Thursday, March 10, 2016

Liberal Wealthy and GOP Establishment Plot Against Trump

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Since day one I have not necessarily been a fan of Donald Trump's presidential run. I am not sure if he is being honest in what he is saying, nor have I believed he believes the words that come out of his own mouth. However, his followers believe his words, and the Trump Supporters are angry at the GOP establishment. Conservatives gave the Republicans the House and the Senate, and they have let us down.

The establishment is angry about Trump, not only because of what he says, but because he is outside the system, and the power and money of the inside club does not desire outside disruptions. They fear that an outsider like Trump can't be controlled, and can't be bought, and that worries them greatly. . . which is exactly the reason Trump's supporters like him.

What is interesting to me is that while I am not a fan of Trump, I am not hysterical about the possibility of a Trump presidency, either. Despite my concerns, I think he would still be better than the open socialist, Bernie Sanders, or the socialist that refuses to admit it, Hillary Clinton.

My wife told me today that at work a person said to her that if Trump won, she'd move to Mexico.

My wife, who immigrated here from Mexico, and is a naturalized American, replied, "People are trying to come here, not go to Mexico, for a reason."

And the woman replied, "and if Trump wins, everyone will be trying to go the other direction."

Really?

Not that I am saying Trump could be remotely comparable to another past figure, but did they not say similar things about Ronald Reagan?

Some people are going so far as to compare Trump to Hitler, or to say he would destroy the country. If Obama couldn't do it in eight years with his idiocy, I don't believe Trump could.

If elected, would Trump be a good President of the United States? Probably not. I think he'd be a Republican Obama, bypassing Congress to get his way. He doesn't understand the U.S. Constitution. He's a businessman who is used to getting his way, and striking deals no matter what it takes. He is flexible, even when it comes to his principles. I get it.  He's not exactly what conservatives should be backing.

But, he is also an American, I believe unlike Obama, Hillary, or Sanders, Mr. Trump loves America, our history, and our free market system. He has a legacy he wants to leave to his children, and I think he may have come to the conclusion that under Democrat Party leadership, his empire is in jeopardy.

What is interesting is that it isn't just the liberal left that is gunning for Trump, but also the GOP establishment, and the Tea Party (those who claim the Tea Party is behind him are mistaken). They all want to end his candidacy in the worst way.

Listening to the mainstream media talkers, they don't believe Trump could beat Hillary, anyway. They thought that every time he opened his mouth about the things he has said, he would lose popularity, yet each time his "radical" language has increased his following. Even his missteps have not hurt him. He partially defended Planned Parenthood, he made a remark that Bush lied about the weapons of mass destruction, and he has a record that is anything but conservative. He called Putin a nice guy, he has a history of funding Democrat Party campaigns, and his words about taxes and guns in the past are appalling. Yet, Trump keeps gaining steam. He keeps winning delegates.

In the end, it seems the only person who can derail Trump's campaign for President is Trump himself. . . yet, he hasn't, yet.

Yet.

While Trump demands that the GOP unify behind him, "or else," the Republican Party is trying to figure out how to stop him. Bret Baier of Fox News even went so far as to say that some Republicans are so fearful of Donald Trump, they would be willing to vote for Hillary Clinton.

In the General Election, if Trump did win the nomination, refusing to vote at all would be a vote for Hillary, as well.

I have a saying. "Vote your conscience during the Primary Season, but vote party in the General Election." The reality is, the best Democrat is still worse than the worst Republican.

What amazes me even more is that a lot of these people who say that if Trump wins the nomination, they won't vote, were the same people ticked off at people for not voting in the last presidential election in 2012 because they didn't like Romney because he was not conservative enough, or because he's a Mormon.

And now, the plot thickens.  According to the Huffington Post, a plot to stop Trump is having secret meetings, and the attendees are conservatives, GOP establishment, and wealthy Democrats.

The location of the secret meeting is the opulent Sea Island, Georgia.

"Billionaires, tech CEOs and top members of the Republican establishment flew to a private island resort off the coast of Georgia this weekend for the American Enterprise Institute's annual World Forum, according to sources familiar with the secretive gathering."

