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One pundit I read recently, suggests the key ingredient in the increasing surge of Trump support that none of the other political hacks have discovered is 'authoritarianism.'
Then he goes on to compare the concept with what happened in Nazi Germany. His theory is based on surveys that ask potential voters about child rearing preferences, such as, 'Is it more important for your child to be courteous or independent?' a psychological profile emerges for some people that defines them as authoritarian. And those same surveys show a preponderance of those people prefer Trump. Matthew McWilliams of Politico Magazine thinks that most of those who have committed to vote for Trump would be authoritarian parents. Which, if you are a Liberal, is appalling! Anyone who would suggest that they would prefer to have their children grow up more courteous than independent must be a Nazi! This is Liberal hysteria, and it exposes their inner fears; that a critical parent is going to take over and make them actually have to go to work, stand up for right and wrong and be held accountable. I thought it was illustrative when late last week Bobby Knight came out in support of Trump. That must have really ticked off Liberals, because he personifies everything they fear. He demanded his players submit to discipline, to be accountable to the TEAM! Imagine that! What a concept…. McWilliams is right about their psychological profile, he is just dead wrong about the implications. The Utopian Society imagined by Karl Marx, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders is unobtainable. The reality that in order for a society to continue to live in peace and prosperity it's citizens must 'Ask not what your government can do for you. Ask what you can do for your government,' has not and probably will not ever set in with ideologues who demand complete and unfettered freedom with absolutely no responsibility or contribution. What really scares Liberals is the loss of goodies, of government assistance, of subsidies and paternalism. They pine for forced PC participation in meaningless and symbolic exercises in climate control, healthcare, do-nothing make-work jobs, and low expectations and lowest common denominator academics. They see everything in terms of egalitarianism; who cares what works, what matters is what's fair. Liberals want the playing field leveled. Then, they demand that we don't keep score because that might hurt someone's feelings and that would not be fair. Finally, they scream at the coaches and the referees because they hold players accountable, and ultimately pull their children off the field altogether as an act of protest. Those are the same kids waving 'F**# Trump!' flags outside of his huge support rallies in Orange County and San Francisco this week. I suppose they are the kids raised to be more independent than courteous... It is becoming more and more obvious to me that only Donald Trump will end the assault on the sovereignty of America. By that I mean, no other candidate has made the same unilateral commitment to 'build a wall' along the Southern border, and to stop illegal immigration altogether. To start vetting legal immigrants to determine their reasons for wanting or needing to come to America. To have the backs of our Immigration and Naturalization employees. To stop feeding the need for cheap and unaccountable labor that is killing our middle class. To reverse the transnational corporate trend to incorporate in foreign tax havens.
Only Trump has the opportunity, and the huevos, to take on the fascism of political correctness, the destruction of our patriotic pride by an academic army of leftist professors and the mainstream media. Only Trump can fight back for truth and fairness in news reporting, for fair trade practices that disenfranchise small business and the value of the dollar. He is standing out in the rarified air the other candidates must breathe to survive. As much as I like and appreciate Ted Cruz, he is just too close to the monied corporate interests that have been running this country into the ground. His advisors are many of the pointy headed intellectuals who have mismanaged our country into the mess we find ourselves in today. He has Lindsey Graham and Jeb Bush on board, so what did he have to promise for their support? John Kasich is an avowed open borders advocate and his empathy with troubled families is something he uses to please the corporate backers who no longer have a puppet to manipulate, so they will find the weakest link. Those same powerful self interested consortiums are kicking themselves now, because they didn't see this dilemma coming, thinking their man, Jeb Bush was a shoe in. Just look at the latest Wikileaks release that exposes hundreds, if not thousands of mainstream political and business leaders around the world who are scamming the system to enrich themselves and their friends and relatives. Unfortunately, the truth is, this kind of corruption and greed is probably more the norm than the exception. And unless a tornado-like administration lead by an independent like Trump manages to come to power, not much will come of this latest diabolical disclosure. No Democrat is even seriously talking