The April issue of @reason is out. Subscribe now for access $15! Great story by @petersuderman on @HawleyMO‘s ‘toxic populism,’ @ENBrown on feminism & the carceral state, @lizzywol on how the @US_FDA stole your bucatini, plus my Q&A w @slsatel on opioids. https://t.co/jlz7MI82s4 pic.twitter.com/sV0F0pJIQv
— Nick Gillespie (@nickgillespie) February 19, 2021
It is difficult to exaggerate how much of a political liability that Donald Trump’s deference to Conservatism, Inc., the GOP establishment and their hidebound neoliberal agenda was after he defeated them in the 2016 election. This was one of the biggest mistakes he made as president.
“Well, it’s on.
Donald Trump ended his post-presidency silence not with a blast at President Joe Biden, or at the Left, or at the House impeachment managers, but at the true enemy — Mitch McConnell.
The Trump forces aren’t forming a third party, but they do want to take over or — more accurately — maintain their current grip on the GOP, and McConnell is an obstacle. …
McConnell’s task, though, isn’t to rely on his emotive power to create a loyal mass army of McConnellists around the country, steeped in Senate procedure and ready to go to the mat for the Byrd rule. No, it is simply to work to block electorally poisonous, or at least risky, Trumpists from winning Senate primaries. …
Still, the gravamen of Trump’s anti-McConnell statement, making the case that the Kentucky Republican is a political disaster compared with the masterly Trump, is risible.
Republicans still strongly identify with Trump, but it’d be a mistake to let him dictate the party’s potential future leaders or its ultimate direction.”
Why wouldn’t you get rid of these people?
62% of the country is fed up with the status quo. They stood by and did nothing while BLM and Antifa burned down the country. They impeached Trump and don’t represent their own voters.
From our perspective, we had whipped these guys in the 2016 primary and given Trump a populist and nationalist mandate to move on from mainstream conservatism. We had whipped Hillary Clinton too. In the moment of victory though, Donald Trump inexplicably embraced these people, undermined his own coalition and made the call to advance their politically toxic agenda.
Donald Trump spent his political capital in 2017 on Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell’s agenda of health care and tax cuts. These two True Cons policy initiatives were respectively the two least popular pieces of major legislation advanced by either party in the last twenty-five years. Trump began to sink in the polls as he embraced these people and their agenda and move away from the populist and nationalist energy he had with him in the 2016 campaign when he won Independent voters. In the 2018 midterms, the Republican Party lost control of the House because the Democrats ran on health care and Trump voters who were with him on immigration voted to put Nancy Pelosi in charge of the House.
Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan sabotaged Trump every step of the way.
Here in Alabama, Mitch McConnell intervened in our Senate primary to replace Jeff Sessions and took down Roy Moore in December 2017, which put Doug Jones in the Senate and sabotaged the Trump agenda in 2018 by taking away a critical vote which gave his allies greater leverage.
After the House was lost in the 2018 midterms due to the unpopularity of Ryancare and the Trump tax cuts, there was zero chance of anything else moving through Congress. Mitch was content to spend the rest of Trump’s term stacking the federal judiciary with pro-business libertarian judges. As a result of this, Independent voters turned against Trump in the 2020 election due to his failure to deliver on his MAGA agenda. Finally, Mitch McConnell lost control of the Senate by insulting voters on Christmas with the $600 stimulus checks which was opposed by something like 75% of Georgia voters.
The True Cons wing of the Republican Party which is represented by Rich Lowry, Liz Cheney and Mitch McConnell is a massive electoral alabatross around the neck of Trump voters:
Environment
Trump voters are moderates on the environment. McConnell voters are the extremists.
Income Inequality
Trump voters are the moderates on income inequality. McConnell voters are the extremists.
Health care
Trump voters are the moderates on health care. McConnell voters are the extremists.
Taxes
Trump voters are the moderates on taxes. McConnell voters are the extremists.
We can continue to go down the list.
