Tag: GOP Establishment

In this episode, Dave sits down with Brian Rust, the host of Panama City Beach and Bay County’s most listened to talk show, The Brian Rust Show on News Talk@101FM. On the air weekdays from 5 – 8AM, Brian not only has a finely tuned sense of voter temperament, but he has the attention of the 2nd Congressional District’s Representative, among others. As the conversation progresses, Dave and Brian discuss the impact of President Biden’s economic prescriptions on voters in the Florida panhandle and across the country.   There’s more to the conversation, including Brian’s diagnosis of the GOP’s electoral prospects in the future.  

From Dave’s perspective on current events, to a fascinating discussion with one talk radio’s brightest lights, to some new plans for Dave’s podcast, this is a fast-paced and compelling show that you won’t want to miss. 

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Inspired by @bloodthirstyneocon‘s reply to @HeavyWater‘s challenge to come up with a midterm prediction model and by the news of the day that Republicans are not going to attempt to fund the wall before the midterms.   I predict that they will not be able to appropriate funds for the wall (even if they wanted to) after the […]

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On his radio show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh mused that the current mania to purge all things from the Confederacy and the Founding is in fact a Mao-like Cultural Revolution staged by the American Left. He is correct. And on his radio show, consistently since soon after the inauguration, Mark Levin has insisted that the current […]

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Wait, So Now Wyoming Cheated Too?

 

wyomingI just found out that some Trump supporters are also claiming that the Wyoming caucuses were unfair.

I attended the district (4-9) and county (Laramie) level caucuses. At the district caucus, I was elected to be a delegate to the county convention. At the county convention, I was elected to be an alternate delegate to the state convention. I did not attend the state convention due to a blizzard.

At each level which I attended, there were elections for delegates. At each level, the support for Ted Cruz was overwhelming. It was not even close.

We All Agree the GOP Establishment is Horrible. But What Is it?

 

Trump BushPlug “GOP Establishment” into Google and you get 362,000 results. Try “GOPe” and you get 373,000 more. Everyone hates them, but who and what is the GOP Establishment?

According to Wikipedia, it refers to “the traditional, moderate-to-conservative members of the Republican Party of the United States.” Of course, “moderate-to-conservative” seems to include everyone in the GOP. Several outsiders have tried to nail down the definition further, echoing Breitbart’s Tony Lee: “Those who want to preserve the status quo because they directly benefit from it and don’t challenge the political-media industrial complex.”

That obviously would include people like George W. Bush and John McCain strategist Mark McKinnon, but he defines the GOPe as ”The measles. A disease. A political disease.” National Review Editor Rich Lowry said, “It is, roughly speaking, made up of current officeholders, prominent former officeholders, consultants and lobbyists, donors, and business groups like the Chamber of Commerce.” But of course he would say that since everyone knows NR is another tool of the establishment.

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Never Mind:  I now see that Tuck has covered this ground already. Where’s the goshdarn Delete button. Some members of the GOP Establishment (and if there’s no such thing as a GOP Establishment as some people claim, then explain these guys) discussing Trump. Preview Open

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It’s because of arrogant Republican Establishment statements (and attitudes) like this: “The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That’s the conflict here,” Curly Haugland, an unbound GOP delegate from North Dakota, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. He even questioned why primaries and caucuses are held. Preview Open

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Gov. Nikki Haley Was a Great VP Candidate, Until…

 

… until she gave that divisive speech after Tuesday’s state of the union. Yes, divisive. Who says divisive must be between Republican and Democrat, black and white, poor and rich? It was divisive between establishment loyalists and conservative malcontents. And it was gratuitous.

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This short satire was originally written for last year’s New Year’s Eve. It is a sarcastic toast to the ineffectual and complicit GOP establishment which was about to gain control of both houses of Congress. It is just as relevant to this upcoming New Year’s Eve. So, join me in raising a glass in a milquetoast […]

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Trump Is Winning Because He Taps Into Issues No One Else Will Tackle

 

1200px-thumbnailAt The Federalist, Dan McLaughlin (aka the Baseball Crank) discusses the phenomenon of the Donald Trump candidacy from the perspective of military strategy. If nothing else, it is a great primer on military strategist and aircraft designer John (“Forty Second”) Boyd, one of the most remarkable men to ever woIk at the Pentagon. Using Boyd’s principles, McLaughlin explains both why Trump has been a success so far, but also how he may eventually fail.

My overall take is that McLaughlin is overthinking Trump. While Trump has certainly shown far more political skill than his detractors give him credit for, I don’t think he would have skyrocketed to the top if he hadn’t hitched his ride to a number of pre-existing issues and trends. How much of this was deliberate strategy and how much pure luck I can only guess, but I suspect that Donald Trump is genuinely surprised by how well things are going. Regardless, I see three underlying issues propelling Trump forward. In descending order of importance, they are: immigration, the GOP establishment, and Political Correctness.

Immigration: Trump championed this issue right out of the gate. Until he announced his candidacy, both parties favoured more immigration (minus a few recalcitrant Republicans like Senator Jeff Sessions). The Democrats wanted to increase their voter base and the mainstream Republicans wanted to satisfy the cheap labour lobby. This issue was ripe for the plucking and Donald Trump plucked it. I think there is little doubt that Trump would not be leading the pack if he weren’t championing this cause.

