Free Republic

-- snip -- The General Election: If Trump is nominated, he beats Hillary. He creates a movement, a cultural buzz and novelty that overwhelms the doddering, ancient. Libfascist, pantsuited, pervert-enabling harpy. And then he proceeds to be a marginally less terrible president than she would have been.

Let me make three unequivocal statements about the wave of protests and violence at recent Donald Trump events.First, anyone attempting to attack Trump supporters, let alone trying to attack Trump directly, is completely wrong and without any justification.Second, the protesters that shut down the Friday night Trump rally in Chicago were not just anti-Trump. It appears that many of them were ultra-liberal and would be no friends of the conservative movement as a whole.Third, Trump bears some responsibility for these outbreaks because of his inflammatory and irresponsible rhetoric.As Senator Marco Rubio stated, words have consequences, and you cannot run for...

Bad news for both parties in the primaries and caucuses in the seven days in March following Super Tuesday. Start with the higher-ratings, higher-turnout Republican race. Donald Trump won two solid victories in Michigan and Mississippi Tuesday, after weak showings in the five contests over the weekend. From March 2 to March 8 he netted 124 delegates, to 125 for Ted Cruz, 41 for Marco Rubio and 27 for John Kasich. That's not helpful, since it's imperative for Trump to win the 1,237-delegate majority in primaries and caucuses. If he falls visibly short of that after the last primaries June...

It all began with 17 contestants. Almost all of them celebrities in the world of politics. Only one had no chance to win -- according to the experts. He was thought of as a clown, politically incorrect, offensive, and had zero political experience at any level. Ninety-nine percent of the experts predicted he’d never even file his financials with the FEC. Surprise. Meet the winner of "Celebrity Apprentice Special Political Edition": Donald J. Trump. As of Tuesday night Trump added Mississippi, Michigan and Hawaii to his trophy case. It wasn’t even close. Trump dominated. And he’s leading by a mile...

Donald Trump's candidacy is scary. Trump isn't frightening because he's anything special personally. He's just a warmed-over mash-up of Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot, a spoiled brat billionaire eccentric with a history of position flipping and bullying foolishness. He has authoritarian tendencies on a personal level, and no awareness of the Constitution or its importance. In other words, he's Barack Obama if Obama weren't ideologically driven and suddenly experienced a precipitous drop in IQ. So what's so scary about Trump? First, the idolatry of a certain segment of his following. Trump has drawn some of the worst elements of American...

In his first inaugural address in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt told the nation, “the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself.” Roosevelt meant that fear’s real danger is not the “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror” that it represents, but the effect that is has on us; particularly the actions we take in response to it. Here, at least, conservatives could learn something from FDR; and, conversely, from Donald Trump.The philosophy of limited government at the core of the modern conservative movement has faced many threats; the most acute of which is not a particular person or political party, but...

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...

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) called GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s charge that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was a primary supporter of Chief Justice John Roberts “ludicrous” and “ridiculous.” Gohmert argued that Trump should not be questioning Cruz’s judgment on Supreme Court nominations since he has donated to Democratic politicians in the past. “I thought one of the best points made all night long was to point out the hypocrisy,” Gohmert, who has endorsed Cruz, told PJM at the Conservative Political Action Conference. During the most recent GOP debate in Detroit, Trump addressed Cruz directly, saying, “So we’re listening to the all-talk,...

I disagree with those conservatives who say they will never, ever, ever, ever vote for Donald Trump should the GOP embrace his special brand of nonsense and nominate him, but I can't blame them. Hell, I'm about one more round of foolishness away from joining them. But not quite yet. Trump is the lesser of the candidates, lesser of the conservatives, but also the lesser of the two ancient socialist evils that the Democrats are eenie meenie miney moeing between. At least Trump pretends to embrace capitalism, of a sort. And at least he doesn't seem to hate America, just...