Know how Donald Trump might never have happened? If Mitch McConnell had thrown his hat in the ring back in 2016.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) mocked the editors of The New York Times for capitulating to liberal employees who demanded the paper pull an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.).
"One of our nation's most storied newspapers just had its intellectual independence challenged by an angry mob, and they folded like a house of cards," McConnell said Wednesday on the Senate floor. "A jury of people on Twitter indicted them as accessories to a thought crime, and instead of telling them to go take a hike, the paper pleaded guilty and begged for mercy."
Jen, Rick "Dick" Wilson, Charming Billy? I'm surprised that you haven't figured this out by now (actually, I'm not even remotely surprised; more on that down the road) but here, in a few short words, is Why You Got Trump. Conservative voters prefer conservative candidates who don't merely claim to uphold conservative principles but who actually do and will uphold them.
Two words. Mitt Romney.
UPDATE: Four more words. American embassy in Israel.
21 comments:
I didn't vote for Mitt Romney precisely because of the Candy Crowley fiasco during the second debate of 2012. I'm glad I didn't.
Trump was my 20th choice out of the 16-17 candidates that began the 2016 campaign. I will crawl over the broken glass and run through the furnace covered in gasoline to pull the lever for him this time.
I voted for Romney; not happy about it but I couldn't see approving four more years of Jug Ears. The Crowley situation by itself didn't matter to me; I knew then that CNN had it in for all Republicans whoever they were so I figured that that kind of stuff was going to happen. So Romney's weak-ass reaction basically proved everything I thought about professional conservatives. But I figured that if the Professional GOP ever put up somebody like Romney again (which they tried to), they didn't even remotely believe what they claimed they believed. Issues which were extremely important to me were trivial or even irrelevant to them.
That's when I decided, screw 'em. QED Trump.
I'm glad McConnell said that, but, as a rule, he's not worth a pitcher of warm spit.
What we're looking at here is a perfect storm of problems, and our political institutions are barely capable of handling everyday decision making, much less challenges. The Democratic Party and associated sectors ares incompetent, mendacious, malicious, and dishonorable all the way down. Their electoral constituency hardly notices and the worst of them blame Trump. The pandemic has been worse in European countries than here, but European countries seem to be able to put it to bed; their quantum of cases and deaths is rapidly declining, while ours declines only on the most gentle slope. Now, thanks to these mass gatherings, we're having a mess of superspreader events. People associated with the University of Washington have disgraced themselves with apologias for this and Fauci has been reduced to ineffectual warbling.
I'm closer to Santorum than Romney in my policy preferences, but I was dubious about putting someone who had never held an executive position in the White House. It's the same problem with Ted Cruz. The last several years have made it clear that as a civic participant, Romney's a sh!t and the Bush family are a bunch of sh!ts. Romney's a centimillionaire with 20 grandchildren. There's 100,000 things he could be doing with his time. So, what does he do? He establishes a notionall residency in a state where'd he'd lived for 5 years of the previous 70 and runs for Congress for no good reason but to harass Trump. George W Bush says nothing of interest for 7 years; he raked in a lot of dough giving confidential talks to trade associations and what not (some of which were required by law to disclose the fees they paid), but seldom if ever said anything interesting enough for any participant to leak it or for any outlet to publish the leak. Keep in mind the last 11 years have seen the contrived harassment of lawful businesses ('operation chokepoint'), the exploitation of TARP funds and associated processes to pay off Democratic constituencies, the IRS scandals, the vertiginous decline of ballot security, and (after 2015) the use of the apparatus of the security state to harass the political opposition (including trumped up criminal charges against a major general). Maybe Jeb! said something about this when he was running for office, but I don't think so. What the rest of them do is hobnob with Bill Clinton (nb, if published accounts are correct, Jimmy Carter has nothing to do with the Clintons in meatspace), attend parody wedding ceremonies featuring pairs of homosexual men, and drop little prizes in the press suggesting they're voting for Democratic candidates. I am done with the Bushes forever.
I was terribly unenthusiastic about making Trump president. Horrified, actually; I was a Ted Cruz man although he had his squishy moments which disappointed me no end. But do you know what completely changed my mind about Trump?
