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On the first of this week’s COMMENTARY podcasts, Abe Greenwald, Noah Rothman, and John Podhoretz discuss the Trump poll plunge into the 30s and the beginning of his flame war against the GOP for betraying him.
The question they ask is: Which part of the Republican base does the party have to appeal to if and when Trump loses—his base or the millions of Republican-aligned voters who appear to be fleeing the party because of him? We make specific reference to a powerful tweetstorm by Mary Beth Glenn that John reads as though he were reciting “Invictus.” Give a listen.
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The Republican Party will have no way to go. It is irredeemably split. It will collapse. John Podhoretz is doing his best to make sure that outcome occurs. As is the Republican leadership. The Republican Party will be downsized by roughly half either way it goes, and will be in no position to win any Presidential election ever again. It will no longer be a credible national party. The irrevocable split in the GOP may presage a split in the nation, as some States will not succumb to a third Obama term perpetrated by a vindictive and vicious Statist/totalitarian, and the Union may collapse. Sadly, Trump is not even the cause of this. It is the Republican Party that has sealed it’s own fate in its ineffectual response to Obama’s Constitutional depredations, perpetrating such monstrosities as Corker-Cardin. Trump is a symptom, not a cause. John Podhoretz, on the other hand, is a part of the cause, as is the GOP leadership (if such it can be called).
John & Commentary,
Odd, but the L.A. Times tracking poll has Trump ahead by 2% as of today.
Who’s Winning? Daily track of Clinton and Trump’s support
I don’t want to miss the end of the world. Could you please explain the discrepancy. Is the L.A. Times some bastion of Trumpkin neo-fascist support? Surely you have all the answers.
Regards,
Jim
Ooooooh Happy Days for you, J-Pod. And Mega-Huzzah’s from California. False magnanimity given that I never had actual skin in the game. Given the toxic magnet of the Welfare State and rampant Illegal Immigration, our Democrat government became unhappy with the it’s governed and saw fit to chose a new one. And besides, Public Unions control politics in California so Trump is really not even on the ballot. After the third Obama term, the US will be California’s all the way down.
So, to counterpose the thesis in Savior Generals, you are the McCLellan of your time, sir. Courageously saving the American middle class from its nativist impulses by putting down the unseemly Jackson of this time. Not in my name!, can I getta Harumph?
So, fresh toga’s all around and push the chips over to Paul Ryan. Yep, no need of a man with a chest when you can policy-wonk the American people to your side and green eye-shade the Dems into submission as our Super Eloquent Principled Conservative Statesman emerges on the political scene to save the American founding. ‘If you can keep it-‘, indeed.
Well played, my man. Enjoy your victory. It is well-deserved.
I listened two this twice and loved it. When John talks about the two Republican bases at about 25 minutes in, it really spoke to me. If people who are truly authentic Trump fans want to vote for him, it’s pointless for me to hold it against them. But though I understand the ideas and motivations they claim to hold, I literally do not understand their emotional investment in the man himself. And I honestly don’t think they understand my emotional abhorrence to him. There is a broad valley between us–maybe as big a breach as that between Republicans and Democrats. Even if both sides wanted to reconcile, who among the power players possesses the humility to make the first move?
Easy answer: It’s an outlier. I don’t know that the LA Times is a bastion of anything, but it’s the only poll to regularly show any hope at all for Trump. All the other polls conducted over the same time have them, at best tied, all the way up to Clinton +10. I think that believing only the one among the multitudes just sets you up for disappointment, but hey… you do what you gotta do to get yourself through the day.
Commentary gang – I was not familiar with the blogger from Wisconsin and her “tweet storm”. She expressed my feelings beautifully.
Trump and his followers hate the Republican Party and want to destroy it and turn it into something else. They are not opposing the Republicans for not sticking to conservatism enough. They define conservatism based on support for Trump and nothing else. I guess J-Pod and I and all the other NeverTrumpers are causing this rift by not surrendering.
I’m sure that is exactly what J-Pod is thinking. “I’m winning!” The NeverTrumpers love that the GOP is breaking up, and the Trump supporters hate that the GOP is breaking up. Those words I just typed make complete sense.
I am sorry that Mary Beth Glenn is so offended by an 11-year old illegally obtained tape of a private conversation. She apparently does not understand that we are at war, and that we are losing.
I would put up with a lot worse language, all day every day, if we could get rid of the Clintons, and the rest of the progs. They are far worse and far more harmful than Donald Trump. These essays by Victor Davis Hanson http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=9457 and Kurt Schlichter http://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2016/10/10/with-clinton-we-will-be-under-occupation-in-our-own-country-n2230044 reflect what I see in the country, and I find it far more disturbing than juvenile sexual bragging.
How much longer do you think that the country class is going to put up with leftist oppression? How much longer will Russia and China hold off? How much longer can the debt crisis be averted?
I know that Donald Trump is a terrible candidate, and probably a terrible person, but, unlike Hillary Clinton, he is not responsible causing a civil war in Libya, which has killed thousands of Libyans, and at least four Americans, and I am pretty sure he can add and subtract, which puts him miles ahead of all liberals.
Mary Hodges
Mine, too, but I was there months ago.
Great comment @merrijane !
Yudansha,
Odd, but the poll that is +10 Hillary is always the one quoted around these parts by those who should know very much better. They never refer to the +10 Hillary poll as an outlier. Tell my Yudansha, do you think the release of the video wasn’t planned? Do you think that a phalanx of left-wing media wasn’t tipped that it was coming? If they had treated it like they treated the least of the accusations against Bill Clinton (and we know the proven facts of Bill Clinton’s rape) then this wouldn’t have even been noticed.
So Trump has been cooked and finished yet again. Whatever it takes to tell yourself that you aren’t electing Hillary Clinton every time you are sucked into the media hype.
Regards,
Jim