Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan
The American political class has failed the country, and should be fired. That is the clearest message from the summer surge of Bernie Sanders and the remarkable rise of Donald Trump.
Sanders’ candidacy can trace it roots back to the 19th-century populist party of Mary Elizabeth Lease who declaimed:
“Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master.”
“Raise less corn and more hell!” Mary admonished the farmers of Kansas.
William Jennings Bryan captured the Democratic nomination in 1896 by denouncing the gold standard beloved of the hard money men of his day: “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”
Sanders is in that tradition, if not in that league as an orator. His followers, largely white, $50,000-a-year folks with college degrees, call to mind more the followers of George McGovern than Jennings Bryan.
Yet the stagnation of workers’ wages as the billionaire boys club admits new members, and the hemorrhaging of U.S. jobs under trade deals done for the Davos-Doha crowd, has created a blazing issue of economic inequality that propels the Sanders campaign.
Between his issues and Trump’s there is overlap. Both denounce the trade deals that deindustrialized America and shipped millions of jobs off to Mexico, Asia and China. But Trump has connected to an even more powerful current.
That is the issue of uncontrolled and illegal immigration, the sense America’s borders are undefended, that untold millions of lawbreakers are in our country, and more are coming. While most come to work, they are taking American jobs and consuming tax dollars, and too many come to rob, rape, murder and make a living selling drugs.
Moreover, the politicians who have talked about this for decades are a pack of phonies who have done little to secure the border.
Trump boasts that he will get the job done, as he gets done all other jobs he has undertaken. And his poll ratings are one measure of how far out of touch the Republican establishment is with the Republican heartland.
When Trump ridicules his rivals as Lilliputians and mocks the celebrity media, the Republican base cheers and laughs with him.
He is boastful, brash, defiant, unapologetic, loves campaigning, and is putting on a great show with his Trump planes and 100-foot-long stretch limos. “Every man a king but no man wears a crown,” said Huey Long. “I’m gonna make America great again,” says Donald.
Compared to Trump, all the other candidates, including Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, are boring. He makes politics entertaining, fun.
Trump also benefits from the perception that his rivals and the press want him out of the race and are desperately seizing upon any gaffe to drive him out. The piling on, the abandonment of Trump by the corporate elite, may have cost him a lot of money. But it also brought him support he would not otherwise have had.
For no group of Americans has been called more names than the base of the GOP. The attacks that caused the establishment to wash its hands of Trump as an embarrassment brought the base to his defense.
But can Trump win?
If his poll numbers hold, Trump will be there six months from now when the Sweet 16 is cut to the Final Four, and he will likely be in the finals. For if Trump is running at 18 or 20 percent nationally then, among Republicans, it is hard to see how two rivals beat him.
For Trump not to be in the hunt as the New Hampshire primary opens, his campaign will have to implode, as Gary Hart’s did in 1987, and Bill Clinton’s almost did in 1992.
Thus, in the next six months, Trump will have to commit some truly egregious blunder that costs him his present following. Or the dirt divers of the media and “oppo research” arms of the other campaigns will have to come up with some high-yield IEDs.
Presidential primaries are minefields for the incautious, and Trump is not a cautious man. And it is difficult to see how, in a two-man race against the favorite of the Republican establishment, he could win enough primaries, caucuses and delegates to capture 50 percent of the convention votes.
For almost all of the candidates who will have dropped out by then will have endorsed the last man standing against Trump. And should Trump be nominated, his candidacy would make Barry Goldwater look like the great uniter of the GOP.
Still, who expected Donald Trump to be in the catbird seat in the GOP nomination run before the first presidential debate? And even his TV antagonists cannot deny he has been great for ratings.
Nope! If he even got close to winning, (impossible when winners are selected, not elected) there would be a horrific and 100% fatal accident outside Anytown, USA 01776 involving his campaign bus or plane.
If Trump doesn’t win -and take office- there is no future for America as an independent and sovereign country.
Everyone else, in spite of some of their rhetoric, favors the current direction at an accelerated pace.
I should add: We may not make it through the end of the current Obama administration if he isn’t somehow blocked in his goals.
The powers that truly run the world will kill him if they think he has a chance. Bernie Sanders is a lot closer to what they are looking for. He is not that different from the O nut case we have now.
If any of the other candidates had credibly pledged to build the border fence, no one would even be talking about Trump, but that would require them to actually want to staunch the flow of illegals.
Hollow man, I suspect you’re right, but it’s no longer 1963, and it may not be so easy to eliminate a well-known, popular billionaire. Whatever happens, it should be instructive to watch.
