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The GOP Needs To ‘Primary’ The “Old” Strategists/Commentators
So … we find that the veteran (experience is not a strength if it is all bad) political class of “strategists, commentators and consultants” (join us on our next cruise … please, clap) and their fans are gearing up for another failed run in 2020. Oh my, but they are gaining in confidence once again, listening to each other in their extremely comfortable echo chamber. Mitt! Jeb! John (my dad was a postman)!
Seriously?! C’Mon Man!
President Reagan is rolling over in his grave … “There you go again”.
It’s bad enough that they are regurgitating all of the old, tired and losing ideas of their conventional “wisdom” (lol, how many times do they need to lose to learn from their loserdom), but once again they embrace the corpse of President Reagan to wrap themselves in, as if they ever had anything to do with President Reagan’s policies, popularity or prosperity. No, they fought him in 1976 and 1980 and only embraced him after he defeated them, all merely in order to claim his personal successes as theirs and to promptly turn around and end the legacy he had built. ‘Conservatism’ to them was, and is, icky. They say it needs a “thousand points of light” or “compassion” (wretch) to accompany it, or it is a nasty thing to be avoided. Nah Baby, nah.
President Reagan’s policies and perspective on government are much closer to President Trump’s, than to the failed rhetoric of the GOP, Inc. losers and their handlers. Limited government, lower taxes, peace through strength and the fact that America is a country of exceptional people and the freest country on the face of the earth. Make it great again indeed.
And what is with all of this pretentious and emotional fixation on the person? The failed GOP commentariat and their zombie sycophants are obsessed with Trump, the person. Trump, Trump, Trump. And they conversely focus on their “ideal” profile of a candidate. To them, it’s all about the person, the elitist chin and the image (vomit). People! That’s what the Dems do. And they do it better than Kristol, Murphy & Co.’s ‘socialism lite’. You are playing a losing game to follow their lead. Again.
No one knows who will be running in 2020. It is light years away, politically speaking. President Trump is unconventional in every way. He is not predictable and most especially to this collection of GOP, Inc. buffoons genius’. He may not even run for re-election. Peggy Noonan (a NeverTrumper who still can make good observations) writes last week that he could say … “I accomplished in four years what other guys couldn’t do in eight!” … “My work is done!” But make no mistake, if he goes this route, he will select his successor and set them up for victory in 2020, unlike W, who basically set his party, and country, up for failure in 2008 and the imposition of Obama socialism for eight years.
But whether the candidate is the re-election of President Trump, or his hand-picked apprentice, GOP, Inc. better get on board with the winning direction and message for their voters. MAGA, version 2.0. Voters equal ‘populism’ and populism is not a bad thing. President Reagan was a populist. That is only a dirty word to the GOP, Inc. elitists. The only future success of the GOP is to be the proudly American party and the bold and courageous opposition to the Socialist Democrats. That means ditch Mitt, John. Jeff, Ben and whatever other milquetoast ‘magic ponies’ Kristol/Murphy come up with. There is a lesson to be learned with the demise of the Weakly Standard. The party and magic pony of Kristol/Murphy is dead.
2020 is either the re-election of President Trump or it is a continuation of the Trump policies and his Apprentice ticket. Elect Mike Pence/Nikki Haley if the President chooses not to run. And it’s all about the policies, not the person.
Get with the program, GOP. Or lose again.
Published in General
Convincing yourself against all available evidence that Trump has not produced conservative results is a recipe for disaster.
Orange Man Bad is lazy and intellectually empty. As a 2020 campaign theme, it is absurd and ridiculous.
What is lazy and intellectually empty is attacking straw men. I did not argue either of those points.
What do you believe are the substantial differences between the two? Why was Reagan not a populist as well as a conservative? In what ways are the difficulties in the areas you cited due to a lack of conservatism, as opposed to a rejection of social and/or cultural conservatism in favor of progressive Cultural Marxism, due in large part to college indoctrination?
The substantial difference is being principled rather than pandering. Reagan was a principled conservative who occasionally made political concessions but generally strove to convince people of his conservative ideas. Trump seemingly has no principles.
College campuses have been leftist hotbeds for decades; Republican problems with suburban, college educated voters is a very recent phenomenon.
Voters want government to give them stuff because Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™
Then there are real and ginned up social issues.
Populism is not a dirty word.
What you regard as straw men are merely my shorthand description of your comments. Just because you disagree with the shorthand does not make them straw men.
