Free Republic

Trump may not be in the Oval Office, but make no mistake, Trumpism is here to stay.Since today there is a cultural obsession with rendering everything an -ism, it is only fitting that the presidency of Donald Trump would produce the term “Trumpism.” After all, Trump ignited a conservative revolution that had been brewing for years.The term Trumpism clearly connotes different ideas and meanings depending on whom you ask, but it really is not all that complicated. Trump was a unique political figure during a unique time — and his raunchiness mixed with “America First” policies appealed to voters who...

Writing in the New York Times, Linda Hirshman says she believes Tara Reade but she’ll vote for Joe Biden anyway because of Donald Trump. Yesterday in a New York Times column Linda Hirshman said she believes Tara Reade, but she’s going to vote for Joe Biden anyway because anything is better than Donald Trump. That is to say, she believes Biden sexually assaulted Reade in a locker room when Reade worked on his Senate staff years ago. It’s nonsense at this point to try to discount or denigrate every new corroborating witness who comes forward to bolster Reade’s claim, Hirshman...

Gerry Hebert, the leading critic of the appointment of Senator Jeff Sessions as attorney general, has a history of making things up about racial issues -- so much so, in fact, that a federal court imposed sanctions in one of Hebert's voting cases.Reporters like Cameron Joseph at the New York Daily News (@cam_joseph) have already used quotes from Gerry Hebert, a former Justice Department lawyer, to portray Senator Sessions as a racist. Almost 30 years ago, Hebert and his allies in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department were responsible for sabotaging a judicial nomination for Sessions. Gerry HebertThe...

The biggest worry about Donald Trump has always revolved around the question of temperament. Isn't he just too thin-skinned? Too irritable? Too likely to strike out wildly when on the receiving end of a slight, real or imagined? Would you want to entrust someone whose temperament is on a hair-trigger, as Trump's was said to be, with the awesome power of the U.S. military, including our nuclear codes?That's the rap, endlessly repeated by the (irony alert!) calm and even-keeled Hillary Clinton, echoed faithfully by battalions of Democratic operatives with bylines at CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post,...

One of the most repellent aspects of the 2016 presidential election has been a phenomenon that has its home in leftwing tactics but that has now emerged on the Right in addition to the Left. More precisely, it has revolved around the adoption by precincts of the #NeverTrump Right of tactics usually associated with the Left. The main feature of that tactic deploys a twofold effort at character assassination. The first step is the transformation of political disagreement into a species of heresy. The second step involves the thundering repudiation of the newly minted heretics, who are to be...

Football star Tim Tebow will have a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next week, The New York Times reported. Perhaps the most famous open Christian in sports will be addressing the convention likely to nominate Donald Trump.Tebow has toyed with politics in the past, even hinting to Fox News that he is open to running for political office. His popularity among Republicans led Public Policy Polling to still include him in a poll of favorite quarterbacks, even though he hasn't played in the NFL for 3 years. He ranked as the fifth most popular QB, and...

Following the lead of a several trodden upon, yet Democrat-controlled municipalities, Washington D.C. recently approved a bill raising the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour by 2025. This move has been hailed by leftists as a triumph for equality and the little guys. Except minimum wage laws were first proposed by racists to keep minorities down, and current minimum wage laws further disenfranchise those in our society who are already disenfranchised.To help understand, a brief history lesson is in order. At the risk of wandering off topic, this brief history lesson will also serve to demonstrate why many leftists...

Hackers connected with the Russian government breached the computer network of the Democratic National Committee, gaining access to the entire database of opposition research on Donald Trump, DNC officials and cybersecurity, experts said Tuesday. DNC leaders were reportedly informed of the intrusion in late April.The hackers were able to read all of the Democrats' email and chat traffic, according to officials who responded to the breach.The Washington Post reports that the breaches crossed political lines: The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also...

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said "there's no room for threatening the delegates or the convention or anybody that would be going to our national convention," but he passed off much of that talk as "rhetoric and hyperbole." Priebus told NBC on Sunday that, as Donald Trump calls the delegate-selection process rigged, "I don't know what the motivation is." "There's really nothing that's rigged or being changed or altered. These are the same rules that were in place basically for over a century," he said. "But, at the very least, there's no way around the fact that all of...

I rarely agree with Frank Bruni of the New York Times about much, but he's spot-on today: Over the last few months and even weeks, the question among many flabbergasted Republican traditionalists and incredulous political analysts was when the forces of gravity would catch up with Donald Trump and send him tumbling to earth. It was going to happen. Of course it was going to happen. You just had to be patient. You just had to be strong. But in the wake of his victories in New Hampshire and now South Carolina, the question is no longer "when." It's "if."...

Ted Cruz -- my guy -- confounded the public pollsters with his victory in Iowa, snapping up 35% of the vote in a (much too) crowded field. The comb-over candidate Donald Trump ran away with New Hampshire, as nearly everyone predicted. John Kasich, with almost 16%, came in second with Cruz, at nearly 12%, in third place. BushRubioChristieCarsonFiorinaPaul formed the caboose, and one might be forgiven for observing that while Rand Paul isn't even running anymore, most of the caboose, with the exception of Rubio, should follow suit and take their little trains to the siding.An intelligent and canny friend,...

Things got a little awkward for Hillary Clinton on the rope line in Vinton, Iowa, yesterday, thanks to a plucky Iowan who actually keeps up with current events.It started innocently enough with Hillary shaking hands with supporters, taking selfies and signing autographs at a Vinton skating and recreation center. The fun came to an abrupt end, Politico reports, when she got to a certain Ms. Althea Cole."How do you plan to sidestep the reality that you are sending secure, SAP emails on your private, unsecured server?" Cole asked Clinton, who was at her second event of the day. "I'm very...