The main topic?  Stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

Who was there?  Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, Napster creator and Facebook investor Sean Parker, and Tesla Motors and SpaceX honcho Elon Musk; establishment Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), political guru Karl Rove, House Speaker Paul Ryan, conservative GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Ben Sasse (Neb.), who recently made news by saying he "cannot support Donald Trump."

Along with Ryan, the House was represented by Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton (Mich.), Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas) and almost-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), sources said, along with leadership figure Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.), Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Texas) and Diane Black (Tenn.).

Philip Anschutz, the billionaire GOP donor whose company owns a stake in Sea Island, was also there, along with Democratic Rep. John Delaney, who represents Maryland. Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times, was there, too, a Times spokeswoman confirmed.

"A specter was haunting the World Forum--the specter of Donald Trump," Kristol wrote in an emailed report from the conference, borrowing the opening lines of the Communist Manifesto. "There was much unhappiness about his emergence, a good deal of talk, some of it insightful and thoughtful, about why he's done so well, and many expressions of hope that he would be defeated."

"The key task now, to once again paraphrase Karl Marx, is less to understand Trump than to stop him," Kristol wrote. "In general, there's a little too much hand-wringing, brow-furrowing, and fatalism out there and not quite enough resolving to save the party from nominating or the country electing someone who simply shouldn't be president."

Trump is still winning, and has nearly one-third of the delegates he needs to secure the GOP nomination.  Next week is Florida and Ohio, and if Trump wins those delegates, he will need to win just half of the remaining delegates to secure the nomination.

Once again, not that I am saying Trump can be compared to Reagan, but the same kind of attacks were launched against Ronald Reagan as he ran his campaign.

And, it is possible, no matter how slim one may think, that Trump is not full of crap, and truly wants to make America great again.

One must also consider how the Republican Party has been saying that they need a candidate who reaches voters they haven't been able to reach.  Trump is reaching those voters, cross-over voters, voters who have been silent in the past or unwilling to vote for the GOP. . . and now they wish to plot against that candidate.

3 comments:

JASmius said...

No, Doug, the "establishment" has not let down conservatives - the "establishment" IS conservative. (Look up "Rockefeller, Nelson" when you get the chance - huge difference.) It's a matter of temperament and tactics, not ideology, remember? It is (now ex-)conservatives who have let down the "establishment", i.e. their own party:

"What a short, strange trip it’s been for Donald Trump’s conservative supporters. Ever since the Goldwaterite takeover of the GOP....

"After Barack Obama’s election, the Republican party lurched toward purity. The tea parties were a revolt not only against Obama’s leftism but also, belatedly, against the perceived apostasies of Bush, as well as John McCain.

"In 2009, then-senator Jim DeMint declared he’d rather have 30 reliable conservatives in the Senate than 60 unreliable ones. Ted Cruz launched his presidential campaign on the premise that deviation from pure conservatism cost Republicans the 2012 election. The only way to win was to refuse to compromise and instead give voters a clear choice. Many of the right’s most vocal ideological enforcers cheered him on.

"Until Trump started winning. Suddenly, the emphasis wasn’t on winning through purer conservatism but on winning at any cost.

"Consider Larry Kudlow and Stephen Moore. In August, the two legendarily libertarian-minded economists attacked Trump, focusing on what they called Trump’s 'Fortress America platform.' His trade policies threaten the global economic order, they warned. 'We can’t help wondering whether the recent panic in world financial markets is in part a result of the Trump assault on free trade,' they mused. As for Trump’s immigration policies, they could 'hardly be further from the Reagan vision of America as a ‘shining city on a hill.’'

"Months later, as Trump rose in the polls, Kudlow and Moore joined the ranks of Trump’s biggest boosters — and not because Trump changed his views. On the contrary, Kudlow has moved markedly in Trump’s direction. He now argues that the borders must be sealed and all visas canceled. He also thinks we have to crack down on China.

"What explains such Pauline conversions on the road to a Trump presidency?....Lost in the discussion is any effort to win a mandate for conservative policies, other than an impossible crackdown on immigration (and even on this Trump has acknowledged that he would be more “flexible” than initially advertised). Instead of converting voters to conservatism, Trump is succeeding at converting conservatives to statism on everything from health care and entitlements to trade."