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Part of the reason the attacks on Trump have misfired is because they are based on a false premise: That Conservatives have deserted the party (Traitors!) and flocked to Trump. However, it’s more recently been determined that the bulk of Trump supporters are not movement conservatives but blue collar moderates. Preview Open

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My Attempt to Explain “The Establishment”

 

It’s a word that gets thrown around with more frequency than anyone would really care to know. For some it means, “Those who will not commit political suicide,” while for others it means, “Those who have no spine.” But despite being near useless in explaining who is at the top of the Republican Party, the word “establishment” does have a meaning, and it does have members. The power of the establishment is debatable. On one hand, the performance of the national party inside Washington DC is more than capable of being orchestrated by these select few. After all, what good is having a leadership apparatus if it cannot exert some form of influence within its own sphere. However, on the other hand, it’s powerless to influence individuals like you or me to do anything when it comes to campaigns, including vote, if you do not succumb to their efforts. I will explain this.

First, the political establishment is made up of the folks one might expect. These would be the people in high positions of power in the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the leadership positions in the House and Senate. So yes, Reince Priebus and Sharon Day, the second in command at the RNC, would fit this description. We all know about Priebus, but who is Sharon Day? Day is someone described by the Florida paper The Sun-Sentinel as an “uber [sic] Republican.” She hails from Florida, obviously, and was elected to the number-two spot in 2011. She stays behind the scenes mostly, speaking to dedicated GOP crowds during elections, and trying to wash the smears of “War on Women” off of the GOP. Since she is from Florida, it is hard to imagine that she has not had close contact to folks like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, but that is pure conjecture and not enough to go on to claim that she is secretly a leftist, as many wish to paint the Establishment as being.

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Our weepy, ineffectual Speaker of the House went on Face the Nation this morning and trashed Conservatives in his own party. (Criticize Democrats? Of course not.) Boehner ticked off the biggest legislative victories he had in the House ‘all voted against by my most conservative members’ because, as the Speaker put it, the bills weren’t […]

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Corporate Climbers and the GOP Establishment

 

shutterstock_55052476In a small organization, everybody cares about now it is doing. After all, it cuts their paycheck, so all the employees have a direct incentive to care for it. But the bigger an organization becomes — and this is equally true whether it is private or public — the less important its immediate survival becomes to each employee. Its continuity and health is more and more taken for granted as the prospects of bankruptcy become ever more remote. Instead, what looms larger and larger in everybody’s mind is their individual place in its hierarchy. It is much more lucrative to be an executive in a large ailing company, than to floor sweeper at a corporate success story.

This leads inevitably to the flourishing of a particular type of creature: the corporate climber. This person doesn’t give a whit about how the outfit he works for is doing, but is solely focused on the next rung in the org chart. The proliferation of corporate climbers is a problem for all organizations that are successful for too long. The danger is magnified because the company can do well for a long time – coasting on its laurels – before the moral rot becomes apparent. Unfortunately, often by the time it is noticeable, not only will the CEO have become a self-interested striver, but also was the man he replaced, and the man that man replaced.

The best example of this is Rick Wagoner, the former CEO of General Motors. He ran the company from 2000 until its bankruptcy nine years later. In 2007 – the year before bankruptcy — his salary was $1.5 million, with a total compensation of $14.4 million. After the company failed, he retired with an exit package worth $10 million. In other words, if the rot is deep enough, it doesn’t even matter if the organization fails completely; the man most responsible for its failure will still draw generous benefits.

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The GOP establishment is desperate to bring down Donald Trump. Buying off someone whose net worth is over ten billion dollars is too expensive even for the GOP donor class. And when you’re worth ten billion, you don’t have to be terribly concerned when people call you nasty names like racist or tell you you’re […]

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On Pragmatists

 

shutterstock_254757025Although I may well come across as one of those barn-burning conservatives inclined to cut off our electoral nose to spite our establishment face, I’m not. Despite my awful experience working for the GOP, I learned that there are sets of skills and knowledge that vast swaths of the base know very little about. We need “experts,” people who know voting and demographic trends, folks who can somehow deduce your stance on gun control from whether or not you own a boat, enjoy hockey, wear casual leather shoes, and drink domestic beer. There’s a lot of analysis and strategizing that happens behind the scenes that can – and often does — help good candidates win.

Regarding governance, our political system is one of checks and balances, ugly realities, and innumerable hurdles in the way of getting our message out. Sometimes, it makes sense to throw caution to the wind and push forward, regardless of how many votes we have in the Senate; sometimes, however, it does not. Although it can be beyond annoying to hear “You can’t do that” over and over, there are times when it’s exactly what we need to hear.

Firebrands like us are quick to identify — often correctly — those in the GOP establishment who are actual enemies of conservatism, the kind of politicians or consultants who wouldn’t push for defunding Planned Parenthood or overturning ObamaCare even if we did have the votes. But there is another kind within the establishment who genuinely want what’s best for America, who disagree with the base on tactics, but who ultimately want what we want. This posts is addressed to, and about, them: those pragmatists who are on our side, despite their obliviousness to what many of us would regard as obvious. It’s hard to tell these principled pragmatists apart from the cynical kind of pragmatist, but there is a difference.