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Buchanan on Trump, Or, Could the Good People of Ricochet Help Me Figure This Out?
From Pat Buchanan’s latest column:
…Trump has connected to [a]…powerful current … That is the issue of uncontrolled and illegal immigration, the sense America’s borders are undefended, that untold millions of lawbreakers are in our country, and more are coming. While most come to work, they are taking American jobs and consuming tax dollars, and too many come to rob, rape, murder and make a living selling drugs.
Moreover, the politicians who have talked about this for decades are a pack of phonies who have done little to secure the border.
Trump boasts that he will get the job done, as he gets done all other jobs he has undertaken. And his poll ratings are one measure of how far out of touch the Republican establishment is with the Republican heartland.
The Republican establishment, completely out of touch with the Republican heartland.
In re which, two questions:
1) What is “the Republican establishment?” I’m serious here. How would you define the term?
2) Depending on your definition above, what do you make of Buchanan’s assertion? Is the Republican establishment out of touch with the Republican heartland? Or does Trump’s polling reflect something else–maybe the desire of a lot of Americans of both parties simply to vent their frustrations to pollsters?
Published in General
Angelo Codevilla may say it best:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/07/does-trump-trump-angelo-codevilla-on-our-present-moment.php
(1) The undefined other that explains the GOP’s recent electoral failures.
(2) Buchanan is just making the same, old nativist pitch he’s always made. Buchanan sees a lot of himself in Trump’s current persona, and is praising the man because of it.
1) Those willing to win elections by selling out conservative ideals.
2) Yes, because they are willing to sell out conservative ideals. How long until Obama is forced to veto a bill securing the border?
I say all this hating Trump and his candidacy.
Trump is the Sarah Palin of this election cycle. He gets the right people riled up and engenders irrational hatred in the opposition. In the end his actual candidacy is just as frivolous, his ideas just as paper thin and his end goal the same: attention, fame and the money that comes with it.
If there is no establishment, you should worry. I second the comment about concerning Mr. Codevilla’s article.
The WND article wasn’t especially informative and didn’t resonate as much as the Codevilla treatise. To Which I say Exactly!
Excerpt
But there’s so much more that rings true.
This is such a false comparison! Mrs. Palin was a politician of some skill & could have become serious. This guy is a wannabe mafioso. She won elections & dealt with people, governed a state, & did not make her national speeches or off-the-cuff remarks into hateful stuff. How could you even say this?
To me the establishment is the Republican leadership in the Congress, the RNC, NRCC, NRSC, and the big donors who support those institutions. Not sure how else you would define it.
It’s not that simple: You also have to include academics & parts of the media. It’s politicians, businessmen, & latter-day sophists…
Riled up? It’s not Trump who is responsible for “riling up the right people.”
I thought the answer to your first question is obvious. The establishment are the established powers within the party.
They are the senior members and consultants who decide what is allowed to the floor for voting, decide which candidates receive campaign assistance, decide appointments to Congressional committees, and so on.
They are the ones who make backroom deals with the President and then demand unread acquiescence from their fellow Congressmen.
The party operates by seniority, rather than by popularity or by merit. Though members like Ted Cruz and Ted Poe are not totally without influence, it is the members who have been in DC for decades and gave us the Leviathan who determine what strategies the Republican party will pursue.
Establishment = management. That management is both corrupt and inept.
To me, the grass roots want to talk about issues that most leading politicians in the Republican Party don’t want to talk about lest it mean bad press. For instance, gay marriage, affirmative action, immigration. If you come out against any of these things you will be in for a torrent of abuse from the MSM. Unfortunately for them, the base does what to talk about these issues and don’t feel they are being heard.
I’m no giant fan of Palin, but this is an insult to her and her supporters. And I hope you aren’t implying there is much overlap in Palins supporters and Trumps supposed supporters.
I have a very low opinion of polls and don’t don’t trust them -certainly not at this point. People who respond to polls often aren’t serious, aren’t really listening or deciding. The polls reflect one thing only at this point. Some people like what Trump is saying. They aren’t reflecting on his past or his ambivalent party affiliations or seriously considering what it would actually be like with him as President – or even as the GOP nominee.
1.) People paid to be Republicans.
2.) Sort of. There are a lot of class distinctions that get lost in republican pablum. The vast mass of unwashed working class white people that make up the bulk of voting republicans have interests radically different than upper middle class white people who make up the majority of the republican media consumers.
Editorial – 99.99999% of the problem is the rampant malicious and hateful jack***ery (Only the vernacular provides effective emotive context, I apologize for the limitations of the english language.) from professional republicans directed at their customers. Until they learn to not do this, they will continue to get trolled by their own party.
The problem is that people are listening and taking the nasty invective personally.
She quit half way and hasn’t so much as run for dog catcher since. She has made a lot of money off her fame and had a few reality tv shows though. She also displays the same seriousness concerning policy as Trump – which is to say none.
So, the establishment is businessmen, politicians, some media-types, and some academics. That’s an incredibly broad array of people who have a dizzying number of conflicting interests and ideas. I don’t believe that’s a coherent definition of the “Establishment.”
In my view, the term is useful only insofar as to describe the mindset of the type of person with whom populist appeals resonate, i.e. one who believes that he is a mere cog being acted upon by larger forces, which are set against his ideals for nefarious reasons.
1. Its generally seen as the Big Business supported Republican members of congress. A few examples of people being accused of it are McConnell and Boehner. These Republicans are alleged to (as King Prawn states and I agree with his perception) be a Democrat Lite, a group in the republican party that are not conservative enough to withstand the pressure from the political left and will either-
A) Only work to further their big business donor interests or
B) Compromise with the Democratic Party for no gains to the conservative cause, an example being the perception over the blockage of the anti-Planned Parenthood Bill attachment to the Highway Bill by McConnell.
