Candidate Jeb Bush attends Chamber of Commerce dinner with Fox’s Rupert Murdoch and Valerie Jarrett (December 2014)
Given the transparent, albeit predictable, bias brutally evident in last nights debate, I’m going to leave this stuck to the top of the page for half the day.
In Part ONE I explained why Donald Trump’s candidacy was essentially a “nothing to lose” decision for conservatives, because all paths lead to Jeb Bush.
In Part TWO I explained why there is a severity within my position.
Here in Part THREE, as requested, I’ll expand for those who remain critical; and for those who are finding themselves called out as “ridiculous” for having the audacity to present such a non-traditional approach.
Starting with an actual defense (via comment) left by someone who presents the counter argument to my position of the GOP needing to be torn down. The counter-argument encapsulates many traditional political followers. Here is their point:
First of all, there a difference between the GOP and the Democrats. If there had been a GOP president instead of Obama, we would not have Obamacare, or all the regulations he’s issued, or all the idiotic DOJ civil rights investigations, or the two liberal SC justices he has appointed (which in turn lead to liberal SC decisions for years to come).
Second of all, destroying the GOP as it exists today will only lead to a smaller minority party which will never win a presidential contest, and probably gift the Democrats with permanent control of Congress.
Finally, Donald Trump wrote in 2000 that he favored a single-payer healthcare system like Canada, and told O’Reilly in 2012 that illegals should be given a pathway to citizenship. Viewing him as a “tool’ to defeat Obamacare and amnesty can most charitably be described as bizarre.
Politics is a game where you don’t get everything you want, and you frequently must settle for a choice that’s simply better than the alternative. You can’t just take your ball and go home.
Various forms of this argument are found dispersed amid the various blogs and comment sections therein; but essentially the essential argument is the same. So here’s the intellectual reply.
There is absolutely no difference between the current GOP and Democrats. Both are intent on the expansion of government.
• Did the GOP secure the border with control of the White House and Congress? NO.
• Did the GOP balance the budget with control of the White House and Congress? NO.
• Who gave us the TSA? The GOP
• Who gave us the Patriot Act? The GOP
• Who expanded Medicare to include prescription drug coverage? The GOP
• Who created the precursor of “Common Core” in “Race To the Top”? The GOP
SCOTUS ? Justice Roberts (I remind you a GOP Presidential nominee, swooned upon by Jeb Bush) affirmed ObamaCare, not once, but twice. And guess what, his vote counted with the same weight as Justice Elena Kagen.
♦ Regarding Obamacare and the GOP:
• First, Medicaid, as a construct, is already single payer healthcare – the problem is the beneficiaries therein, by design, don’t necessarily pay into it.
• Second, ObamaCare if you will remember honestly, was created by Democrats, yes. However, After the election of Scott Brown (who became the 41st vote to block its passage) Obamacare was created by changing the Senate rules to strip an existing bill and use the process of “reconciliation”, a budgetary gimmick, to allow ObamaCare to be constructed with only 51 votes in the Senate – A simple majority. President Obama famously said numerous times “the electorate doesn’t care about the process, they care about the outcome“.
As a consequence, ask yourself: why didn’t the Senate use the EXACT SAME PROCESS (in reverse) when we gave them even larger majorities in the House (’10, ’12, ’14) and the Senate (’14) to eliminate it?
Why didn’t repeal legislation fly through the same single-party process to remove it, that created it? ObamaCare could be removed with the same exact process as it was created.
I know what you’re thinking – the GOP says President Obama would veto it, so the effort would be futile. So what?
We elected them to remove ObamaCare. DO IT, or at the very least TRY!
Wait, you said the GOP did try? BULLSHIT !! Try repeal without holding a divergent higher-standard for repeal than the original construct.
Oh, now you’re silent eh?
Why doesn’t Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hold the same level of severity, based on principle, as Majority Leader Harry Reid?
The answer is actually because McConnell and the GOP are quite ok with ObamaCare because the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Tom Donohue) wanted it. The GOP doesn’t remove it, because the GOP gets a dual benefit. The benefit of its existence while simultaneously the benefit of saying they didn’t create it. Nice political gimmick eh?
But the argument, on behalf of the establishment, is to claim: “if the GOP was in control ObamaCare wouldn’t exist”.
♦ But really there’s more.
Not trying to be wonky, but it’s important to argue with fact:
Who cut the tax rates on lower margins by 50% thereby removing any tax liability from the bottom 20% wage earners? While simultaneously expanding the role of government dependency programs? The GOP (“Bush Tax Cuts”)
What? How dare you argue against tax cuts, you say.
Sorry, the reality is not what the GOP claim.
The “Bush Tax Cuts” removed tax liability from the bottom 20 to 40% of income earners completely. Leaving the entirety of tax burden on the upper 60% wage earners. Currently, thanks to those cuts, 49% of tax filers pay ZERO federal income tax.
But it’s worse. The “Bush Tax Cuts” were, in essence, created to stop the post 9/11/01 recession – and they contained a “sunset provision” which ended ten years later specifically because the tax cuts were unsustainable.
The expiration of the lower margin tax cuts then became an argument in the election cycle of 2012. And as usual, the GOP were insufferably inept during this process.
♦ The GOP (BUSH) removed tax liability from the lower income levels; and the DEM’s (President Obama) then lowered the income threshold for economic subsidy (welfare, food stamps, ebt, medicaid, etc).
