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The GOP Establishment Still Isn’t Listening.

Yeah, I can relate: [1]

.So now, after 18 months or so, we’re in a situation where the conservative wing of the coastal clerisy — people like Bill Kristol, my erstwhile PJ Media colleague Jennifer Rubin, and Ron Radosh — are all pushing the notion that to “punish Trump,” to “get Trump’s attention,” and to “save the Republican Party,” conservatives need to campaign for and vote for Democrat candidates in the midterms. What is even harder to understand is that they claim to be doing it based on their “principles.”

Well, yeah.

I mean, I object to describing such folk as “conservative” of any stripe, but, yeah.

All three he mentions and more [2], establishment types all, are stamping their feet and screaming like spoiled brats because said establishment GOP was so soundly rejected. (Rather like their newfound freinds, the Democrat party, can’t get over Clinton losing.)… Keeping in mind of course that they also were feverishly working against an actual conservative [3] in favor of Jeb Bush, in the most recent cycle, and prior to that gave us Mitt Romney [4], John McCain [5] and so on… All of which lost for the very same reason Trump won.

And yes, I know.. I fought against Trump as well, but recall, please, I fought against him because as Charlie Martin says, he’s FDR in an elephant suit… Whereas the people listed above continue to fight against him because he’s not establishment GOP… Not a member of the club. And as most of the GOP rank and file understands, the GOP establishment.. that club, is anything but conservative.

Ponder: If FDR in an elephant suit won the nomination of a party rank and file hungry for a real conservative, what does this say of the conservative creds of the candidates the GOP establishment types worked so hard to slip by us? For that matter, what does it say of the conservative creds of George Will, Bill Kristol, et al?

What such people fail to recognize is that’s precisely why the GOP rank and file went for Trump. Bad as he is, they (correctly) saw him as more conservative and thereby more worthy than anything the GOP establishment has puked up in generations, now…. Itself not being much of a hurdle. Better, in fact than anyone since Reagan.,. Who, as George Will’s column of the day demonstrates, they weren’t too happy about, either.

But Reagan is 63, and looks it. His hair is still remarkably free of gray, but around the mouth and neck he looks like an old man. He’s never demonstrated substantial national appeal. His hardcore support today consists primarily of the kamikaze conservatives who thought the 1964 Goldwater campaign was jolly fun. And there’s a reason to doubt that Reagan is well suited to appeal to the electorate that just produced a democratic landslide. If a Reagan third party would just lead the “Nixon was lynched” crowd away from the Republican party, and into outer darkness where there is a wailing and gnashing of teeth, it might be at worst a mixed course for the Republican party. It would cost the party some support, but it would make the party seem cleansed.”

The biggest sin of Ronald Reagan of course was that he wasn’t part of the Washington establishment. And perhaps I’m the only one but I noticed a pattern here… The people who are most wildly successful at pursuing and implementing actual conservative agendae are not members of the Washington establishment.

Martin continues…

.And there’s the problem. When you say you want to vote for Democrats to “send a message to Trump” in the name of “your principles,” what you are saying is you’re willing to vote for a party that has expressly promised to reverse the tax cuts, reimpose the regulations Trump’s administration is canceling, further nationalize healthcare and legalize open borders now and forever. Not to mention at least tacitly endorsing the use of the IRS to suppress political speech, the use of the Intelligence Community to spy on political opponents, and the use of the Justice Department to criminalize the opposition. Whats more, it’s the party that has promised to impeach Trump, leading to a political crisis the outcome of which no one can predict.

Well, look, that last one wont hurt the feelings or alter the myopic mindset of the establishment types at all.

The rest of it? Well, ya gotta break some eggs once in a while, huh? It’s a small price to pay for making the GOP a firm number two.

Read the whole thing. [1]