Brent Bozell implores his fellow Movement Conservatives to think seriously about what they are doing, and to dissociate themselves from Donald Trump’s candidacy before it is too late.
Even those of us who oppose Trump understand that he’s tapping into something that has exploded onto the national scene: disenchantment, even white-hot rage among the Republican base with the party’s establishment and the Washington status quo. You and I understand this because we were taking on the weak-kneed GOP leadership many, many years ago, back when Donald Trump was donating to Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Is Donald Trump the answer? That question’s on everyone’s mind. But there needs to be another question answered first: Does Donald Trump mean a word he says? Are conservative leaders supporting Trump prepared to live with the consequences if he doesn’t?
Many critics have outlined the innumerable left-wing positions and candidates Trump championed before he got in this race. It’s worth recalling some of them now: Trump not only supported but bankrolled amnesty. He supported taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. He supported not just abortion but partial-birth abortion. He was open to gay marriage. He supported government-funded universal healthcare.
He supported eminent domain for (his) private gain. He supported the Wall Street bailout. He supported “assault weapons†bans. He applauded President Obama for doing a “great job.†He congratulated Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for doing a “good job.†He financially helped the Democrats pass Obamacare. Trump was a registered Democrat when that party was being led by the likes of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), donating heavily during President Obama’s tenure. He’s bankrolled Democrats like Jimmy Carter, Rahm Emmanuel, Anthony Weiner, Terry McAuliffe, Chuck Schumer, Charlie Rangel, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, to name a few.
But Trump said he’s changed. On everything. Overnight. Just in time for the GOP nomination fight.
Really?
Let’s look at Mr. Trump’s record during this campaign. He’s declared his support for single-payer healthcare. That puts him to the left of Obamacare. He’s re-declared his support for Planned Parenthood. He’s re-supporting tax increases. He’s supported crony capitalism. He’s endorsed “touchback†amnesty. He wants the U.S. to break the Geneva Convention. He’s “neutral†on Israel and Palestine. He wants South Korea and Japan to have nuclear arsenals.
Paul Krugman loves Trump’s big government economic plan for the simple reason that big government will remain under President Trump.
Two weeks ago, Mr. Trump took the left’s side in the North Carolina transgender bathroom controversy.
Last week Mr. Trump announced—guess what?—he’s not just pro-abortion, he wants the pro-life plank in the GOP platform removed, thus divorcing the Republican Party from the pro-life movement. Sarah, Ben, Mike, Phyllis: How can you still support this man? He has now thrown you under the bus, embracing an agenda you’ve spent your entire career opposing. Can you accept that betrayal?
What will you tell your supporters when the man you endorsed enacts an agenda that horrifies them?
As the Republican primaries draw to some sort of conclusion, right now Trump is surrounding himself with GOP establishment types, trying to assure them he doesn’t really mean many of the things he’s said, claiming that much of his campaign is just posturing.
Posturing to whom?
Top Trump aide Paul Manafort is telling GOP establishment bosses behind closed doors that his boss is “a real different guy.†His campaign openly touts his chameleon-like character as some sort of general election advantage.
Is someone with no discernible principles the candidate you want leading the Republican Party and taking on the Democrats in 2016?
Is someone who consistently lies about principles and positions he doesn’t hold worthy of your support?
If Trump becomes the nominee, and enacts the policies he’s now championing, will conservatives who chose to aid and abet Mr. Trump be able to live with their decision?
When it comes time to nominate a new Supreme Court Justice, and President Trump names his radically pro-abortion sister, as he’s suggested he would, or some other radically pro-abortion pro- Planned Parenthood jurist, as we know he will, will you accept that you helped him do that?
RICK
Summary; We get that we so screwed up the R party that the people can no longer in good conscience support us. So awful we have made it that it has given rise to severe distrust which has created the environment for a political outsider to garner a substantial popular vote. We get that.
But let’s talk about Trump. We’ll talk of him in the negative yet not offer any solution or speak of an alternate candidate. And whenever he messes up we will blame you.
RICK
Or,
Honey, please come back! I didn’t mean it. It meant nothing to me. It was a mistake. I still love you.
What? What do you mean you found a date? Who is it? Wait…tha-that guy! THAT guy? He’s a dog, No wait, he’s worse than a dog. He’ll treat you terribly. You’ll see.
Oh now you are defending him? What do you mean this wouldn’t have happened if I had kept my word? You’re jut changing the subject. That guy is mean. C’mon baby, you know I’m the only one for you.
Scullman
Brent-
Trump has won 26 of 39 states that have voted so far.
