Is it even possible for an American Conservative to be smart–to be good?
Yes it is, but if I provide the answer to these people, I will need to spiritually kill them first. If you were the leader of the GOP/Republican/Stupidparty— what are your best options for the 2016 election?
- Back Trump and get Trumped.
- Wait for the convention to execute a coup.
- Run a Kamikaze Independent candidate against Trump.
I have not heard of any other option. But all three of the above options presage disaster, There does not appear to be a non-catastrophic answer. Every conversation that I have observed between Republicans as to what to do, is just hysterical –for they have no options. Life is beautiful.
Let’s look at what the most “respected” Republicans are saying. Take The New York Times columnist David Brooks. Brooks argues that one cannot possibly get behind Trump –yet Republicans should respect the voices of Trumps fans. Brooks writes:
Moreover, many in the media, especially me, did not understand how they would express their alienation. We expected Trump to fizzle because we were not socially intermingled with his supporters and did not listen carefully enough. For me, it’s a lesson that I have to change the way I do my job if I’m going to report accurately on this country.
What does Bill Kristol have in his box of treats?
Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol is waging a crusade to save the Republican Party by finding a conservative alternative to GOP front runner Donald Trump,
Who else might have an idea – I genuinely found it difficult think of anyone who would be capable of an intelligent idea –so off to google I went. I searched for “intelligent Republican” –and this is what popped up:
So not much help from Google. I then stumbled across some obscure Conservative leaning website and found this list.
One does not need to be a rocket scientist to see that most of these individuals are self-disqualifying. I thought I would research a couple of people on this list that might have a bit of Journalistic integrity, commentators with a degree of professionalism, looking for an actual plan for the GOP as they approach the 2016 elections. George Will, Washington Post columnist: I read through his stuff and I could not find any suggested solution. He accepts that Trump is unacceptable, that the GOP position regarding the Supreme Court pick is idiotic and other than making vague rumblings about Ted Cruz, he seems to me to be like a deer caught in the headlights of an out of control freight train.
Charles Krauthammar – pretty much the same as George Will above.
I need to find someone….Karl Rove – he has made it plain that if Trump is the nominee, that the GOP will lose. But does he have plan? Of course he does:
“To win the presidency in 2016, Karl Rove said Tuesday, a Republican candidate must offer a broad vision of the economy, a strong national security agenda, and must know how to “disagree without being disagreeable.”
i.e. a plan that is not a plan. Just nicer Conservatives I guess. But have I finally found a mainstream conservative journalist who has a plan? Avi Snyder of the National Review, which is a conservative magazine founded by William Buckley – an intellectual pillar of the Conservative movement, during an era when the movement actually had intellectual pillars. Avi Snyder writes:
Should Trump capture both the nomination and the presidency, it could spell the end of the GOP as America’s conservative party. If Trump’s post-constitutional blend of illiberal authoritarianism and shallow populism leads the Republicans back to the White House, it is hard to imagine conservatives returning to the driver’s seat. A President Trump would have at least four years to remake the party of Lincoln and Reagan in his own image, and constitutional conservatives will likely have to find another political home.
The party of Reagan and Lincoln? That is all they have –Lincoln? OK -but what is the plan? So here it is:
All that said, it remains important for those of us in the #NeverTrump camp to remain within the party and work for its success down-ballot, even if we have to oppose the man at the top — at least for now. Any third party we create to fight this fall’s general election must declare itself a temporary, emergency response to particular circumstances, rather than seek to become a permanent feature of our political landscape.
i.e.,
- A temporary third party
- Stay within the party
- Stay conservative
But is that really a plan –to give up and wait while the party gets destroyed, just to come back from the dead as if nothing was ever wrong.