This means lower tax revenues and increased pressure on the top tax rates with the increased demand for tax spending within the welfare programs.
Who gets screwed? WE DO !
PARADIGM SHIFT => Republicans focus on the “spending” without ever admitting they, not the Dem’s, lowered the revenue and set themselves up to be played within the increased need for spending, simultaneously.
The Republicans and Democrats created the economic and budgetary mess specifically because they didn’t let the (what was supposed to be temporary) tax rates sunset.
A conservative position would have been to leverage the sunset provision to get something fiscally responsible out of it, like a balanced budget, DUH. And if need be to walk away.
But why didn’t/wouldn’t this approach work? Why didn’t the GOP even attempt to leverage the pending expiration of the tax rates for fiscal responsibility?
The answer therein cuts to the heart of the problem with the GOP.
Think about this carefully.
The absolute best representative face the GOP can come up with to advance common sense principles of fiscal prudence is Mitch McConnell and John Boehner?
Really? I mean, REALLY?
Neither McConnell or Boehner can present themselves to a modern engaged, pop culture driven electorate, and simultaneously articulate a single principle or standard for the party, without sounding like that doddering fool down the road with the signs on his law forbidding anyone to dare touch the grass (McConnell); -OR- The washed up, profoundly creepy middle-aged drunk guy at the end of the bar hitting on your 20-year-old daughter?
Harsh? No, try reality. THAT is the face of the GOP.
THIS…… This is the face of the GOP? Mr. Mumbles and Sir Cry-a-lot? Good grief, no wonder Democrats are always grinning.
And, you wonder why we’re frustrated, desperate for a person who can actually articulate some kind of pushback? McConnell and Boehner are what you give us? SERIOUSLY?
Which leads to the next of your GOP talking points. You say:
“Politics is a game where you don’t get everything you want”
Fair enough. But considering we have been simply demanding common sense, ie. fiscal discipline, a F**KING BUDGET would be nice.
The last federal budget was passed in September of 2007, and EVERY FLIPPING INSUFFERABLE YEAR we have to go through the predictable fiasco of a Government Shutdown Standoff and/or a Debt Ceiling increase specifically because there is NO F**KING BUDGET!
That’s a strategy?
That’s your GOP strategy? Essentially: Lets plan for an annual battle against articulate Democrats and Presidential charm, using a creepy guy who cries and another old mumbling fool who dodders, knowing full well the MSM is on the side of the other guy to begin with?
THAT’S YOUR GOP STRATEGY?
Don’t tell me it’s not, because if it wasn’t there’d be something else being done – there isn’t.
Additionally, to put a fine-point on this “you-can’t-get-everything-you-want” aspect, name one thing that conservatives have gotten from delivering the House in ’10, and ’12, and ’14; and the Senate, to the GOP again, in ’14? How many Bills have been constructed, passed and forced upon Obama to sign or veto in the past year?
Oh yeah, ZERO. That’s the sum total of the GOP pushback?
Give.Me.A.Break !
Go sell your crazy someplace else because I’m full up to here with it.
Oh, and let’s not forget:
Who played the race card in Mississippi to re-elect Thad Cochran? The GOP
Who paid Democrats to vote in the Mississippi primary? The GOP
Who refused to support Ken Cuccinnelli in Virginia? The GOP
Who supported Charlie Crist? The GOP
Who supported Arlen Spector? The GOP
Who supported Bob Bennett? The GOP
Who worked against Marco Rubio? The GOP
Who worked against Rand Paul? The GOP
Who worked against Ted Cruz? The GOP
Who worked against Mike Lee? The GOP
Who worked against Jim DeMint? The GOP
Who worked against Ronald Reagan? The GOP
Who said “I think we are going to crush [the Tea Party] everywhere.”? The GOP (McConnell)
And while I’m at it, let’s talk about the “other possibility” Ted Cruz.
I’m not one of these people who just began tracking the candidates. I speak from watching them for years, and writing about what they chose to do when they have a choice to do something.
Ted Cruz actually had decision moments.
His choices, when they would have made a difference, were to work with the GOPe machine to undermine conservatives.
Follow the links, as I said – I’m done being co-dependent to my own abuse:
Rand Paul and Ted Cruz openly said in 2014 they would not support challenges to incumbency, thereby supporting the McConnell Establishment class.
Now think about this carefully:
Both Rand Paul and Ted Cruz were elected by grassroots support despite the Establishment class against them. Yet when they join the senate they align with the very people who worked to keep them out, and refused to assist the very change they campaigned and promised to bring. (LINK) -> (LINK)
The least worst of the rest of the candidates might be Ted Cruz, I would argue that to be true. But don’t believe for a moment he is not part of the GOPe Machine.
Cruz gave $240,000 to the NRSCC in 2014. The NRSCC, at the exact moment he gave the money, was entirely framed to eliminate opposition to Mitch McConnell and carry the goals of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
What did the NRSCC do with the money? They paid Democrats to vote against Chris McDaniel, and paid for racist attack ads to support Thad Cochran. Despite the anxiety it might create, this is a FACT.
Tell me again all about “Mr. Principle”.
If Trump shows up to the next debate in 5″ stiletto heels and a banana costume and starts twerking the podium of Jeb Bush I might consider Ted Cruz again, maybe not.
Or if Donald Trump drops out, I’ll have no choice except to support Ted Cruz. But I’ll be doing so with eyes-wide-open, knowing I’m just, yet again, putting bondo over the rust…
….. And we still won’t have a border wall.