we’d rather see the shards of the current Establishment on the floor than continue to see the shards of the broken promises and actions that the Republican Party is actually delivering.
I do have to say that there are a lot of Republicans not liking that Donald Trump has crashed their party of “The Party”. It has been hilarious, as well as very telling, to watch and listen to the howls of indignation of the Establishment Republicans and their coterie of consultants and commentariats invoke Reagan’s 11th Commandment even as they violate it themselves (consistency?). Frankly, for a lot of them, this is beginning to become their Oz moment – the pulling away of the smoke and mirrors by a guy who just doesn’t give a crap what they think. And as I, and a lot of others are saying, they hate the idea that their nuanced and calibrated politicalese messages, angles, and strategies are going down in flames more flamboyantly than the Hindenburg.
And I believe that they hate the idea that many of the Right body politic are nodding their heads in agreement when Trump says what he does – because these other chuckleheads won’t. And when they lay in their broadsides, thinking that their screeds will shame him off the stage and put a sock in it, Trump is sidestepping and saying even more that shows the hypocriticalness. Tit, tat, BOOM!
There is also the insider-outsider aspect to this – and Trump is playing this well (almost like he had a deck of marked cards) and Conservative Review has a nice take on it (emphasis mine):
…There is an answer to the “why” however. An answer that speaks directly to both why Trump’s candidacy resonates – and the visceral nature of the opposition to him in some of these conservative quarters.
Not coincidentally it speaks as well to some of the GOP Establishment fury at Senator Ted Cruz when he stood up almost alone against Obamacare. Or the quick dismissals of Dr. Ben Carson’s campaign by the same crowd.
In short? A serious chunk of the conservative base of the Republican Party looks at the Washington GOP Establishment – defined as everyone from Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to the Republican National Committee, the US Chamber of Commerce and some quarters of the conservative commentariat – and they see not conservatives but Insiders. People who have long ago abandoned the field to join – if I may borrow a phrase thrown at Trump – a clown car of Insider-dom. People who spend their time talking to one another in Washington or New York or both and are utterly clueless of what’s going on in everyday America.
Donald Trump is an establishment GOP political consultant’s worst nightmare. He speaks off the cuff, and he speaks bluntly. He could not possibly care less what the GOP establishment, viewing it as he does as corrupt when not incompetent, thinks. Republican and conservative voters who like Trump, like him exactly because he speaks in blunt truths that they themselves believe and lack the forum to say. When Trump talks about his own wealth it is a reminder that he made not a dime of it being a Washington insider. The very fact that Jeb Bush generates news stories reporting that he’s swept through Washington’s lobbying industry like a vacuum cleaner sucking up money for his campaign tells a lot of conservatives everything they need to know about a Bush candidacy and potential presidency – none of it good.
…In other words, the same forces that are making the Trump candidacy resonate with the grassroots and are infuriating Williamson and others on the conservative side of the commentary aisle are fueling Jim Jordan and those House conservatives in their increasingly bitter battle with Boehner. To wit, that quote from a Freedom Caucus member: “Why do 65 percent of Republican voters think Republicans aren’t doing what we said we were going to do? You know why? Because we’re not doing what we said we were going to do.”
Exactly. And Donald Trump—and others like Dr. Ben Carson and Senator Ted Cruz—get it.
They are out there on the ground in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and elsewhere getting an earful from Republicans and conservatives who see themselves as being “marginalized” for simply expressing uncomfortable truths about the issues of the day from amnesty to dealing with Iranian nukes to the repeal of ObamaCare.
So, got all that? Summary: a revolt. A revolt against doing the same things over and over “for” the Republican Party and the Party then turning around and failing to do what it promised. They have brought this upon themselves – but are doing the Washington two-step in blaming everyone and everything except themselves. After all, what politician wants to take any blame for their own blunders and broken promises.
Trump is just shining a Big Flashlight on the major issues. Ted Cruz does get it – and has been assaulted here in NH by “gone DC” Kelly Ayotte for pointing out that Angelo Codevilla’s political analysis that there is now no Dem or Rep party, but a Ruling Class and the Country Class (that is, all of us). Can’t make the appeal that they are “one of us” when they turn on the values that WE profess and fall into line to the Ruling Class leadership.
The Establishment is now claiming that a Trump or Cruz Presidency would be a disaster – bulls in a china shop. Well, how stupid do they think we are? Of COURSE it may be exactly that – and we don’t care. Why?
Because on issue after issue that matters to us in the grassroots, we’d rather see the shards of the current Establishment on the floor than continue to see the shards of the broken promises and actions that the Republican Party is actually delivering. We look at what the DC Rs are delivering (or not) in DC and find them woefully wanting. Hey, we want NO Amnesty – and US SPeaker of the House Boehner just promised an audience in a foreign land that he will deliver Illegal Alien Amnesty with a new Republican President in the Oval Office.
Right – and Jeb Bush agrees with that. And then he wonders why Trump is on his heels in the polls. If he can’t see that simple and plain WHY of it, Bush doesn’t belong in the Oval Office either.