OK – I will give it one more shot. The New York Times reports that GOP elite donors are getting together and are discussing a plan. In the last eight years these guys have already spent hundreds of millions, billions of dollars promoting 1 ) Jeb Bush, 2) Perry, 3) Huckabee, 4) Santorum,5) Jindal, 6 )Rubio, 7) Cruz, 8) Fiorina, 9) Christie, 10) Walker, 11) Romney, 12) McCain, 13) Carson, 14) Cain, 15) Bachmann, 16) Ron Paul, 17) Rand Paul, 18) Graham, 19) Brownback 20) Giuliani, 21) Hunter, 22) Keyes, 23) Tancredo, 24) Thompson, 25) Pataki, 26) Gingrich. Each one a Black knight galloping on a white steed needing only to jump over a two foot wide moat in order to rescue the princess from her chastity belt, only to end up stuck in the mud at the bottom of that moat. The Princess has long since decided that it far more worthwhile to give the key to her kingdom to the handsome guard, who at least understands her right to choose.
So not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed, thank god. Spoilt, entitled brats financing soulless sycophantic Muppets. So what is brewing now?
The prospect of a Donald J. Trump nomination is accomplishing what a diverse and talented field of Republican presidential contenders could not: uniting the party’s big-money donor establishment. Some of the wealthiest conservative givers in the country are helping pay for a series of last-ditch attacks to wound Mr. Trump, disclosures filed on Sunday night revealed, even after previously backing rival Republican candidates. And officials involved with the political groups have made clear that they are aggressively raising more money to fight Mr. Trump, hoping to deprive him of enough delegates to win the Republican nomination outright. That would set the stage for a contested convention in July.
Lets us reveal the names of these shadowy conspirators and study their masterful plan.
The Rickettses (family) who collectively provided another $2 million to the group,
William E. Oberndorf, a California investor who had previously backed Jeb Bush,
Harlan Crow, a Texas real estate developer, who had supported Senator Marco Rubio of Florida
Warren Stephens, an Arkansas investment banker who gave large checks to “super PACs” backing four candidates who have since quit the race.
Mr. Stephens and his brother also gave $2.5 million last month to a super PAC connected to the Club for Growth.
Richard Uihlein, an Illinois shipping-supplies manufacturer and conservative activist, who backed Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign
Richard Gaby,
Robert Arnott, a California-based investor who has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into groups backing Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.
Robert Mercer, a longtime Club for Growth donor who is backing Mr. Cruz.
Charles G. and David H. Koch, their political network.
Stan Hubbard, a Minnesota radio and television station owner,
Tom Rastin, an executive at an Ohio-based firm that manufactures hydro-fracking equipment.
Leonard Blavatnik, a Russian-born, London-based American investor whose holdings include Warner Music;
Ronnie Cameron, an Arkansas poultry magnate who previously backed Mike Huckabee;
Maurice Greenberg, the insurance executive and prominent Republican donor. (I am so disappointed in this guy –who is very smart, but 92 years in age, suggesting he may finally have peaked)
Their brilliant pan is to hurt Trump.- i.e. stage a coup at the convention- and that seems to be it. Good luck with that and please, please, please keep blowing your ill-gotten gains. I find it amusing that, in spite of billions of dollars available to maintain the GOP’s path to an oligarchy –that John Kasich, the only candidate that I feared in 2016, has only $1.3m cash on hand. The only coherent candidate from 2012 was John Huntsman –who Obama, realizing that he was the only legitimate threat, had sent over to be Ambassador to China –he was the only candidate who never had his day in the spot light. Why was that? – because he was only the only candidate who did not feel comfortable pandering to bigots and idiots.
So it appears that we cannot expand beyond the original premise:
1) Back Trump and get Trumped.
2) Wait for the convention to execute a coup.
3) Run an Independent candidate against Trump.
In the TV show House of Cards, President Frank Underwood has a solution when presented with impossible options—reset the table! Now if one accepts that the options above lead nowhere, what then becomes your last gambit.
- Have no plan (which is the same as the options above) therefore best to do nothing.
- Actually have an “outside the box” plan to save the Party.
What is the constant in all these non-plan plans? A total lack of introspection. There is no credible in house debate about how the GOP base got so mad, so stupid that they would enthusiastically and venomously deliver the country to freak a show, a candidate who has yet to offer any content. Let us go back to David Brooks who said it worst:
“Moreover, many in the media, especially me, did not understand how they would express their alienation. We expected Trump to fizzle because we were not socially intermingled with his supporters and did not listen carefully enough.”
