Guest Post by The Zman
One of the many things that has been exposed by the Trump campaign is that America does not have a two-party political system. It has a 1.3 party system. A good example of this is how Paul Ryan probably had one of his cronies leak that lewd tape to embarrass the party nominee. Whether or not he orchestrated it is immaterial, as he clearly had foreknowledge and was prepared to pile on as soon as it was released. In fact, it looked like he was coordinating a revolt against the nominee until it became clear it was going to backfire.
This is not the normal functioning of a political party. Hillary Clinton could be caught on video, strangling a baby, and the party would rally to her side. The media would celebrate baby strangling for a week. Just look at how hard they tried to hide her severe health problems from the public. That’s how political parties are supposed to work. The role of the party is to advance all of its candidates, even the ones they don’t like all that much. John McCain is an obnoxious nutjob, but the party fully supported his candidacy.
The truth is that about a third of elected Republicans would prefer to be Democrats. Within living memory, guys like Paul Ryan would have been moderate Democrats or possibly liberal Republicans. The distance between Clinton and Ryan on the main issues of the day is tiny. Ryan and most of the party leadership are post-national globalists, just like the Democrats. Ryan would prefer to be a bit more tightfisted on some spending items than Clinton, but he has made it known, time and again, that he will not fight over these things.
There is another third or more of the party that is not interested in rocking the boat. They just like the good life and generally think the status quo is pretty good, at least for them. In another age, many would have been seat warmers in the Democrat Party, but time and circumstance put them in the GOP. A guy like John Boehner, for example, would have been in the Democrat party in the 1970’s. He’s the sort of guy union boys would like as he is unpretentious and likes talking about bread and butter issues more than philosophy.
That leaves a small fraction of the party’s elected officials in Washington that are dedicated to opposing the dominant orthodoxy and its political party. The result is a guy like Jeff Sessions getting grief from his own party, because he is standing by the party’s nominee. The weirdness of this goes unnoticed in official Washington as the majority of the Imperial Capital thinks guys like Sessions are a nuisance. There are just 40 members of the House that can be described as traditional American conservatives. That’s 16% of the caucus.
Now, Gallup has been polling on ideological self-identification for a long time. The portion of the country that self-identifies as liberal is around 20% and the portion that identifies as conservative sticks around 40%. The rest are low-tax liberals and conservatives that live in liberal states. In all probability, this group of “moderates” breaks 2-to-1 to traditional American conservatism. At least, if they are given the choice between a Reagan and an Obama, for example, they would break toward Reagan.
The math suggests that about half the country has no party representing their interests. At best they have a third of one party, which happens to be controlled by the other party. The other 5/6ths of the political class speaks loudly and aggressively for the 20% of the public that identifies as liberal. As guys like Paul Ryan have made clear, they have zero interest in listening to the pleas of their conservative members. The House leadership has made it clear that the troublesome right wingers are to remain quiet and out of the way or else.
It’s why a rather poor politician like Trump has rocketed to the brink of winning the presidency. For the first time in decades, one party has put up someone that talks about issues important to the bulk of the the country in a way that is familiar to close to half, maybe more than half, of the voters. It’s also why Trump finds himself running against the leadership of his own party, the so-called conservative media and the full army of the Progressive establishment. Trump is essentially running as an independent.
Popular government cannot work when it is not popular. By that I mean the public must think their interests are being represented in the halls of power. Otherwise, it is just another form of despotism in the eyes of that portion of the public that feels excluded. What’s happening now may be a modern American version of the Conflict of the Orders. An unrepresented portion of the public is demanding to be represented and using the tools at its disposal to force reform on the established order.
Perhaps this election is a modern American version of the Day of the Tiles. Instead of throwing roof tiles at the agents of the state, the people are using the blunt weapon that is Donald Trump. In isolation it will just feel like a wacky event that means nothing, but in the fullness of time it will be viewed as a pivotal event. It’s hard to know, but what is known is that this system has lost its legitimacy because a swelling portion of the public is no longer represented by either party. That cannot last and it will not last.
The Republican Party Has Spent $0 On TV Ads For Trump After Spending $42 Million For Romney In 2012
Submitted by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,
With so much stacked against him, can Donald Trump pull off a miracle and actually win this election? Right at this moment, things are looking quite grim for the Trump campaign. Following the release of the lewd audio tape, six women have come forward and have accused him of doing the exact sorts of things that he admitted to on that tape, and the mainstream media is going after him with all they’ve got. Of course the Clintons have done far worse things than Trump has, and that is the case that Trump must make to the American people in the last 25 days of this election.
But it certainly isn’t helping that Trump is receiving very little help from his own party. In fact, earlier today Politico published an article entitled “RNC TV ad spending for Trump: $0” which documented the fact that the Republican National Committee has not spent a single penny on television advertising for Trump so far in 2016.