The move of the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Congress after Congress after Congress passed "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel" resolutions. Easiest resolution in the world to vote for; hell, Democrats could safely vote for it. Why was that?
Because everybody knew that absolutely nothing was going to happen.
We have to let the "peace process" play out or some such crap. Along comes Trump who says, "The United States agrees that the capital of Israel is Jerusalem? Fine. Move the embassy there." And it was done, regardless of how loudly the "Palestinians" or the "foreign policy experts," people who have achieved nothing whatsoever since Israel's foundation, screamed about it.
I have no doubt whatsoever about Dubya's Christian faith but even he couldn't get that one done. Or didn't think it was important enough to expend political capital on. Or didn't want to. Would a President Romney have moved the embassy? Would a President Jeb?
Anyway, there it is. A conservative president who doesn't just say but who actually does conservative things. And that's why Bill Kristol, Jen, or Rick "Dick" comport themselves with such impotent rage these days.
My odyssey to conservative thought is a strange one, although I have ZERO attachment to the Republican Party (not registered as such).
I was a Scott Walker guy going into the 2016 campaign - his stance and achievements on public sector unions drew me to him, and believe me, I can tell you firsthand the incredible damage they do to government and civil society at large. Obviously, he flamed out really early and my support and thoughts about Cruz largely mirrors our worthy host's.
I ended up voting for Trump because of the SCOTUS - I am going to vote for him again because he actually did the things he said he would do, including taxes, the embassy, the judiciary, and the regulatory cut. All of which tells me (again) that the establishment GOP is as useless as tits on a bull.
I liked the embassy move because it was a big FU to Arab chauvinists and an explicit acknowledgement of something the Bush Administration was unwilling to acknowledge: the 'peace process' is hooey. If the mob bosses in charge of the Arab population on the West Bank and Gaza want to cut a deal, there's phone service to their counterparts in Jerusalem. The HAMAS crew do not want a deal and the only deal the Al Fatah crew will countenance is one where the Jews bend their necks for the axe. That reflects public opinion on the West Bank and Gaza. No one on Earth gets more attention for their 'plight' and no one's 'plignt' is more self-inflicted. Treating them with contempt is the only thing with an outside chance of getting them to assess their situation and prospects.
I was a Scott Walker guy going into the 2016 campaign -
His billionaire backer insisted he favor open borders. The GOP needs to quit listening to their donors and start listening to their voters. Yeah, I know. They don't want to.
I voted for Mitt Romney because he seemed to have been a good governor of Massachusetts. At the time I didn't realize how weak-kneed the Republican Party had become. Romney (and now Charlie Baker) were elected as Republican governors here in MA largely because they were extremely "moderate." This state hasn't had an actual conservative governor since John Volpe served two non-consecutive terms in the 60s. Republicans and Independents (many of whom are actually Republicans) in MA can't seem to get behind an actual conservative. So we drift along here in MA electing Democrats in disguise (Bill Weld, Mitt Romney, Charlie Baker) every second or third election cycle.
Gov. Volpe was a standard-issue New England Republican of his era - an ideological and programmatic temporizer at best. He wasn't a conservative, just less of a Rockefeller Republican than Francis Sargent.
"The GOP needs to quit listening to their donors and start listening to their voters. Yeah, I know. They don't want to."
And there's your Grand Unified GOP Theory right there.
A sad irony is that ActBlue seems to do a much better job of funneling cash to a candidate than any of the Republican channels. It seems that most of the Republican fundraising schemes are really scams for enriching political consultants.
Once the Walker "campaign" postmortem occurred after he withdrew, I knew I had been victimized by my own tunnel vision on the Right to Work issue. Too near and dear for me to be super objective, I guess.
I still don't regret not voting for Romney. I felt burned after voting for McCain, especially as it became clear his entire job in that election cycle was to take the dive for Obama.
You know, for history's right side...or something.
it became clear his entire job in that election cycle was to take the dive for Obama.
Since 1950, the electorate has been loath to give either of the parties a 3d turn at the wheel of the presidency. That aside, George W Bush had been discredited by the Iraq War and Katrina and the architecture of the financial system began to implode during the campaign (for which the electorate stupidly blamed the Republican candidate rather than the responsible parties). It would have been quite extraordinary had he won.
