tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27654025.post1837393824370711481..comments2024-03-07T03:25:23.835-08:00Comments on Political Pistachio: Debate Regarding Political Establishment DeepensDouglas V. Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09388639848567082980noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27654025.post-54938100807200023852016-03-26T14:49:46.516-07:002016-03-26T14:49:46.516-07:00On the "establishment" subject, John Haw...On the "establishment" subject, John Hawkins' (Right Wing News) final paragraph says it all:<br /><br />"At the end of the day, if the goal is to say 'screw you' not just to the 'establishment', but to millions of grassroots conservatives and committed Christians, then it’s almost 'mission accomplished' time. However, <b>if the goal is to beat Hillary Clinton, Donald J. Trump is not someone who can make that happen.</b> To do that, the Republican Party would need to unify and that’s not possible with human poison like Donald J. Trump as the nominee. If, as expected, Donald J. Trump becomes the GOP’s candidate, the Republican Party will splinter, <b>the GOP will be decimated down ticket</b>, and millions will leave the Republican Party, at least until its infatuation with Hugo Chavez, Jr. has run its course. <b>If Donald J. Trump is the cure, the Republican Party would be better off with the disease</b>."JASmiushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12443587501661056533noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27654025.post-37480331049503362552016-03-25T19:40:26.385-07:002016-03-25T19:40:26.385-07:00Alright, the podcast is in the can, I'd taken ...Alright, the podcast is in the can, I'd taken my morning meds, had a good, if not balanced, meal, brushed my teeth, and would have a a stiff drink, it I did that sort of thing. Where was I?<br /><br />Ah, yes. I agree that voting is only part of the equation - but it's the biggest part and has the most leverage over the political process. This is another example of how things shouldn't be a given way but are anyway. You know very well that I support and believe in all your grassroots efforts to connect as many Americans as possible with the constitutional originalism that they should have been taught but never were by the socialized education system. "Stop sitting on the couch bitching, get up off your fat ass, and get involved in the process," etc. (He's saying that for your benefit, folks, not mine.) But as far away as our country has fallen from constitutional originalism, you also know equally well how diminished by orders of magnitude the maximum impact of grassroots movements away from statism have become. (I'm saying that for your benefit, folks, not Doug's.) That doesn't mean they shouldn't be mounted, but it does mean that the vote is a more important tool and a vitally necessary one to keep the federal leviathan from getting even worse. Which, in short, would you rather attempt: Swimming up Niagra Falls or swimming up the three-thousand foot tsunami following an oceanic comet impact?<br /><br />As for term limits, yeah, "if we did our jobs as voters," they wouldn't be necessary. But even 40% of Republicans aren't "doing their jobs as voters" right now, so I have very little faith in a "We the People" that is anything but "moral and religious" to fulfill that standard. Besides, I've always seen term limits as simply another check and balance. Would you want to see the Twenty-Second Amendment repealed?<br /><br />Following up on the "flipping California 'red' if all gun-owners would vote" assertion, I ran the numbers. Rounding up the number of Californians packing heat to eight million, and assuming half of them voted in 2012, in order to overcome that three million vote deficit in 2012 and turn the Acapulco Golden State Republican, your gun-owners would have to be voting GOP by almost 90%-10%. The only demographic that lopsided is African-American support for Democrats. Unless you've "seen," and gotten to know personally all eight million of them and audited all their cast ballots, I think this assertion is highly dubious as well.JASmiushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12443587501661056533noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27654025.post-81634545698958331692016-03-25T15:09:53.961-07:002016-03-25T15:09:53.961-07:00According to the 2015 Pew party identification sur...According to the 2015 Pew party identification survey, 39% of voters are independents, 32% are Democrats, and 23% are Republicans. Throw in "leaners" and it's Dems 45%, GOP 33%, Indies 20%. Ideologically, the score reads Moderates 47%, Liberals 29%, Conservatives 24%. So base vs. base, we lose.<br /><br />Mitt Romney lost California in 2012 by about three million votes. There are just short of eight million gun-owners in the Acapulco Golden State. What percentage of them didn't vote last time, and of those who did, how did they split between Obama and Romney? Provide some of these details rather than just throwing out these anecdotal assertions on nothing but "what you've seen".<br /><br />Read my last comment in this thread - I never said we should "coddle moderates," but rather to attract them in our direction with a Reaganite conservative message. This is a stylistic issue; sunny optimism works better with a general electorate than anger and resentment. That isn't arguable. And while I agree that a conservative can still win in the present day, the margin for error is a helluva lot smaller, and "landslides" are a relic of a bygone era.<br /><br />Going back to Trump, since you did, the key word is "seemingly" conservative statements. But those statements are liberal caricatures of what they think motivates them, and he always walks them back, sometimes within hours or minutes. He tailors his rhetoric to whatever audience he's addressing, like any good conman does. I've documented it ad nauseum on this site. What I thought We the People were most responsible for is vigilance and discernment, thinking about and getting informed on issues and vetting candidates and not getting swept up in demagoguery and deception. We've been lamenting for the past eight years how that vigilance and discernment failed catastrophically with Barack Obama, and now not only has it not returned, but it's infected the GOP as well to the point where Mr. Tea Party Warrior himself, Ted Cruz, is being bypassed for an amalgam of Obama and Bill Clinton with better hair.<br /><br />Sure, Trump "pulls no punches" - that's part of his con. And when he has the nomination and no longer needs the conservatives he's duped, he'll discard them and bolt to the center. And you know it.<br /><br />The reason I don't think you're seeing it fully is because you still have this bug up your backside about the GOP "establishment" and all its real and imagined imperfections, and the way Trump poses as an "anti-establishment" foil has a consequent irresistable allure. That's unquestionably what's motivating most Trumplicans. Which is why I say that they've given up and are being goaded by their candidate into throwing a huge, party-splitting, Hillary-electing temper tantrum that will accomplish nothing except to set us all the way back to January 2009. I don't see how that helps constitutionalism, conservatism, or the GOP.<br /><br />Lotsa luck "educating" me on that tomorrow.JASmiushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12443587501661056533noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27654025.post-24153082552029022272016-03-25T14:37:53.889-07:002016-03-25T14:37:53.889-07:00That Donald Trump is cartoonish is not a matter of...That Donald Trump is cartoonish is not a matter of opinion; the only question there is which cartoon character he resembles most. I have no anger for or resentment towards Trump; I do have the contempt for his lies, boorishness, corruption, and let's just say "questionable" associations that I would think any constitutional conservative and possessor of a moral compass would have. Towards Trumplicans I feel astonishment and dismay tinged with the feeling of betrayal. Suffice it to say, I do not suffer foolishness easily, something of which you cannot help but be aware, but which may only be triggering this rebuke because that trait is now aimed at targets of which you have inexplicably far less disapproval.<br /><br />In any case, I didn't think we were debating Trump per se; but as anybody from the old days on republicanforum.com could tell you, I always hear "the call of the warrior".JASmiushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12443587501661056533noreply@blogger.com