Ah – they did not listen close enough. That is always the argument of a loser -—it is either “we did not listen” or we “failed to get our message across”
Wrong, wrong. You have unlimited money, virtual unlimited media sycophants, unlimited debates –so do not tell me that you are failing to communicate your message. Yes you are not listening, but listening is something that you are not capable of doing –listening as it happens is not even mathematically possible. The message is the problem, but it runs way deeper than that. It is the lies, the corruption, the nurturing of bigotry, and the denial of facts, the total destruction of critical thinking. These Stupidparty prognosticators could not be further from the truth –thus they cannot see the answer. They cannot solve the problem, because they are the problem. You cannot listen to the the people if you are not representing the people.
There is only one answer; to have a future, the GOP as we now know it, must die.
Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see…
That suicide is painless
It brings on many changesJohnny Mandel
It would be more dignified if in their final words they could say something truthful like; “we are really sorry, we have become corrupted lying scum.” To be reborn again– they must look at how conservatives in other countries survive and flourish. No need to reinvent the international wheel, just the American wheel. They could do worse than look at the British Conservative party. Like in the US, this party also gets its strength from rural areas –but rural areas need protection –need conservation. That means supporting people who are good stewards of the land (the family run farms), preserving small town America, supporting the community post office— the local ability to inexpensively send and receive mail, to be connected, animal welfare, the benign regulation of hunting to preserve natural habitat, the advancement of tourism by helping maintain parks and natural beauty, protecting government lands from asset strippers,- for the public to enjoy and profit by, clean water for recreational activities, healthcare for remote communities.
Believe it or not these are Conservative values. But such values have been bought up and incinerated by people who want to asset strip everything – the people, the land, and every single living organism, to satiate their own peculiar greed. It takes regulation, it takes planning, to preserve or conserve. Being a Conservative is not about allowing for a free for all, a winner takes all, survival of the fittest dystopian universe, but rather to allow everyone to be free to enjoy all. Even in all the old Westerns, “True Grit” conservatives like John Wayne took on the bad guys, the guys who would buy up the water rights and dry out all the competition. The corrupted bought up sheriffs or local politicians would soon face deadly justice from the “high plains drifter” –our man Clint Eastwood, who like Hank Greenberg is clearly and tragically wandered past his intellectual peak.
The only way the GOP can possibly start listening to their constituents is if they stop listening to their donors. They must stop pretending that they are on a mission from god, but instead be on a mission to help the people. British Conservative politicians might stretch the truth, (like any political party) but that is not lying – they talk to their constituents, make no effort to destroy the concept of national healthcare, at least they debate income discrepancy, they never mention God, guns, abortion, sexual abstinence, science denial. Just last week they introduced a sugar tax, (“because they just could not stand by and watch the nation’s health get decimated) and the party got humiliated by its own Backbenchers when the Chancellor of the Exchequer went after certain benefits to handicapped people.
Either America becomes an Island dictatorship/oligarchy -or the whole country moves from being the most right wing country on the planet with the GOP becoming more like the British conservative party –and thus pushing the Democrats from being a rather spineless center right party –to a proper progressive, left, liberal -yes even socialist movement. Of course all these labels are meaningless –but the Democratic Party must become the party that tears down the façade of every one being in middle class and dare to mention the unmentionables, the untouchables. America through the Democratic Party needs to acknowledge, understand and try and resolve the issues relating to poverty, prison population, preventable sickness, pillaging of resources. They can only do this once Conservatives are reborn again, having spent 40 days or years (depending on their capacity to evolve or accept evolution) in the wilderness without food, their VIP stadium suites, Palm beach fundraising love ins, they must ditch their Hummers and Humdingers and return on a humble donkey –help the sick, chase out the money changers, turn the other cheek, invite gringo’s into their tent and serve them wine not polluted water.
So—Is it even possible for an American Conservative to be smart –to be good? Yes it is, but they need to die first, be born again and come back to the real world as an American exceptional conservative.
Like a rotten log
half buried in the ground –
my life, which
has not flowered, comes
to this sad end.
Minamoto Yorimasa
1104-1180
Goodnight Stupidparty – I hope to see a real political party, the Republican Party of Lincoln, reformed resurrected, able to engage in coherent productive political dialogue.
julie hamburg says
Brilliant.