So don’t listen.
Take your autographed “God and Man at Yale” and a jar of peanut butter, and crawl into hole someplace. You’re a bore.
Caroline
I don’t have to offer a solution to know Donald Trump is an inadequate one.
If we must talk solutions, “Anybody but Hillary” is not a solution. It’s using your finger to stop up a hole in a boat that is taking on water. A vote for Mr. Trump for solely that purpose will leave you on the bottom of a dilapidated boat that will inevitably sink.
This whole campaign has been a tragedy from the beginning — a squandered opportunity to reject in unity the economic and social policy failures of this administration (their hallmarks: thought censorship, moral relativism, and corruption.) But one doesn’t need to be a government actor to benefit from controlled speech (Trump), need to be a politician in order to be corrupt (Trump), nor need to pledge allegiance to Democrats in order to extend Liberal policies (Trump).
Voting “Republican in name only” as an election strategy got the GOP (and its disaffected conservative faction) here. It defies reason to vote RINO yet again to save us from its fallout. Therefore, the solution is quite simple. I won’t be bullied or mocked into voting against my conscience.
JKB
By this older definition, both parties are conservative regardless of the names they call themselves.
Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.
William E. Gladstone
Scullman
So Caroline, after all that, when Trump wins Indiana next week and Cruz is in no position to win, short of a riot in Cleveland, I guess this means you won’t be voting for anyone in November, right?
GoneWithTheWind
Brent should know better. I don’t really care what he says for public consumption but privately with conservative Republicans and Rinos he should be saying that maybe “we” screwed up and should listen to our base. The country is literally over run with illegals, legal immigrants, visa over stayers, refugees and a looooooong line of all their relatives and second cousins who will get citizenship by rubber stamp. I’m tired of paying welfare and for new schools and free college and every other damned thing our politicians can think of to seduce the immigrant population to vote for them.
Maybe it’s over. Maybe it’s too late and the government will eventually seize my home and assets to pay for all the free stuff and I should just quit trying. Screw it and with my last few dollars move to Hawaii and become homeless. F-em all.
SDD
If Trump is the nominee, how long do you think it will take to see a reprise of the Daisy Ad?
TomA
Trump is the symptom, not the disease. GOPe is the functional equivalent of Stage 4 lung cancer, and Brent Bozell is bitching about the hacking cough that won’t go away.
RICK
Caroline, so precisely have you used the same words of so many others that I do wonder if perhaps there is not a crib sheet for comments.
I cannot figure out why complaining but without solution or even arguing for an alternative candidate is not the same as the ‘blame Bush’ crowd. Blame is all I see. Adults seek solutions or am I wrong about that?
When a problem is found should we not then seek a solution? Is it satisfactory to simply say you are against the problem? After all, the basis of the argument is that Trump is the problem. Even if he is only the symptom why should we not seek to redress the problem?
To pronounce the problem yet not offer solution (or even an alternate candidate) entirely reminds me of the left. Bitch and moan and act as if their duty is done at that point. ‘I don’t have to offer a solution’. That is correct on an individual level, it is not the duty of an individual to find the solution. However, that position is incorrect for the citizen, a member of society. To each citizen it is incumbent to promote the health of their society.
I see two ways this could go. One is that citizens get involved to correct the conditions (or candidates) they perceive as problematic; two, that they do nothing (beyond complain) because they decide to let ‘someone else’ take care of it.
BTW: that attitude of ‘let George do it’ is a significant reason why we got to where we are. Also, that someone else is typically an ever larger government.
So yes, let’s only mouth off how X is bad. Let’s not offer a solution. I DON’T HAVE TO OFFER A SOLUTION…so bloody infantile. And let’s not offer a viable alternative. Let’s just sit and stew (and take our lumps) And when the beatings continue we can smugly blame others for it. Serenity now.
RICK
I apologize. My comment was not intended to address Caroline, per se. Even though I used her name, my comment was intended to address those very same comments I have seen all across the blogosphere. Those comments are exactly or nearly so the very same as that made by Caroline.
I’m up to here with reading dismissive remarks yet without proposing any viable alternative. To think of any facet of my life that I would simply point out a problem but absent even the mere suggestion of correction I would be sent home. Too, as a thinking person I cannot comprehend how complaint in and by itself is deemed satisfactory. It was the negative commenting, not of Caroline as a person, to which I intended my comment.
ZOLTORGAN
Bozell still hoping for a Bush/Cruz ticket and jewish control of the government.
Brent Bozell's Open Letter To Conservatives - Political Wrinkles
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EriK
I’m tired of being told what to do.
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