Let me ask you a question, Tea Party Trumpsters, and I want you to give me an honest answer: When any Republican says that it is important to be "flexible" on any public policy issue, what's the first word that comes to your minds?
If your answer isn't "RINO!!!!!!!!", you're lying.
Well, guess who is the new self-proclaimed king of "flexibility"?
I think you’re gonna see lots of plans and you’re gonna see—also and you have to understand, when you’re coming up with a plan in business you have to be flexible. There’s got to be flexibility…if I would have sat down and said, ‘Here’s a twelve-point plan to get Dural,” I didn’t do that. I went in and punched and punched and beat the hell out of people, and I ended up getting it…you have to be able to have flexibility, you have to be able to do certain things.
Yeah, Donnie, but what was your plan? What was your strategy? What were you trying to accomplish? IN WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE? These things used to matter to Tea Partiers. Conservative principles and sticking to them no matter what used to be everything to Tea Partiers. Donald Trump at best doesn't have any principles beyond Donald Trump; at worst, he's a Democrat mole.
But I will guarantee that all conservative Trumpsters needed to see and hear was "I went in and punched and punched and beat the hell out of people," and they were bellowing "YEEEAAAHHH!!!" They've so lost themselves in "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" that they no longer remember what it is that they were originally fighting for. Ideas no longer matter, principles no longer matter. It's all about "punching and punching and beating the hell" out of the people they don't like, and who gives a flying finagle what happens to the country.
What's Trump's stance on entitlements reform? Deregulation? School choice? Judicial appointments? The United States Constitution? Any foreign policy issue that doesn't come out of a comic book? Who cares? He makes it up as he goes along. He has no governing track record from which to judge, and that's somehow now a good thing, too. He tailors his answers to his particular audience. Mitt Romney was accused of doing that four years ago, and not without justification. So why is it okay, why is it a good thing, when Trump does it?
You know why:
You just have to trust that — because he is [supposedly] "brilliant" and successful (and because the current establishment politicians are stupid and corrupt) — he will magically solve all our problems. Even his slogan, “Make America Great Again” evokes a sort of nostalgia that has been used by strongmen throughout the ages to hearken back to some magical time when all was right with the world — before the people in power sold us out and betrayed us. [emphases added]
I'm not going to go all Godwin on your candy asses, so don't freak out. But I will say that this is the exact same dynamic - empty sloganeering, emotional manipulation, rallying weak-minded voters against "enemies," few if any platform details, deception from beginning to end - that put Barack Obama in the White House in 2008. How's that turned out for us?
The only difference this time is that it's coming from the Right instead of the Left.
But the result, if taken to its logical endgame conclusion, will be precisely the same. The Old American Republic will remain, moldering in its grave.
And this time, the blame won't rest on "low-information voters".
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