I am no fan of Donald Trump. As a matter of fact, none of the candidates, on the left
or the right, offer any real solutions to rolling back the tide on the progressive
take-over of most of America’s major institutions. But I digress.
What I really mean to say is, as far as the Presidential race is concerned, I don’t
have a dog in this fight. From a pragmatic perspective, however, having a
republican as President as opposed to a democrat (I would argue they’re all
progressives now) would at least buy me more time to prepare for the eventual
collapse of a system that cannot sustain itself.
Why, then, do I get so upset at the attacks on Donald Trump and his supporters? Why do I spend so much time going after the leaders in the conservative coalition who are spending so much time going after Trump and his supporters?
The latest anti-Trump assault is coming in the form of his comments, recently, about John McCain. Having listened to the now legendary comments Trump made in Ames, Iowa last week, I can say that when Trump said that he likes his heroes not to be captured that no rational person could not understand how those who have been captured could take serious umbrage with that comment.
For many other candidates, the smart thing for Trump to do would be to quickly apologize. But Trump’s very brand as a Presidential contender is that he won’t apologize. His appeal is just that, he won’t apologize. A significant portion of people in the conservative coalition are fed up with apologizing, equivocating leaders who seem more concerned with upsetting and offending progressives than actually standing up for them. A Trump apology would truly mark the end of his campaign.
If you listen to the full clip, Trump seemed to go out of his way to clarify that McCain was, in fact, a war hero. It is also clear, at least to me, that Trump made an aggressive swipe at McCain, a snark, if you will. He was obviously highly agitated at McCain’s labelling of his supports as being all ‘crazies.’
The response from many conservative leaders, however, is far worse than the inappropriate snark Trump threw at McCain. If you change some of the names, you would think you were listening to progressives ruthlessly pouncing on the smallest misstep their political opponents take.
Trump’s ill-conceived snipe at McCain is no worse than the missteps taken by all of the other GOP contenders. I won’t compile that list in this article, but if you google any GOP name and add the phrase “backlash”, you will find more than enough on your own.
Why do these conservative leaders not pounce so aggressively on other GOP candidates who made similar missteps on the campaign trail? Why are the conservative blogs and conservative news outlets not writing article after article declaring their candidacy over?
This is where I find my agitation coming into sharp focus, the WAY so many in this conservative movement are choosing to attack Donald Trump. They are acting Trump exactly like the progressives would. They are attempting to invalidate the man rather than challenge his ideas. But they are going far beyond merely taking the low road to challenge a contender, the Alinsky road, they are also applying Alinsky-like tactics to going after his supporters.
This last part is incredibly befuddling to me. I’ve gotten in dust-ups with some of these Molotov-throwing conservative leaders over this very point, with many of them expressing this sentiment, “good riddance to the Trump supporters.”
These Trump supporters aren’t democrats. They are mostly registered republicans. Some of them are registered independent. If you take a peek at the electoral map, the progressives START with a huge electoral advantage thanks to their control of a few very large ‘blue’ states. The republicans, if they are going to win in 2016, need EVERY voter they can muster to win just about every swing state if they are going to just EEK out a victory.
I am betting that these conservative leaders are banking on amnesia to keep the Trump supporters in the family come the summer of 2016. I’m betting that’s what Romney was counting on when he so aggressively alienated Sarah Palin and her supporters at the republican convention in 2012. It didn’t work out for Romney then, and I doubt it will work out for this conservative coalition in 2016.
These conservative leaders are continuing their slash and burn campaign against Donald Trump and his supporters. I see regular calls from these leaders for Trump to withdraw from the race and for his supporters to just shut up and go away. Even Rick Perry, who isn’t even polling high enough to get on the debate stage, is calling for Trump to immediately withdraw from the race.
Rick Perry is currently under indictment while he’s running for office. Yes, it is a political witch hunt, but, he should mind applying purist standards to candidates when he himself fails to meet those purist standards. Let’s not go back and revisit his epic fails from the 2012 season.
This ruthlessness aimed at Trump, and especially at his supporters, is simply bad strategy. The leaders in this movement who are partaking in this tactic are disqualifying themselves from leadership. They have allowed themselves to be swept by their emotions, leading many others down the emotional path of self-destruction, rather than thinking like generals trying to win a war.
They are willing to destroy everyone and everything within this coalition to win this battle, a battle being fought not with progressives, but with the coalition. They may yet win this battle, they may destroy Trump and pave the way for their candidate of choice to win the nomination, but they will lose the war.
Looking back at this period of time, the children of these leaders will ask their parents, “What did you do to stop the progressives from destroying the republic?” Their only answer can be, I helped destroy the coalition that could resist them.
ADDENDUM: My next article will be about how to challenge Trump without destroying the coalition. I also want to add that while the actions of these conservative leaders right now invalidate them, all can be quickly forgiven if they turn away from this self-defeating tactic and go back to being real generals of a coalition and not clique warriors defending their personal turf.