Cruz had, we’d have something. Hopefully he learned this from this campaign, as I believe he learned from getting rolled with Gang of 8.
He may have permanently damaged himself with temporarily going low against Trump, then trying to recant that approach, fun as it was at the time.
It’s amusing to see a pseudonymic poster belittle Decius.
What do those two round fruits have to do with it?
They are shiny. I like shiny.
I guess I just don’t know any “rabid Trump supporters.” Maybe the round fruits were to symbolize the two rabid ones. I dunno. The metaphors and similes are getting too detached from reality.
Completely agree on Noonan and most others. I think James Taranto would have to call the “Fox Butterfield” rule on her. If Donald Trump “acted sane” – in her view – there would be no Republican running close to the Democrat to wistfully imagine if he only acted “sane”.
And it’s amusing to see multiple pseudonymous posters try to point out Podkayne’s “hypocrisy.”
But multiple pseudonymous posters did not accuse Podkayne of hiding behind his pseudonym. They merely pointed out the irony of one pseudonymous poster critcizing another pseudonymous poster for hiding behind his pseudonym.
I happen to absolutely agree with Mr. Goldberg that hiding behind pseudonyms while publishing pieces to change the course of an election is cowardly. Is that clear enough, Mr. Fawlty?
I’m sure the authors of the Federalist Papers are suitably abashed.
Jonah Goldberg has decided to make a living being a voice for Conservative Inc. This is his professional workplace.
Many of us earn a living elsewhere and decide to remain anonymous.
So when a person with a paid megaphone calls someone a coward, I find it humorous, to say the least.
Mr Goldberg , you call someone a coward in person, and expect to defend yourself. Such is the way of manhood. Now go away and giggle.
OMG.
True. And they were wrong to equate the forum used by Podkayne with the forum(s) used by Decius.
More like balsa wood.
Not denying Eleanor’s influence, but she was not some power behind the throne. In spite of his age and ill health, FDR was compos mentis right to the end.