This clearly defines Trump as just a ‘populist’ (do you spit when you say that?) with no success (or even prospect for). Yes, this equals my shorthand … “not produced conservative results.”
This states, as fact, that Trump only won because he faced Hillary. He is singularly unlikable and even though he won and Romney lost, he is the loser. Yes, my short hand ”Orange Man Bad” appropriately describes your point.
Speaking of straw men …
First, the OP is about the terrible strategists of GOP, Inc., not Trump. I even allow for a different head of the ticket than Trump in 2020. No where is “electoral juggernaut” even inferred much less mentioned. The only electoral disaster is if the buffoons in GOP, Inc. try to run a dem-lite Jeb! Part II! on some platform that is indistinguishable from the dems. Like Kasich, Romney, Sasse or other similar milquetoast moderates.
President Reagan was both conservative and a populist. Trump is more of a populist but the overlap is yuge. I think that GOP, Inc. uses populism as a pejorative. They hate conservatism too, but they can’t say that, so they create the bogeyman called “populism” and say things like populism is pandering and the losing stuff they’re selling is “principled”.
How elitist.
So you define populism and conservatism in terms of motivation, not policies and positions?
That’s the way generational sequencing works; the people indoctrinated in those hotbeds of Leftism (as well as digital age pop-culture) have only recently become dominant. What specific conservative positions, rejected or neglected by Trump, do you believe will bring those college-educated suburbanites back? What specific ‘populist’ positions, championed by Trump and not other members of the political class, repels those same voters? Or is it mostly a matter of personality and messaging, not populism versus conservatism?
Neither is unprincipled but…
Actually it is.
No, you can say it on broadcast television.
Your “shorthand” has no basis in what I said.
Trump is a narcissistic demagogue, attributing his demagoguery to populism is being kind.
I neither said nor implied anything about success. Populists, and demagogues, can be successful.
I never said or implied he was a “loser,” nor did I say he was bad. He is an awful human being but that is irrelevant to my point.
Everyone you mentioned is a conservative. Sasse is the 3rd most conservative member of the Senate. Arguing he and the others are indistinguishable from Dems or moderates is absurd and without any merit.
No, Reagan was not a populist; he was a conservative. Populism is definitionally unprincipled.
Populism cannot be defined by policies because it has no guiding ideological principles.
By your definition, the populist uprising of 13 American colonies leading to the Revolutionary War was unprincipled.
No, populism is not unprincipled. Populism is neutral. It is like an alphabet. What matters is how it’s used.
I can see how, if you don’t give a crap about the concerns of ordinary people, then you would hate populism.
Your premise is false, the American Revolution was not a populist uprising.
Ah, now you’ve contradicted yourself. First you said it was unprincipled. Now you say it has no guiding ideological principles.
You’re not making sense. Perhaps you’re just using words without really understanding their meanings.
‘Fraid you’re wrong about that.
I think we’re dealing with people whose guiding principle is “Orange Man Bad.” Even when “Orange Man” does the exact same things as Saint Reagan.
Yeah. It’s either completely illogical or unprincipled. Or both.
It is unprincipled, it is focused on the concerns of a specific set of people rather than overriding principles.
Not at all. The American Revolution was never a particularly popular endeavor.
Reagan was a free trader. Did he make political cessions at times? Of course, but that does not change his beliefs.
MAGA seems to be interpreted as demagogic populism by his critics. I understand it as guiding principle. VDH in his recent podcast with Troy mentioned that Reagan used that expression.
There is another expression : “Deeds not words.” This is the Trumpacolytes’ criticism of GOP, Inc. Remember when they all campaigned for reelection on the platform of “repeal and replace” Obamacare ?
So he gets things done (litany of accomplishments over his first two years we all know) but doesn’t articulate them any better than with the simple expression of MAGA. Works for me. Silent Cal.
Columbo,
Regards,
Jim
Depends on whether those concerns are unprincipled or not.
You seem to be falling into the trap of saying that the American Revolution was not populist mainly because you agree with it. And that President Trump’s election was populist because you disagreed with it.
It cannot be a guiding principle as it neither defines what would make America great nor how it is to be accomplished.
I seem to remember Trump also campaigning on repeal and replace and assuring us he had a great plan to replace it. Remember “get rid of the lines?” He utterly failed to present a replacement plan Republicans in Congress could unite behind. The failure to replace Obamacare lies with the White House not “GOP Inc.” (whatever the hell that is)
What accomplishments? A tax cut?
Which has nothing to do with whether it was a populist uprising. You do understand the defintion, correct?