2. It doesn’t matter if this alleged “Washington Cartel” as Senator Cruz puts it is conservative or not as right now the Republicans in congress are no more powerful than the President if not weaker in terms of legislation over public policy (given Barack’s history of executive orders).
You need a super majority in congress to override the president’s veto power (only 54 Republicans in the senate so it is a no go) and so you have to compromise to pass anything even remotely conservative with Democrats against their own man. As such this complaint about the establishment is meaningless.
This fad of Trump is just the same populist anger over the current state of affairs that has happened several other times in US history (Theodore Roosevelt and Ross Perot serve as examples).
In any large corporation, an executive culture emerges even without deliberate fostering. It is unremarkable to note this same phenomenon in political parties.
We can debate how powerful that management is in directing or obstructing junior members. We can debate the degree to which that management’s goals and methods harmonize with those of the voters they claim to represent. But to deny even the existence of a management culture and fraternity is absurd.
I’m sure there is more overlap than many well meaning Palinistas would like to admit.
I was with you until the ‘people who respond to polls’ line: Sure, they’re unserious, but so’s most of the electorate in any massive country.
There must be more overlap simply because of how well-meaning people think. But that’s no excuse!
To say that the “establishment” is the “management” is to just swap one term for another. Peter is asking you to name names. To explain who these people are in particular, and to explain their ideals, or lack thereof, and precisely how they’ve sold out true conservative interests. That’s pretty hard to do, especially if you look at the past eight years when, Ted Cruz’s defiance notwithstanding, the Republicans have not controlled the law-making branches of the federal government in toto.
It’s very disappointing to hear Peter say that he has no idea who the Republican establishment is. It’s the yahoos currently running the party at the national level, the ones listed by Peter Fumo in #8. (You notice that many of the states are doing just fine.) It is so rare to see anyone in the national GOP leadership confront the immigration issue with anything more than toothless platitudes. Reform immigration? Hell, I’d be happy if the laws currently on the books were actually enforced. Boy, does it tick me off that they have allowed someone like Trump a foothold.
Most politicians seem more worried about re-election than about advancing a common sense conservative agenda. I think perhaps there’s a sort of arrogance that takes hold, even among the best. Sort of an,”I’m representing conservatism in Washington and there are too few of us to risk losing the election” mentality. And even when someone does start to rock the boat, usually it seems to be in the name of grandstanding and setting themselves apart.
That’s why I appreciated Scott Walker in his fight with the unions. He quietly and calmly stood his ground for a conservative principle with wide support. Well, from Maryland I didn’t see much in the way of grandstanding. He seemed content to let the union activists make the noise while he waited them out.
1) What is “the Republican establishment?” I’m serious here. How would you define the term? Peter and Prawn have captured it well in their comments. I might add that the establishment is a closed tent, invitation-only group. It’s your father’s Oldsmobile. No new ideas, no backbone, no fight.
2) Depending on your definition above, what do you make of Buchanan’s assertion? Is the Republican establishment out of touch with the Republican heartland? YES!
Or does Trump’s polling reflect something else–maybe the desire of a lot of Americans of both parties simply to vent their frustrations to pollsters? Take Trump out and insert someone else bold enough to say what millions of Americans have been trying to tell our elected officials and frankly, anyone else who might listen, and you have your answer. Frustrated? Oh, we are waaayyyy beyond that now. Personally, what Ted Cruz said last week about how nothing gets done pretty much captures it. Trumps popularity isn’t just about immigration, it’s about all the issues that no one ever seems to fix. We aren’t going to win them all….but how about trying to win SOMETHING!
1. Republican Establishment. The cronyist wing of the party. Based in Washington. Doesn’t like to alienate anybody. Avoids being divisive. Mostly looking to get re-elected by keeping its head down. Confuses support for big business with support for free markets. Dislikes anything destabilizing, hence, gravitates towards realism in foreign policy. Will deregulate as a favor to a friend rather than on principle. Has absorbed a lot of the mainstream media culture and wants to stay away from “icky” grassroots issues.
2. Yes, the Republicans establishment is way out of touch of the Republican heartland. Per Jim Geraghty on today’s Three Martini Lunch, the expectation was that the new Republican majority was going to send up a bunch of items to force presidential vetoes of popular legislation. Instead, the Senate is reviving the Export-Import Bank.
Trump’s popularity is a response to the timidity of the Republican Establishment. He is a vehicle for all of that frustration. But I think the Trump campaign is more about frustration than the broader conservative agenda, typically understood. To me the question is what happens when the two come into collision. Does Trump yield to the larger conservative agenda or does the conservative agenda yield to Trump?
This is 2015 in my world. Eight years ago it was 2007, year of the big amnesty fight about the 2005 bill. Was not that the year Sen. McCain, then-president W. Bush, & the party all went for amnesty, joining with the late Kennedy who may or may not have blood on his hands? There’s your establishment; there’s your opposition to it. It seems to be alive & kicking–the issue has returned recently, & separating the party about the same way-
It should be obvious.
Its the crapless feckweasels.
Every politician wants to be re-elected. The argument that Congressmen get too comfortable in the Beltway is a great point in favor of structural constitutional reform, i.e. term limits, but it doesn’t help to define a wing of the GOP. That criteria defines every wing of every successful political party in history.
Amen. I almost mentioned that too.
Some politicians want to get re-elected because they want to do great things. Some politicians like the title and the trappings of authority.