about these issues, because their very survival depends on bringing new voters into their tent, and driving business into retreat so government can come in and act like a white knight, offering more services and dependency. When times are tough, the democrats recruit, so they perpetuate problems rather than solve them. Immigration may seem like a tangential issue, but along with extreme tax reform, I believe it is the single most important platform on which America can recover its financial footing and build a new legacy of world leadership and stability. Stability can only exist where a country can identify, support and promote it's most valuable assets, its people. The human resources that once powered this country have been diminished by an unrelenting redistribution of functions our middle class used to perform. We are rapidly approaching a point that eerily mirrors the events that triggered the tax revolt that lead to the Boston Tea Party. If there is anyone in the race for Chief Executive who can do something about this, it is Trump. He will be beholden to no powerful interests. Billionaires can buy just about anything, but they can't buy another billionaire. Will he? That, my friends is the $64K question…. Mainstream economists will say, if Trumps protectionist policies ever come to fruition,wait until Americans have to pay $3K for their cellphones, then what will happen? It may be true that our costs will go up if we bring manufacturing jobs home, but it is also possible that when the balance of trade is restored, when nations stop revaluing their money, when major employers can no longer enact corporate inversions and when Americans are earning good wages again, we may be happy to pay $3K for our fancy phones! At that point, maybe we won't have to. It is all relative. What is important is to recognize the pain and suffering our people are living with, how most people have enormous debt service, unpaid medical needs and unfunded retirements, and little or no discretionary savings. You wouldn't know it if all you ever visit are major cities in large metropolitan areas, because so many residents are receiving enormous government subsidies and the intellectual class is raking in millions from high tech industries, but once you venture into the heartland, there is a pall of sadness and despair that is as thick as a morning fog on the Monterey Peninsula. If you are paying attention to the nomination race, all of the mainstream Republicans are screaming bloody murder! They act as if they haven't been given any credit for doing such a good job for the past forty years. They cannot believe that anyone would suggest that a boorish, rude and crude billionaire would get any votes, especially since the Republican establishment is so trustworthy and proven! Establishment Republicans have been drinking heavily from the kool aid dispenser! So we hear, "if we let this fake conservative lead the party, there won't be a party any more. The conservative movement will die!" I haven't heard the phrase 'conservative movement' used so many times since Barry Goldwater, who was also marginalized and banished by 'the Party.' If you read a history of the Republican Party, you will not see much in it praising Goldwater. The Republican party is doing to conservatism what Radical Islam is doing to the Muslim religion. It is trying to hijack it to work for the huge international business consortiums that do not operate in a conservative manner, do not support conservative leaders like Ben Carson, Ron Paul or Rush Limbaugh. They pretend to be for conservative principles, but when the legislative chips are down about issues like corporate subsidies, drug patent protectionism, planned Parenthood, traditional marriage or school choice, gun control and illegal and mismanaged immigration, they are nowhere to be found. George Bush was given all kinds of advice about the growing immigration problem, and he ignored it. When Steve Forbes ran for President, his flat tax ideas were trashed and he was quickly dismissed by the Party. When the global collapse occurred in 2008, then President Bush was quickly converted to a government bailout supporter, exposing his 'compassionate conservatism' as a construct designed to win over Latinos to beat Al Gore. Bush had let the budget explode and the nation's debt to hemorrhage. In instance after instance, the Republican Party has wimped out on every important 'conservative' legislative offering put before the Congress. Can you name one important 'conservative' victory since Reagan? So who are all these 'conservatives' who are suddenly such experts on what makes a 'conservative?' The idea that the 'conservative movement' is something that would suffer should Trump persist, is a myth. It has been suffering since Ronald Reagan left the Oval Office. The modern day Republican Party is the Democratic Party Light. It may have less calories, but it has the same disgusting taste. The Republican Party….is a mostly esoteric semblance of the organization that once nominated and enjoyed the reign of Ronald Reagan. Even then, most of the old-timers thought Reagan was a misfit, a renegade dreamer who had nothing substantial to offer but a vigorous defense of freedom and unending, childlike enthusiasm.
