Looking ahead to the upcoming election, our prospects are not good. The Real Clear Political Average shows us losing the majority in the Senate, by three seats, and losing twenty seats in the House, dropping from some 240 some odd seats, down to 220 some odd… still in the majority, but just barely. It's time to face some hard truths, then decide where we go from here. The havoc Donald Trump will wreck will leave the party in the worst shape it’s been in my entire life. Trump will lose, and he will weaken the GOP in the process.
Rather than reign Trump in, and try to triangulate, or adjust his tactics, Trump, and his supporters, continue to respond to concerned voices with hostility and name calling. When I point out that it's exactly this irrational and vile behavior that has put me in the Never Trump camp, the name calling only gets worse. I swear I have half of Facebook blocked, I can't deal with it anymore. The Trumpeters will be quick to harp on you for pointing out what is clear and obvious, and then play the victim when you point facts and figures that validate the concern that Trump is crashing and burning and taking the party with him. They are far more interested in either dismissing the polls, which they used to cling to religiously (even though those same polls showed Trump losing to Hillary during the primary too) or laying blame for his loss in advance.
People like Hannity will want to blame people like me, even though we have been loudly proclaiming
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| The Pope of the 1st Church of Trump, Sean Hannity |
Trump and his supporter constantly remind us that they can win with without Conservatives. -1 Which explains why he has spent more time, attacking fellow Republican, Ted Cruz, than he has Hillary Clinton. He has also said that, since he doesn’t need or want Conservatives, he will just pick up a few Bernie Sanders voters… -2 Never mind that most Sanders supporters have signed onto Hillary and those that haven’t have gotten behind Green Party candidate, Jill Stein. Ultimately, this is on Trump and some very poor decisions he has made, especially since Convention. At a time when he should have been promoting healing and party unity, he kicked the dead horse and chased after voters he will never be able to get. Thus, pointing our fingers at each other, at this phase, serves no purpose when the Senate and House can still be salvaged.
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| The face of the Establishment, Mitch McConnell, has used Trump to crush Conservatives |
Making it difficult to salvage the House and Senate, however, is the fact that the Establishment has been able to use Trump to increase their own power, and stomp on the foot of the Conservative movement. The Establishment has managed to quash numerous Tea Party uprisings, including the challenge to Chamber of Commies favorite, Todd Young, for Senate in Indiana. Marlin Stutzman was the Conservative in that race. But the people who came to the ballot to support Trump supported the “moderate,” establishment candidate in that Senate race.
Note: I use the quotations around the term Moderate because a number of Progressive Leftists have been hiding behind the label of late. I have no problems at all with actual moderates.
More shocking: in Kansas, incumbent Conservative Tim Huelskamp was beaten in his primary by the Establishment and Chamber of Commies pick. This should never have happened since Huelskamp was the brave man who led the fight to depose Establishment hack and chronic capitulator, John Boehner. This man should be held up as a hero. In both cases, despite the losing candidate's Conservative credentials, the Trump camp celebrated. Why? Because in both cases the candidate had supported someone else for the Presidential nomination. What’s funny is that Huelskamp, in particular, was not hostile toward Trump. He never was “Never Trump.” But he had endorsed Ted Cruz, so he had to go, according to Trumpeters Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.
I am saying “no,” to Donald Trump because of how he treats people. Yes, I want a strong leader,
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| Trump be like, "Look at it!!!" |
Trump isn’t strong. He has spent the majority of this election attacking Republicans, and ignoring Hillary, and is now telling audiences he wants to go home. -2 This is reminiscent of when Bush was asking his audience to clap. It’s over for Trump, he knows it’s over, and instead of fighting to restore himself to glory, he is rolling over and accepting it. The Establishment is already putting out articles blaming Conservatives for the Trump ascendancy, even though they squashed our efforts to stop Trump at Convention, and their wholly owned subsidiary posing as a News Company, Fox News, lit the world on fire to stop Ted Cruz, even though that meant helping Trump. Meanwhile, Trump's most ardent supporters continue blaming #NeverTrump, even though they were the ones dismissing us as irrelevant, and urging us to get out of the party… which many of us did. For the first time in my adult life, I have been registered as a Libertarian for more than a 1 week post-election loss tantrum, and it’s not that I don’t want to be a Republican. I do! I am a proud Jeffersonian -Republican. I adore Abraham Lincoln (it’s not a contradiction if you understand the context of history.) I adore Coolidge and Reagan. But between the rampaging Trumpeting Alt Right, and the Establishment Progressives masquerading as moderates who bash us all the time, and I do mean ALL THE TIME, without ever being willing to hear us out, or even ask why we have been angry… It’s very hard to do anything other than just watch the party collapse.
The truth is, this nonsense has to stop. Moderates like to point out the Conservatives are no longer the majority, but I have news for them. Neither are they. There is no dominant philosophy in America, and therein lies the problem. That’s also why a third party will not work. The only philosophers out there trying to sell their message are the socialists. Anyone with even a modicum of historical knowledge knows that socialism is a nightmare, but who is offering an alternative? If moderates think they’re all that and a bag of chips, why don’t they start by telling us what they believe in? Incrementalism? What have you won against the Democrats? The ability to sell oil overseas? Literally, no one cares about that! How does that make my life less expensive? Or make it easier for me to start a business, or help pay for my crushing student loan debt? These are the things people are talking about, while the Orrin Hatches and John McCains of the world are boasting of legalizing selling oil overseas. I dare say that it’s the moderate wing of the party that is wildly out of touch. And if they care one iota about the future of the GOP, it's time to stop lecturing, casting aspersions and start listening! We can work together, and we must. But the time has come for the establishment to use their mouths a little less, and their ears a little more.
Conservatives have our own problem. We have been divided on whether or not to support Trump. But by and large, no one knows what we stand for because we have been too busy railing against, and doing so in a very personal way. See, Obama rails against Republicans, a faceless, meaningless organization that does not defend itself against the Left, so it is easily demonized. His attack against Generic Republican is why no one outside our party looks at him as being the rude, inconsiderate jerk that he is. We, in contrast, have been attacking him. And in doing so, we look like the bad guys. We should have been attacking his philosophy, his ideas. We should have been putting a clear and alternative path together, for all Americans to see, and educating people on why it's a better path! We should be attacking generic Democrats, not individuals that the public either likes or are indifferent toward. Our ideas are our strength. Yet we allow ourselves to be goaded into very personal and destructive battles that we cannot win. We are nerds and wonks. We will never win on personality. But our ideas work, and we have Jefferson, and Lincoln, and Coolidge and Reagan to prove it. Apart from Lincoln, who was a wartime president, the economy has never been better than when the aforementioned lead our country with Conservative ideas at the helm.
The fight between the Conservatives and Moderates to purge one another is inevitable. But I urge both groups to not do it. Moderates, first be aware of the Progressives among you... but more importantly, if you have a vision for America, it’s time to articulate it. Conservatives, if you have a message for America, it’s time to articulate it. Trumpeters, if you have a vision for America, people won’t hear it if it’s limited to “he’s not Hillary.”
As always, I am sorry for my part in all the division. It’s been very hard with “millions and millions of new voters,” as Trump would say, calling me names on Facebook, but ultimately that’s no excuse. I’m going to try to do better. It’s time to put the pitchforks down and come together.
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