Virtually every issue that is a big electoral loser for the GOP is a policy preference or cultural sensibility of the True Cons wing and the Republican donor class. In contrast, Trump voters are populist voters who have only recently migrated to the Right from the Center in the 2016 election.
The Trump voters are the moderates in the GOP on social and economic issues. The McConnell voters are the libertarian fringe of the party. The Trump wing is typically working class and lower middle class and former Democrats and Indies. The McConnell wing is typically upper middle class.
The Trump voters (non-traditional Republicans) are toward the middle in the populist quadrant:
The American electorate is like a horseshoe:
The “Core Conservatives” (aka “Small Business Bourgeoisie”) and “Solid Liberals” (aka “Professional Bourgeoisie”) are the two poles that punch dramatically above their weight. These people are much more likely to be college-educated and well off than all other groups. They are doing a disproportionate share of the voting in our elections and have shaped both parties to their modernist tastes. Political participation dives off the charts as you approach the underclass.
As you go around the bend, Country First Conservatives, New Era Enterprisers and Market Skeptic Republicans are the “Heartland Working Class” and the Devout and Diverse Democrats, Disaffected Democrats and Opportunity Democrats are the “Hub City Working Class.” Generally speaking, there are blacks in the Heartland and White conservatives in the Hub Cities, but this is the overall structure of things. The MAGA voters (95% say the economic system is rigged) and Disaffected Democrats (99% say the economic system is rigged) are adjacent and share many of the same resentments. They are both strikingly immobile. They are angry townies who have lived in the same place most of their lives.
The managerial elite which lords it over the country is constantly stirring up racial and cultural polarization in order to keep all the subordinate groups below them divided and at each others throats. They are stoking a 24/7/365 race war and cultural war which keeps the current order in place and all the money flowing upward to their benefit. The politicians are bribed to cater to their cultural and economic interests. The bloated oligarchy grows larger and larger and the bottom grows angrier and angrier.
If Trump was smart (spoiler: he is not), he would finish killing off Conservatism, Inc. and alienate the libertarian billionaires who run the racket and the policy agenda and cede the pearl clutching suburbanites like David French to the Democrats. It would be much easier for Trump to expand his coalition through the working class and populist wing of the party by dumping political correctness and libertarian economics. Most people in this country are sick and tired of Rich Lowry and Turtle whose brand and policy agenda is dogshit even within the Republican Party.
Trump should do us all a favor and finish them off now that he holds such a commanding position. They are a 15% country club rump who have always stood in the way of what needs to be done. Disaffected Trump voters who were with him in 2016 but left in 2020 because he catered too much to these people and the sea of populist voters behind them will more than make up for their demise.
Note: I will continue to monitor the situation. I’m not really expecting anything to happen, but we will see what happens. Trump should focus on electing a Trumpist Congress though. The demographic base which used to sustain the GOP establishment no longer exists.
The very term “Conservative” is meaningless.
In 1981 it meant opposing homosexuality and abortion.
Now, today, 40 years later, in 2021, can you name just one “Conservative” GOP senator or congressman who speaks out publicly, in the halls of congress, against sodomites and baby-killing doctors?
What changed? Did they lose their Christian “faith?”
Why now is abortion and homosexuality “cool” among the “Conservatives” in the GOP?
Trump is a low IQ billionaire from NYC with tons of wealthy friends, expecting NazBol policies from Trump was dumb in the first place.
Yet the Trump worshippers still push this narrative that he’s a “populist” who is for the working class. In reality, even Mitt Romney is closer to what they want, but because he didn’t support Trump they’ll pretend otherwise
Willard “Bain Capital” Romney is closer to what working class Americans want? Wow.
The motto on the family crest of Willard “Bain Capital” Romney is “Every Man for Himself and Devil Take the Hindmost”. He is a scumbag par excellence.
“”” If Trump was smart .. “””
Smart people never make changes. Smart people always go with the flow. And lose.
