“Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.” –Thomas Jefferson
“The system is rigged!” Personally, I have heard that a dozen times over the last twenty years —said by a dozen or so different people with different viewpoints. Most of those people saying it, never really provide a basis for the viewpoint, thus we write them off as cranks.
In 2016, it is no secret that the political system is, indeed rigged. This recent foray into election politics has laid bare the politically corrupt and the agenda-driven constituencies that hold all the cards and control the game.The king-makers…the establishment, the power brokers. Those who will stop at nothing to maintain the status quo.
The system is rigged because we have a slate of candidates in a primary contest and behind the scenes the levers are pulled to select who rises to the top. Hence, we’ve seen the emergence of McCain, Romney times two…and we have lost big. Big to the likes of Barack Obama.
We have a do-nothing Senate and Congress, whose members are concern with nothing other than hanging onto their seats and the power they hold. Candidates that once campaigned on substantial changes like getting rid of Obamacare, defunding planned parenthood, holding the line on spending, and protecting our rights. Instead we see more bills to take away our freedoms and liberties, curtail the ability of the American small businesses to succeed and a bicameral system that is corrupt, incompetent and ineffectual. A virtual paper tiger. Those same players maintaining the status quo somehow always manage to hold onto their seats with a new fresh set of empty promises upon which they never deliver. Nothing ever changes and the American electorate gets screwed.
Caught squarely in the middle of all this is the unemployed, underemployed, overtaxed, American people. The disenfranchised…the marginalized. Thus, Donald Trump has emerged as a candidate. Disenfranchised America is now weighing in. All corners of the establishment are in crisis mode over Donald Trump’s candidacy holding traction. They have lost control. The levers are not working and their response to it is revealing. Now we see they will stop at nothing to hang onto their power. They continue to attack Trump, ignoring all the while, “WHY” he is getting traction and keeping it.
The latest comer to the Trump mudslinging party is National Review with their “Against Trump” article. For the first time, in it’s 61-year History, NR actually dedicated a whole issue of the magazine to “taking out” Donald Trump — unprecedented on any level in our political history.
It really does not matter whether you support Trump or hate Trump. In fact, if you hate Trump, you will likely enjoy the writing. Reading between the hyperbole and venomous invective contained in the pages, there is a recurring theme that is parroted in these pages: “American People are angry. They feel ignored. But supporting Trump is not the way to address this anger. In fact, it is unwise.”
To summarize the National Review Issue, NR warns us that trump is a Charlatan…a political chameleon who will bamboozle us all and ruin the country. Essentially, NR is speaking to the unwashed and calling us stupid, unable to critically think about political issues. “Please continue to be sheep, puppets and pawns…just not for Trump…stick with us.”
As of this date, the establishment..to include the establishment fourth estate, has learned nothing in this political cycle. They continue to ignore the people, telling lies like “constitutional principles matter.” Few politicians really care about the constitution or how their policies affect the people, with perhaps the rare exception such as Rand Paul or Ted Cruz.
Donald Trump is leading. His lead has pulled the veil off the hidden establishment agenda and bares witness to just how rigged our political system really is. Remember before Barack Obama was elected? The establishment warned, “If you stay home and don’t vote for Romney, that is essentially voting for Barack Obama…”
Dire and ominous warnings came from the establishment about how Obama would destroy and damage the Republic forever. A strong argument can be made that has happened. Obama has exercised raw and unchecked power and the Republicans have done nothing to stop him. Corruption abounds and the Republicans fiddle. Hillary runs for the democratic nomination despite overwhelming evidence of corruption. Fast and Furious, Lois Lerner, the list goes on. Republicans have done nothing. So why would the unwashed continue to listen to the establishment?
Even if Donald Trump is not the nominee, Trump has performed a huge service to the country in pulling back that veil. We have never seen such a fight for the status quo in the history of American Politics. That bell cannot be unrung.
Despite liking National Review and many of its writers, there has always lingered a degree of phoniness about them. When National Review created the straw issue that Donald Trump was a conservative movement candidate, the beginning of the end clock has been started. National Review is establishment.