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/432487/donald-trump-conservative-supporters-have-sold-out

The "establishment" has not sold us out, and they are not our enemy - to the degree that they don't "go Trump". They will, however, have to accommodate themselves to him over time, because ex-conservative sellouts will have given them no choice.

JASmius said...

I don't know about anybody else, but this coy, passive/aggressive "I'm not a fan, but...." stuff is getting on my nerves, my friend. I find it impossible to believe that the ultimate constitutional originalist isn't the most freaked-out about Trump of all:

"In assembling the U.S. Constitution, the Founding generation tried to record for posterity that neither liberty nor salvation can be wrung from the charming benevolence of a king. 'Experience,' Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1778, 'hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.' To avoid this fate, he concluded, an effort must be made to 'illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large.' Such an illumination, if achieved in concert with the imposition of hard limits on those who wielded power, would go a long way toward securing the integrity of the republic....

"Certainly, Trump can be heard proposing that the government has been taken over by 'elites' and by rent-seekers; and yet, having done so, he does not go on to suggest reform as the remedy so much as to suggest himself. To hear Trump tell it, he will save the country by striking better 'deals,' by refusing to be bought, and by channeling, in neo-Wilsonian fashion, what he perceives to be the will of the people. Or, put another way, Trump will solve the problem by playing the man on the white horse.

"Whatever one’s view of Trump as a man, this should concern anybody who hopes to restore the blessings of limited government. Quite rightly, the Founders conceived hard structural constraints and not benevolent politicians as the key to free societies — a fact that has unfortunately been lost on many of those who have cast ballots in this Republican primary. In my conversations with Trumpite voters, I hear the word 'cronyism' thrown around with abandon. This, I think, is fair enough. And yet the alternative to cronyism is the fracturing of power, not its consolidation.

"Alas, to consider Trump’s self-heavy offering is to recognize that he is nominating himself less as James Madison and more as Julius Caesar — that is, as the unimpeachable man who will deliver cheap salvation by the sheer force of his personality. His, ultimately, is a worldview that is antithetical both to the traditions that made America great and to the interests of those whom he claims to be defending. In Trump’s mind there is no need to diminish the size of the state; no imperative to limit entitlements or transfers; no healthy skepticism of the men with sharp bayonets and a sanctioned monopoly on violence. There is only leadership; there is only strength and cunning and the art of the deal. Who might come next and inherit power is but an afterthought — an inconvenient question that only detracts from the frenzy."

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/432497/donald-trump-2016-platform-not-what-america-needs

And that is all giving Trump the benefit of the doubt on no longer being a liberal Democrat, when the latter mindset constitutes his every instinct, as has come out at the past three debates whenever he's gotten pressed and cornered.

So how can Donald Trump be better than Sanders or Hillary? Isn't it better to be ruled by "the socialist who admits he's a socialist and Democrat" or "the socialist who refuses to admit she's a socialist but admits she's a Democrat" than the fascist who refuses to admit he's either one and is hiding behind that fake "R"?

Jack Reylan said...

We need to apply the same rules from banking and finance to university research grants, trial lawyers, and union funds. Professulas, trial lawyers and union organizers are Obama's core constituencies. Islamosympathic gutterswabbing clothing and pierced privates spread disease. Passive aggressive labor unions grab our guns, cars (congestion pricing), balls (SONDA), wallets, and homes. Professulas molest more youth than clergy do, while their posh pensions graze on stumbent loan interest from vacuous degrees in basket weaving commie nutty organizing. Apply Sarbanes Oxley to non-profits! Repeal the sixteenth amendment before any VAT. All the homeless are drugged out hippies. Waste all stumbent subprimes, so professulas need to sell their affectation glutton art and work instead of diverting tuition and Y2K scams to soviet freezeniks! Grynch soviet wealth fund abetting aghadhimmic peakies now that oil plummets! Parasites complain about salaries but pig out with benefits. Global warming is a grant grubbing extortion racket. Urban sprawl annoys terrorists. Hazards and pollution stem mostly from mandates. Aqua volte! This land wasn't built by bullocraps.