Friday, January 22, 2016

Well, it's on now

national review against trump cover

In case you missed it, the editors at National Review put out an issue/on-line articles stating the conservative case against Donald Trump as the Republican nominee.

They brought in a pretty impressive array of conservative writers, many like Glenn Beck and Dana Loesch, Trumpians/Palinbots will have a hard time claiming are part of the "establishment" -- something Trump is already backing away from saying in speeches that you have to be establishment to get anything done.

I'm still waiting for the official Trump response which typically has run one of two ways -- he'll either call them all stupid/liars or he'll say they're all really great people who've done great things but they're simply wrong about him. And his lemming-like followers will beat their hands together like the trained seals they've become (too much metaphor mixing? sorry).

The RNC has already signaled their stupidity by dropping the National Review from the February debate. Yep, that'll show 'em. So, we're like the Dems now, Reince? It's free speech only if we stick to the party narrative? F*ck you!

And the execrable Allahpundit has declared it stupid that NR even put the article out. I suppose in his spineless world the proper thing to do is walk around with one's head down moaning like Eeyore about how inevitable Trump is and we should just accept his destruction of conservatism and the Republican party and post that "Game over, man!" video clip that became his calling card in 2008. F*ck you too, pussy!

Here's a few snippets from the headline article in the Review, I encourage everyone to go read it. And also the comments from the Trumpians. If you need any more evidence of Trump employing the cult-of-personality tactic that put Obama in the White House, I'm not sure where to point you.

Emphasis mine:
Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.

Indeed, Trump’s politics are those of an averagely well-informed businessman: Washington is full of problems; I am a problem-solver; let me at them. But if you have no familiarity with the relevant details and the levers of power, and no clear principles to guide you, you will, like most tenderfeet, get rolled. Especially if you are, at least by all outward indications, the most poll-obsessed politician in all of American history. Trump has shown no interest in limiting government, in reforming entitlements, or in the Constitution.

His obsession is with "winning," regardless of the means — a spirit that is anathema to the ordered liberty that conservatives hold dear and that depends for its preservation on limits on government power. The Tea Party represented a revival of an understanding of American greatness in these terms, an understanding to which Trump is tone-deaf at best and implicitly hostile at worst. He appears to believe that the administrative state merely needs a new master, rather than a new dispensation that cuts it down to size and curtails its power.

If Trump were to become the president, the Republican nominee, or even a failed candidate with strong conservative support, what would that say about conservatives? The movement that ground down the Soviet Union and took the shine, at least temporarily, off socialism would have fallen in behind a huckster. The movement concerned with such "permanent things" as constitutional government, marriage, and the right to life would have become a claque for a Twitter feed.

Some conservatives have made it their business to make excuses for Trump and duly get pats on the head from him. Count us out. Donald Trump is a menace to American conservatism who would take the work of generations and trample it underfoot in behalf of a populism as heedless and crude as the Donald himself.

As they mentioned, Trump is incredibly poll-driven and his supporters are too. At least when the polls are in their favor. Problem is, Trump loses to Hillary in every poll head-to-head. He's got the lowest net favorability with independents and democrats (-27 with independents and -70 with dems) of any of the candidates. Only Rubio wins against anyone the Dems throw out there. Polling has Cruz beating Hillary but losing to Sanders in the general election. Also of interest is that Trump's favorability among Republicans is lower than everyone but Kasich and Bush. Which calls into question the polling that has him sitting with such comfortable leads in every state.

Open your eyes, voters. Donald Trump is not a conservative. He's not genuine. He's playing a game, and you're all falling for it. Don't bring the country down with your willful ignorance about this guy.

Update:
So it's door #1 apparently -- Trump spoke at a fundraiser or meeting of some sort and called the National Review sad and a dying paper than no one reads. He also invoked the late William F. Buckley (founder of NR) saying he would have been ashamed of the cover story. Interestingly, Buckley wrote an article prior to his death wherein he called Trump a demagogue and a narcissist. Sounds like Bill knew him pretty well to me.

For it's part, NR has cleverly fallen on it's sword saying that being disinvited from future debates is a small price to pay for telling the truth about Trump.

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