Posted on 03/09/2016 5:58:07 AM PST by Kaslin
What a short, strange trip it's been for Donald Trump's conservative supporters. Ever since the Goldwaterite takeover of the GOP, the party has tried to convert voters to conservatism. This orientation has sometimes led it to follow a "better to be right and lose" axiom -- hence Goldwater's disastrous defeat in 1964. Now we seem to have tipped in the other direction, thinking it's "better to be wrong and win."
George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" was seen as a nod in this direction, and a great many conservatives -- myself included -- were critical of his efforts to triangulate against traditional limited-government conservatism.
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-Sen. 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? One argument they and many other converts make is purely consequentialist. "For me, Trump potentially represents a big expansion of the Republican Party, a way to bring in those blue-collar Reagan Democrats," Moore told the Washington Post. "That's necessary if the party is going to win again."
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.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this sorry state of affairs is that many conservatives have been arguing for years that we must update Republican policies to help the very people Trump is now winning over through ideologically haphazard and substance-free demagoguery. Indeed, a diverse group of intellectuals associated with the Conservative Reform Network and the journal National Affairs developed a host of policies that apply Reaganite principles to today's problems.
As Ramesh Ponnuru (my colleague at the American Enterprise Institute and National Review) has argued, cutting top marginal tax rates were a priority when President Reagan took office in 1980 because they were at 70 percent. Now they're at 39.6 percent, so maybe other forms of tax relief should take priority? For instance, Ponnuru has championed beefed-up child tax credits to help struggling families raise the next generation of taxpayers.
Reformocons, as they're sometimes called, were trying to find a way to grow the party without abandoning Reaganite principles. For their efforts, they were dismissed as apostates. Kudlow and Moore heaped scorn on reformocon ideas. Rush Limbaugh, for his part, dismissed reform conservatism as "capitulation" to liberalism.
The irony is that reform conservatives almost uniformly oppose Trump's populist deformation of conservatism, and the former purists are now calling for unity behind the Mother of all Capitulations, rationalized by Trump's promise to win, conservatism be damned.
Call me whatever you like. All I want is my Constitution back.
Trump is running on a very conservative platform. The only ones who don’t really see this are ones who have a very narrow definition of what conservatism is. As a result they’re reduced to basically disregarding Trump’s platform and inserting their own opinions about what Trump is going to do after he’s elected.
What’s your definition?
It has been that way for years. The current GOP is the party of nothing that stands for nothing. Nothing that the American people believe that represents them at all.
They squandered so much under Bush, The had all three branches and blew it. By design? Maybe, but it may be just because they stood for nothing but pleasing the donor class and the COC.
They still refuse to become the party of something worth voting for that actually benefits US citizens.
Because of that, they deserve the scorn and they need to be taken down like the rabid dogs they are.
First of all, I am going to vote for Cruz in my primary. If Trump is nominated, I will vote for him but I have no real faith he won’t disappoint in a new and fresh way 24 months into his term if elected.
All that being said. I see Trump winning with 28 to 42% against the three remaining. I see Cruz as consistently second and only occasionally first. He is 5 to 15% behind Trump. We don not yet have a contest where Donald Trump can get 65 to 85% of the vote. Why is that.
Where will the Rubio, Kasich, and other voters go if it is just Trump and Cruz?
Are the Trump negatives solid and permanent?
Exactly.
Trump is a pragmatist who lives in the real world.. You can go through life with purist ideals and lose, or be a pragmatist and win.
If you never win, you're out of the game and have no influence,
Here is one definition of conservatism, for your consideration. House conservatives formed the Liberty Caucus to advance conservatism. Having little or no success, the caucus was disbanded. In its place House conservatives formed a smaller, more conservative caucus which they named the Freedom Caucus.
Members of the Freedom Caucus gave a supermajority of support to Paul Ryan, as Boehner’s replacement.
That’s the D.C./career politician’s definition of conservatism.
The last time an actual conservative won? 1980. The last time an actual conservative was nominated? 1980. Every GOP nominee since has been the "electable", big-government, liberal/RINO, non-choice. What did we "win" by electing people without conservative principals over the last 35 years?
Reagan, who was a realist, wrote about it.
By Ronald Reagan in his autobiography An American Life
“When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn’t like it. “Compromise” was a dirty word to them and they wouldn’t face the fact that we couldn’t get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don’t get it all, some said, don’t take anything. I’d learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: ‘I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.’ If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that’s what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it.
“Trump is a pragmatist who lives in the real world.. You can go through life with purist ideals and lose, or be a pragmatist and win.
If you never win, you’re out of the game and have no influence,”
You nailed it! We do not have free trade now, we actually have to move other nations to achieve it...Trump knows how to negotiate that...
“What’s your definition?”
Mine is more of classical Liberalism.
Individualism, consent, the concepts of the rule of law and government as trustee, the significance of property, and religious toleration. Individuals in the state of nature as being free and equal. Individuals should give consent to government and therefore authority derives from the people rather than from above.
John Locke expresses my views most accurately.
Then I’m a realist.
Now we're dogmatic.
“Your definition matches mine.
Now we’re dogmatic.”
Oh, I thought I was a purist. So confusing.
poll after poll shows Trump winning conservatives. Add just “conservative”, or “moderate conservative” and Trump’s percentages skyrocket. (because most people do NOT identify with far right wing conservatives) and Trump’s percentages skyrocket.
Only the phony polls are trumpeted by the MSM. Even RCP (which I don’t follow because what good is yesterday’s weather forecast?) had the THREE most recent, post debate, Michigan polls showing Trump in the high thirties. Where he actually finished, by the way.
Why didn’t the MSM tout THESE polls? Because they hoped the phony polls, supposedly showing Trump slipping and others gaining strength, would negatively influence the people who hadn’t yet voted.
Trump showed yesterday that he is SURGING not waning. They did report on Trump’s win, but with all the reporting on his soon to be decline, you would think his YUGE wins would be the BIG story. Noooooo it’s BERNIE!
Stop the presses (do they still have those?). Bernie beats Hillary by ONE percent! It’s a Bernie landslide!
Who cares????? Bernie has ZERO chance of getting the nomination and a less than ZERO chance of becoming the president. If the MSM has repeated orgasms over Bernie’s LANDSLIDE one percent win, they have far less time to talk about the Trump (oh hum) wins.
PATHETIC! and Yes I do think Cokie Roberts is Megyn Kelly’s mother. The resemblance is remarkable, especially the eyes!
yeah, it is the conservative purist’s fault.
not mccain.
not romney.
not ghwb.
not mcconnell.
not dole.
not boehner.
the problem in the republican party is the conservative purists.
riiiiight.
Constitutionalist is more concise and alot harder to hijack.
Exactly. Watching so-called conservatives give a sellout Uniparty shill like Paul Ryan a standing o was sickening, and people like Jonah have the gall to question why people are supporting Trump when they see crap like that.
“So I will happily support Trump and hope he does half of what he brags about, secure in the knowledge that at the very least he has really upset the GOP apple cart which badly needs to be done”
That’s where I’m going. Trump is far from perfect, but the GOPe need to be run off as a good first step, along with illegals. Getting American jobs back is a good idea. Good trade deals too. It’s not possible to have perfection as in another Reagan. Trump is not and never will be a Reagan. And Trump is more of a populist or nationalist than a conservative - but that sure beats the hell out of being a leftist and the country knows it.
Jonah has become unhinged
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