That having been said, he sure did some strange things, like hiring Steven Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace to run his campaign. Sarah Palin saw Nicolle Wallace for what she was.
I don't think Bush was a factor in anyone's thinking any more at that point. The GOP Professionals were finally clear of Jesus Boy and that was all they cared about. And I don't think it mattered who the GOP put up in '08. The media was going to see to it that the Black Guy won that election regardless of who the Republicans put up and that's on the "professionals." As for Palin, I guess the Professionals thought her selection would be a sop to the deplorables or something and ran for the tall grass as soon as the media types expressed their utter horror at having to treat this Pentecostal Christian seriously(see Brett Kavanaugh).
Damn, Art, you're practically writing my best-selling book for me. :-)
I don't think Bush was a factor in anyone's thinking any more at that point.
1. The GOP was ruined in Congressional elections in 2006 and 2008. A great deal of that is attributable to policy failures.
2. I think over the last 25 years, what the media has done is prevent support for the Democratic Party from falling below certain thresholds. Most of the public are not influenced by the media directly because they know the media are dishonest. What you had in 2008 was an abnormally high percentage of the swing vote going to Obama. Some of that's the media, but not all.
3. Look at the last 70 years, at the times the Democratic or Republican candidate was seeking a 3d (or higher) turn at the wheel: 1952, 1960, 1968, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2008, 2016. The project succeeded only in 1988, and really to everyone's surprise that year (Michael Dukakis was leading George Bush by 17% points at one point).
Every once in a while you see a partisan Republican saying "McCain threw the election" blah blah. That's silly. He made a number of bad mistakes, but he was facing tremendous headwinds. I like Gov. Palin, but the VP candidate is just not that important unless they generate an embarrassing distraction (e.g. Thos Eagleton's shock treatments or Geraldine Ferraro's financial disclosures and mob ties) or provide a hook for a fraudulent media feeding frenzy (Dan Quayle's National Guard service).
The appropriate complaint about McCain is the same one you can make about most of us. As he aged, he got to be more and more a caricature of himself. Also, his thinking was more and more influenced by the people around him - the Capitol Hill nexus of politicians, political staff, lobbyists, reporters, and fundraising mavens. In addition, it appears he was less and less able to see himself as anything but a member of Congress. Why does a 74 year old man who has excellent pension benefits and is married to a centimillionaire run for re-election (twice!)? No man's indispensable and you're seldom accomplishing much of anything when you're in Congress. Men who have a life outside of politics (e.g. Bill Frist) get out after a discrete period of time. Even Bob Dole hung up his shoes before he had to be carried out (though the workaholic putz then joined a lobbying firm).
politicians, political staff, lobbyists, reporters, and fundraising mavens.
...and 'consultants' and PR mavens &c.
Hey, leave Bob Dole out of it. He did pretty well for a Kansas presidential candidate. Better than the last one, anyway. :-) And he was from the same part of Kansas my grandmother was from so I'm rather partial to the guy. Dole was from Russell, Grandma was from Ness City. That's the picture on the front of this website, western Kansas, by the way. Not sure where that picture was taken but that's the kind of country Bob Dole and my Grandma were born and grew up in.
As for McCain, you're basically right. I think that one factor, maybe the most important, that certainly didn't help his cause was the definite contempt he had for part of the Republican base, the so-called "values voters," the kind of people who the Professionals thought would be impressed by Palin's VP selection. The pick had "calculation" written all over it; here's your Christian so vote for McCain and keep your mouths shut. After the "right people" expressed such scorn for Palin, I think McCain really wanted to get rid of her but realized that if he did, his campaign was over.
Better than the last one, anyway.
Unless you count Dwight Eisenhower, of course, in which case, never mind. ;-)
IIRC, Palin's name was first floated by Ross Douthat, who was and is anything but a political professional. (Douthat's another one deteriorating with age, and he's just past 40).
Not sure what McCain wanted. When Nicolle Wallace made a number of contentions about what was debated internally (which sounded outlandish), a menu of people said she was full of it and (IIRC) McCain himself undermined her.
Yeah, that whole campaign never stood a chance. Or cared one way or the other whether it stood a chance.
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