Herman Cain was in the catbird seat for a while too.
Trump promises to fix what’s wrong with America.
Democraps … especially Bernie …. promises endless free shit to shitloads of people.
Honestly now … really … be honest with yourself … who the fuck do you think will win?
That’s the problem.Someone like Ben Carson who wants to cut the free stuff. This will not get the votes of the masses who want free shit.
If you live in Arizona,The news shows all the crap done by illegals every day.They don’t say it that way on reports though.Heck they won’t even say that a serial rapist is an illegal Hispanic when they run the story.It is barely mentioned when the bastard is caught. Sheriff Joe is always being called out for doing his job.
Maybe Trumps onto something.Jobs and Illegals are a hot topic with many.He does need to think a bit harder before he speaks.
@Admin: You’re welcome!
I don’t think the question is whether Trump can win, I think the question is what will happen at the GOP convention when he’s the popular favorite, but the Oligarchs want Bush. If they stomp on strong public opinion there will be chaos and the Dems will be the victors. Same thing could happen at the DEM convention if Sanders continues his problem-solving leadership. Hillary doesn’t have a clue there’s a problem to be solved!
The electorate is a funny group. Voters installed Jesse Ventura as governor of Minnesota. Proof that George Carlin was right about stupid people.
It’s possible that Trump could win but not likely.
Donald Trump Is Leading in the Polls.
He’s Still Not Going to Win the Nomination. —- Primary polling taken this far out tells us virtually nothing about who will ultimately triumph
1. The vast majority of people haven’t decided who they’re voting for yet.
2. National polls badly oversimplify the American electoral process.
3. Iowa doesn’t matter as much as Iowans would like you to believe. (Hey! Whatever happened to e-farmer, from Iowa??)
4. Shooting from the hip will only get you so far.
rest of above article here —- http://reason.com/blog/2015/07/27/donald-trump-is-leading-in-the-polls-hes
Anything is possible………….would not place a wager on it…………..at least he is white.
The main difference between Trump and the rest of the Republicans is that Trump is talking to the American people -all of them- and the rest of them are trying to please the Republican ruling establishment.
I doubt that Trump gives a tinkers dam about what the Republican power structure thinks.
As far as I’m concerned, the Republican Party needs to go away. What a bunch of lying phonies. I read somewhere that the Democrats are at least somewhat honest about their intentions and then try to follow through on them. The GOP talks a good game and then delivers very little. My perception exactly. Maybe another party can fill the void.
The Trump train has the potential to blow up the GOP and I hope it does. The way people are responding to Trump, if something happens to him, all hell will break loose.
Today in New Hampshire, he polled at 24% to Bush’s 12%.
Gayle, here is how I look at the parties. I hold the republicans blameless. They are what they are. They exist to represent big business and the wealthy. They do that very well. Average americans and small business are not their constituents. That being said, they should be competitive in senate races, get a president every now and then when the dems fuck up, and never know what a house majority looks like.
They should always have a money advantage, but a huge deficit of voters. The democrats should represent working people, small business, and those that genuinely need a hand. The money deficit should be more than made up by sheer voter numbers. They should always rule the house of representatives, compete for the senate, and choose the president most of the time.
We lost our way in the seventies, with nixon-ford-carter. Along came reagan, and a shift in the republicans to a more inclusive populism. Reagan didn’t neglect big biz, or the wealthy. But he reached out to small biz and working people, something carter forgot to do. He raised personal income by 17% in his first term, and won a 49 state landslide in 1984
Bush 1 had no time for the unwashed masses. He was a true republican, and we dumped him. He only got 36% of the vote in 1992, unheard of for an incumbent, but about right for a country club republican. But as evil as he was, we got worse. Clinton campaigned against NAFTA, and then signed it. At that moment, the democratic party, as a party of the people, ceased to exist.
Clinton took most people’s greatest asset, the fruits of their labor, and devalued it. And so started the hunt for little voting blocks that when cobbled together, could win an election while ignoring the masses of disenfranchised working americans, who no longer had a representative party.
That’s why trump will win. He’s not bothering to pander to this little group or that. He’s going for the majority that both parties have ignored for 23 years. We aren’t a 50/50 nation. It shouldn’t even be close
Now they’re saying he raped his wife. No man can rape his wife, he has to buy her jewelry and take her out to fancy dining places just to get to first base. Ivana wasn’t exactly dressed in Goodwill Chic. I think she said he ‘practically’ raped her. As if she was hot monkey, I guess that’s her recollection of events, crazy old bitty.