Geniuses are the ones who can read the society and make things happen. Donald understands that entire system is corrupt and want to burn it to the ground. Like current madness demonstrates, he is winning. We are not back to normal, we are in the middle of mass hysteria.
“”….alienate the libertarian billionaires…..”””
We do not need them alienated. We need them gone. All problems started long before Donald was born. This system what produces billionaires who are capable to control countries, create ” independent ” central banks, push nations into wars and so on, is very bad and such system need to demolished entirely.
Normal system is healthy national socialism based ethno state, who cares about the people, not some kind of monster state what is run by few wealthy psychopaths.
To get this normal ethno state, it is very necessary to burn down every ideology based thing and institution. Donald understands this and this is the reason, why he is flipflopping and picking up fight with everybody. Donald demonstrates that every ideology based thing is wrong.
His enemies understand this also. This why Donald is hated by every group, what is based on ideology.
Donald is not smart. He is genius and probably the wisest man in the last centuries. Nobody never ever managed to make such a chaos that entire world order is shaking. House of Medici was the closest example of powerful leaders who pushed West out from the dark ages, renaissance and the European Civilization in general.
Sure bucko. Donald Trump is a real gem.
“It is difficult to exaggerate how much a political liability that Donald Trump’s deference to Conservatism, Inc., the GOP establishment and their hidebound neoliberal agenda was after he defeated them in the 2016 election. This was one of the biggest mistakes he made as president.”
Trump had no choice. There were no “populists” anywhere near Trump. Trump’s entire political team, his business network, and even his family are Likudnik Zionists.
The other faction was the GOP Conservative Inc. establishment – who all hated Trump and his entire network. Trump needed their support, so for the first two years he just did whatever the GOP wanted while Trump and Jared Kushner worked on their Israel First agenda.
There was Steve Bannon – a smart political operator that knew how to win elections via rhetoric and marketing. He was frozen out by Jared Kushner – and Stephen Miller – early on. There was Jeff Sessions – a serious immigration reformer. While the excuse was Trump was mad that Sessions recused himself – which of course he had to do legally – in reality Trump got immediate pushback from both the GOP establishment and Silicon Valley on immigration. Remember Trump’s big meeting with Silicon Valley execs, and how he then said we needed to increase the H1-Bs to help America’s economy?
Anyone asking for a “Populist” agenda from the Republican party – AT BEST – can hope for lip service. There are political operatives – like Bannon – who will give you populist lip service.
But there are no “populist” operatives that can actually change policy. The only real immigration restriction lobby in America – CIS – is called “white supremacist” by the SPLC, thus the entire mass media, thus Wikipedia.
There are a handful of politicians that are willing to give lip service to “populists” – but who would even write the legislation? Who would do the backroom deals with other factions to make a deal?
There are no “populists” because there are no organized working middle class Americans to demand populism.
There’s no Populist political party, no Populist Club, no Populist blog. There is no mailing list of Populists that are willing to send letters to a politician demaning the passage of some piece of legislation.
If you want populism you have to organize it yourselves, and then you have to force the GOP shills to accept it, and you have to give them something in exchange.
Self-government is hard – that is why people don’t do it. They just raise their hands ever few years and complain about something then go back to getting mad at the damn lib-ruls and their tranny nonsense.
Trumpism is fagism. Now he is trying to make the Grennell fag Governor of California. Time to move on. But on the same topic I hope someone will tell Wanglin to forget it, Glenn Greenfag is already married to another guy, down there in Brazil.
Some people never learn I guess. Trump isn’t doing jack. He’s the reason “Con Inc” is what it is currently. He talked a big game then fired any loyalists and populists and brought in all the Con Inc and GOP hacks. Who in turn stabbed him, and the American people, in the back. The level of mental gymnastics at this point to think he will do anything is breathtaking.
3rd party or STFU and go away.
Trump is a narcissist and feels betrayed by McConnell & Co. He went along with them for four years as president, but Joe is president now and their little alliance is on the rocks. So, we will see what happens.