If the Republican National Committee had treated past candidates similarly, this wouldn’t be an issue. But as Politico has pointed out, that definitely is not the case…
In 2004, the committee spent $18.2 million on independent expenditures — or IEs, in campaign parlance — boosting George W. Bush’s reelection bid. In 2008, the RNC’s IE spending surged to $53.5 million in support of John McCain’s campaign against Barack Obama. And in 2012, the RNC spent $42.4 million on IEs boosting Mitt Romney or opposing President Obama — with nearly 80 percent of the spending occurring before mid-October.
By contrast, this cycle the RNC has spent only $321,000 on independent expenditures attacking Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. And all of that spending occurred last fall — before Trump had emerged as the leader for the GOP presidential nomination.
This revelation comes at a time when the Trump campaign is in full-blown crisis mode.
Since the second debate, six different women have come forward with allegations that Trump either groped them or kissed them against their will. The following summary of these allegations comes from the Daily Mail…
Temple Taggert, who competed as Miss Utah in the 1997 Miss USA pageant claims that Trump kissed her on the lips against her will.
Cassandra Searles, who served as Miss Washington in the 2013 pageant, claims that Trump ‘grabbed her a**’ and invited her back to his hotel room during the competition.
Natasha Stoynoff was interviewing Trump at Mar-a-Lago back in 2005 when she claims that Trump began ‘forcing his tongue down [her] throat.’
Mindy McGillivray claims she was also at Mar-a-Lago when she was groped by Trump.
Rachel Crooks claims Trump kissed her on the lips against her will in 2005, and Jessica Leeds alleged that Trump sexually assaulted her on a plane three decades ago.
Are these allegations true?
I don’t know. But it is certainly alarming that so many women have come forward and that their stories are so similar.
The one man that knows the truth about all of these claims is Donald Trump, and so far Trump is vehemently denying all of the accusations…
“The phony story in the failing @nytimes is a TOTAL FABRICATION. Written by same people as last discredited story on woman. WATCH!” Trump tweeted Thursday morning.
He then went on a rant during his afternoon rally in West Palm Beach, Florida, reading off a teleprompter as he claimed, “these were nothing more than false smears,” “these claims are all fabricated,” and “these events never, ever happened.”
Trump attacked the integrity of his female accusers, saying “You take a look at these people…and you’ll understand also.”
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign intends to highlight the crimes of the Clintons as much as they can as we approach election day. In particular, they plan to make a big issue out of the fact that Bill Clinton is a serial sexual predator…
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign signaled Wednesday its strategy for combating allegations of sexual misconduct against the Republican nominee: fight fire with fire.
More specifically, the campaign reportedly said it would seek to paint former President Bill Clinton “as Bill Cosby,” the same day multiple women accused Trump of making unwanted sexual advances toward them.
The Trump campaign is promising to unveil some new accusers of Bill Clinton that have never been revealed before, and the National Enquirer is reporting that the Clinton campaign is scared to death that some of Hillary’s sexual scandals may be exposed to the public as well.
At this point, most Americans are not really pleased with either candidate. Over these last several weeks, Trump will be trying to show how evil Clinton is, and Clinton will be trying to show how evil Trump is.
But Hillary Clinton has the full power of the mainstream media working for her, and so that is a massive advantage.
And the most recent polls in key battleground states have very good news for Clinton. The following comes from CNN…
A trio of state polls released this week show Hillary Clinton’s northern “blue wall” holding, as she carries commanding leads across a series of key states.
The polls — taken after the release of a 2005 recording of Donald Trump talking in a sexually aggressive manner about women — show Clinton leading in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Coupled with Democrats’ advantage in the Electoral College, the slate of polls suggests that only an extremely narrow path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency remains for Trump, who has staked his candidacy in part on flipping some traditionally Democratic states.
Right now Clinton is ahead of Trump by 7 points in Wisconsin, by 9 points in Pennsylvania, and by 11 points in Michigan.
If Trump plans to pull off a miracle, he has a whole lot of work to do.
And it certainly was not encouraging to hear that Trump has decided to pull out of Virginia in order to devote resources to other states.
Traditionally Virginia has been a key swing state, and so many are taking that as a very bad sign.
If you look at the electoral map, it is very, very difficult to see a path to victory for the Trump campaign at this point. I know that is not what a lot of people want to hear, but it is the truth.
Trump could still prove me wrong by pulling off a historic miracle in November, but with each passing day that is looking less and less likely.
Snyder, what a fraud douchebag you have become. You are with her, huh?
He just needs to continue speaking his mind, and let the truth be his shield. He’s a great highlighter and I believe (from observation), that there is more to be revealed and the populous will make the right decision. $0 ad dollars required.
Hey! Don’t be stealing my username!
You can’t hide your crime by adding a “Wa” in front!
You tell him Rdawg!
You tell him bardawg!!!
That’s not cool at all
Why not?
Here in NC, the DNC mailers and TV ads are running about 20:1 against Trump. It wasn’t until last week that we actually saw an ad put out by the Trump campaign. For a supposedly important swing state, it sure looks like the GOP isn’t interested in winning. Either that or they are strategically holding their fire until right before the election.
As I mentioned yesterday, after the last presidential (s)election I predicted the republican party would never put another candidate in the WH. Even if tRump wins, I’ll still be right!