If Trump won I don’t think it will be all that good for what freedom and liberty we have which is still considerable. The fact that TBP still exists demonstrates that. Regardless of who wins we are dealing with a creeping tyranny that is not reversible or stoppable as long as we have a centralized federal system of government. It can only grow more larger and more oppressive at an ever accelerating rate.
The person I would like to see win would be the one who’s presidency would cause the greatest amount of descent among the people, stimulate secessionist movements, and provoke large scale civil disobedience or even better outright rebellion.
I want the next president to be the stimulus that brakes the union into bits and pieces and opens the door for at least regional nations of several states or individual nation states so Old Glory can fly over nothing other than the dust bin of history. I’d like to see this in my life time. Something new something fresh and exciting or at least a different kind of crap.
Starfcker
Republicans are not blameless, they are liars. In fact they pander to those with traditional values and then screw them over. Your analysis of their true function is correct and right now they have a huge problem because they can’t defend their record to the base anymore.
The Dems, on the other hand, are completely sincere in their commitment to ever-larger government and the social utopia that is just over the rainbow. Many of their constituents are still fully committed to the march towards this perfection, only threatened by those who won’t adhere to the oppressive politically correct views that the utopia requires.
You’re right about Trump.
I hope he stays in it a while. It is so much fun to watch. Maybe it will help get rid of the commie speaker of the house. Then he would have something to really cry about.
Trump scares the shit out of me, but he just might win. People are really passed off and absolutely NO ONE will speak the truth. So, he has a chance.
“That’s why trump will win. ” ———— starfcker
I just created a new folder labeled “TBP Delusional”. Cuz I’m bringing this up when a) Trump loses or b) Trump bows out.
Do you like the taste of crow?
Will you admit you were fucking out of your mind?
Will you take your ass-whupping like a man?
Stucky
Trump will bow out when it is made clear to him that the lives of his children and/or grandchildren are at stake. I hate to even think the previous sentence but that is how things work.
Investment tip (time sensitive). Sell a bumpersticker online that says, “Trump! For the lulz”
Bruce, Your sick, boy. It sounds so cool to be disaffected and alienated but your wishing that on others.
Why not just say – “I wish my house would burn down to the ground and I would catch a horribly debilitating and wasting disease.” Then I could respect your disaffection and discontent.
Stuck, let me answer your questions. No, I don’t like crow. Prefer chicken. No, will not admit I was out of my mind. No, will not take an ass whipping. Prefer to dish them out. Next question.
I do like the idea of keeping a folder of election predictions. You could have a lot of fun with that.
EL Coyote says……………………………
Bruce, Your sick, boy. It sounds so cool to be disaffected and alienated but your wishing that on others.
Why not just say – “I wish my house would burn down to the ground and I would catch a horribly debilitating and wasting disease.” Then I could respect your disaffection and discontent.
EL Coyote
I just don’t believe a centralized or grand federal type system can serve hundreds of millions of people well. The Federal government is failing liberty. It’s an evil and corrupt system of growing tyranny and oppression. We no longer have a bridle and bit on it and it is beyond our control by voting or working within the rules. Centralized Government is not necessary. It is wasteful and very expensive. I think that most people here at TBP already understand this.
On a personal level The Federal Government gets in my way and seeks to restrict and regulate me and my “”piling up the swag” operations. They always have. I would like the Feds to go away. All of it except the USGS and the Texas RRC could probably take that and run it better and give those in other states better service. If there were no Federal Government it would probably be better in the long run for others too or at least those who are productive.
Our Government in Texas for the most part does not jack with me and does not cost me an arm or a leg to go about my endeavors. While certainly not a perfect place and we have our share of gooberment shysters and morons. But they are our shysters and morons and they are better shysters and morons than other states have and we even like some of them. I’d rather live under a Republic of Texas. And many many others have come to feel that way too.
Having your respect is of no real benefit and provides no profit so you may keep it.
Your right, Bruce, about the value of my respect, I should have added a ‘Heh’ so you’d know I was in on the joke too.
I judge commercials the same way, they all promise to make you look smarter, younger, better looking but they don’t put food on the table. I dismissed your early rant because it offers no solution, nothing actionable as Sensetti put it.
Your actually repeating the wisdom of an early TBPer whose name I forget. Some folks want to travel that road again while others want to keep going as far as they can. Going back there is going to Maggieland; the equivalent of navel gazing and stupefied staring into the abyss.
Your second comment was sharper.