Trump spurs some conservative leaders to step back from the GOP

[Ron]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-spurs-some-conservative-leaders-to-step-back-from-the-gop/2016/05/07/9aedf0bc-13d3-11e6-81b4-581a5c4c42df_story.html

“It’s a crisis,” said Al Cardenas, a former chairman of the American Conservative Union who is withholding support for Trump. “If we do away with the fundamental strength of the conservative movement, which is our ideas and values and principles, then you don’t have anything left but politics. A movement can survive the loss of an election cycle, but it can’t survive the loss of its purpose, and that’s what we’re battling here.”

Nothing has been conserved and your ideas and values and principles have not been implemented in any way shape or form.

“If there’s an ideological leader of our party right now, it’s Paul Ryan,” said former senator Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). “He’s not part of the shouting crowd; he’s part of the doing crowd. But the party’s voters have gone with the shouting crowd. It’s reflective of the failure of the doer crowd to get things done.”

Oh they've gotten plenty done. None of it was what they were elected to do, in fact they did the opposite.

Kristol, Krauthammer, McCain, Romney, the Bush clan and Ryan, what have these guys ever done that has conserved anything?

There is talk of the "conservatives" breaking free from the Republican party in this article and I look at them and wonder how they could be so disconnected from reality? They aren't conservatives at all. If you look at who they support and the voting patterns they are progressives. War mongering progressives at that.

There will be a lot of articles like this where the media try and craft a new narrative. Reading it is like reading a piece of fiction using the names of real people. The Orwellian use of the word conservative is everywhere. "The gay Republican transgender "conservative" with the last name Jenner is just an obvious example. The rest of the Republican establishment isn't any more conservative than the Jenner freak show.

I haven't called myself a conservative for a while now. Occasionally I still slip up and use the word but the word has been coopted and emptied of all virtuous meaning. It's actually a bad word that will harm your attempts to communicate your ideas and principles to folks with whom you are speaking.

[Ron]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/the-conservative-case-against-trump.html?_r=0

Ross Douthat also fails amazingly

THERE are many lessons that conservatives need to learn from the rise of Donald Trump. There are elements of his message that the party should embrace. There are grievances among his voters that the Republican Party must address.

But for conservatives to support Trump himself, to assist in his election as president of the United States, would be a terrible mistake.

It would be a particularly stark mistake for conservatives who feel that the basic Reaganite vision that’s dominated their party for decades — a fusion of social conservatism, free-market economics, and a hawkish internationalism — still gets things mostly right.

Social conservatism that has only been used as a campaign gimmick to get elected. Nothing more.

Free market economics? The globalism that has hollowed out the middle class and industrial capacity? What we have experienced is actually not free market capitalism. Another subversion of the language calling global crony capitalism free market economics.

Hawkish internationalism, yea how's that working out for us? War mongers.

These guys are lost and deserve to be cast out of positions of influence.

[MechAg94]

I think many of the politicians complaining about Trump are just making noise and hoping someone listens.  No one but the media are really listening so it amounts to nothing. 

[HankB]

Ross Douthat also fails amazingly

Local rag carries his column under the banner "From the right" which runs right next to a "From the left" column featuring people like Paul Krugman. Supposed to be a "Point, counter point" feature in print.

Lately, I've been thinking the two "competing" columns should be retitled "From the extreme left" and "From the left" in order to better represent the views aired. 

Kristol, Krauthammer, McCain, Romney, the Bush clan, George Will, and Ryan, what have these guys ever done that has conserved anything?

Forgot one. 

[Ron]

Trump's not running as a conservative if that is who you mean.

Sent from my XT1526 using Tapatalk

[230RN]

HankB smartassed:

Lately, I've been thinking the two '"competing" columns should be retitled "From the extreme left" and "From the left" in order to better represent the views aired.

That's the way I've been rating almost all MSM outlets for 20 years.  Another rating for me is "absolutely politically correct" and "not qui-i-i-ite so absolutely politically correct."

[HankB]

Back to "conservative" Ross Douthat. (BTW, he IS a "conservative" columnist for the New York Times.)

He concluded today's column - a rant against Trump - by writing "But to Trump himself, there is no patriotic answer except “no.” "

No doubt this "conservative" finds Hillary preferable. 

[Ron]

"Conservatism is, and always was, a safe void just an arm’s length away from the regressive Left.
It always has been whatever the Left was not.
A following dancer upset with the lead of her partner is still a follower."

Ran across this quote on a blog. Pretty much sums up the problem with conservatism. It is never in the lead but is always following or reacting to others. American conservatism is devoid of an overarching philosophy to give it direction. It's just a coalition of those who don't identify with the left.

[Scout26]

Nice article in Sunday's Chicago Sun-Times about lots and lots of GOP money that is sitting on the sidelines.   Reports are that Illinois is normally good for $20-$25 million in a presidential election.  IIRC, Trump has raised <$1 million in Illinois, and there's not a lot of enthusiasm among the big donors to write checks. 

[grampster]

I never liked GHW Bush.  I'm old enough to have followed his career.  He was/is a corporatist white shoe RINO.  After he got in as president came the words "New World Order".  That was the bell that began tolling the end of Constitutional Republicanism.

Check out my new thread with commentary by Brad Thor.  Pay particular attention to near the end when he quotes Hamilton.  I have been sorely perplexed about what I as one man can do.  I have resisted the call to either vote for the lesser of two evils, not vote, or to waste it on some wack job 3rd, 4th or 5th party mook.  Unless something untoward happens, I have made my choice.  I will not vote and shall follow the advice of Hamilton:  “If we must have an enemy at the head of government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible.”

My fantasy is that every American would write in "None of the above."  Perhaps I'll do that instead.

[Firethorn]

Nice article in Sunday's Chicago Sun-Times about lots and lots of GOP money that is sitting on the sidelines.   Reports are that Illinois is normally good for $20-$25 million in a presidential election.  IIRC, Trump has raised <$1 million in Illinois, and there's not a lot of enthusiasm among the big donors to write checks. 

Does he need it though with the media slavering to report his every word?

[Perd Hapley]

I never liked GHW Bush.  I'm old enough to have followed his career.  He was/is a corporatist white shoe RINO.  After he got in as president came the words "New World Order".  That was the bell that began tolling the end of Constitutional Republicanism.

Oh, for crying out loud. There are a number of things we could blame for whatever it is that's happening to America these days. Three words in a president's speech is not among those things. Can people please stop harping on that vague little phrase? grumblegrumblegrumble

[grampster]

Go back into your cave, Fistful. 

[sanglant]

Some other whore is looking better by the day.

[Ron]

Oh, for crying out loud. There are a number of things we could blame for whatever it is that's happening to America these days. Three words in a president's speech is not among those things. Can people please stop harping on that vague little phrase? grumblegrumblegrumble

Those words are "the tell" though along with so many other actions. The Bush clan is primarily internationalist in their outlook. I'm not saying they aren't patriotic or that they don't love America. What I am saying is that their world view, including the role of the USA is internationalist and not just nationalist. They want to mold and remake the world.

Turns out the world isn't that interested in being remade.

[RoadKingLarry]

Turns out the world isn't that interested in being remade.

Can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

[KD5NRH]

Oh, for crying out loud. There are a number of things we could blame for whatever it is that's happening to America these days. Three words in a president's speech is not among those things. Can people please stop harping on that vague little phrase?

But there has to be a way for it to be Bush's fault, even when it's the wrong Bush.