The establishment Republican wing fought him tooth and nail, made deals with the Democrats to sabotage his economic legislation and then claimed victory when it became overwhelmingly obvious the man would go down in history as one of our greatest leaders of all time. That was then, this is now... That Party has long ago evolved into a Union-like apparatus that is bureaucratic, omnipotent, unswerving and unwilling to listen to the changing demographics of America. It was successful in electing the 'Compassionate Conservative' George W Bush, but only after being run over by Bill Clinton, who then selfishly got caught in a myriad of self indulgences voters couldn't ignore. Now that it has lost the past two Presidential elections isn't it condescending to claim to be the true protector of the Silent Majority? I receive California Republican Party polls about once every three months. This has been going on for over a decade. I find it interesting and revealing, that the majority of the questions do not change. They may be reworded, or placed in a slightly different context, but the survey is always about the core issues of lower taxes, reduced growth of government, regulations and social controls. The Party uses threats of anti-religious legislation, of social anomalies to stir up anger and fear, and of course points out how the GOP is the party of National Defense. But the truth is none of the list of favored agenda items is ever accomplished: government keeps growing, immigration is out-of-control, wages are down, jobs are lost, our schools are useless and overpriced, the culture is decaying, our veterans are mistreated, our military is smaller and less efficient than at any time in our lifetimes and we certainly are less secure. For the past five years I have written in big letters across the GOP survey form, 'Reform Our Tax System' and ignored everything else because unless or until we face the enormous unfairness and corruption of the IRS we will never get our government to stop metastasizing. And besides, if we can't effectively deal with one simple function of government, to fairly and equally secure the means for it to operate, what is the point? For me, it is first things first. And in my mind, the tax system is endemic to the control of our national agenda by big business. Everything else falls into the wake created by GOP and Democratic policies that are bought and paid for by lobbyists. Now we are faced with what many mainstream Republicans characterize as a threat to the very nature and survival of the Party by a renegade, self-funded populist, and you would think a thermonuclear war was about to occur! The man is 'wrecking our Party!' His bombastic misogyny, rude and violent behaviour and ignorance of foreign policy could destroy our Party forever! In my opinion, there is no Party to destroy. That ship has sailed. The problem is not the salvation of the Party, it is the salvation of the Country, and the fundamental principles that America stands for. Mainstream Republicans are so insulated and self obsorbed, they apparently would rather see the country continue to descend into chaos than to admit that the 'Trumpster' has touched the nerve of the electorate. As the inarticulate Donald Trump alludes, Political Correctness is our biggest nemesis. We have succumbed to a fascist element of indirect authoritarianism that transcends common sense, divides our citizens into warring tribes, and misdirects our resources and attention. We are losing our sovereignty to the accusations of 'bigotry' because, as a matter of process, we have to separate and identify some people and groups from others to secure our borders. Then it is the loss of respect for our police and public service personnel, the tendency of our citizens to react to authority with violence and irrational anger. Because of Political Correctness, our leaders have abdicated the role of international leadership as the standard bearers of liberty and political freedom. Finally, our country has fallen into a moral void, lost its bearings, and subsequently left many of our citizens in the dark about what it means to be an American. What freedoms America offers, but also what responsibilities being an American citizen requires. The fear of crossing the lines drawn between a government of Religion versus a government free from Religion, has resulted in a culture absent of Religion. Now our culture is lazy, uninvolved, self absorbed, dependent, amoral and indifferent to the potential consequences of their lack of involvement to protect and to nurture human dignity and freedom. The GOP is either apathetic about all this, or more likely, ignorant of the true conditions that exist in much of our Country. They steadfastly claim to have all the answers, while ignoring the facts of what they have wrought; the problems we face today did not just appear during the past Democratic administration. Though Obama may have helped accelerate a great deal of our national disease, most of the symptoms have been growing in severity for half a century. The GOP is an accessory to the crime of negligence and ambivalence. They have been in a coma, and someone like Trump is stepping up to slap them collectively across the face to get the Party (made up of us) to wake up and take responsibility to do what is necessary to get things back under control. His movement is just what Thomas Jefferson meant when he said, "I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." - Letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787 Americans need to conserve America. If the Republican Party wants to have a significant role in that effort, it needs to reform itself. It needs to open up to some scary and counterintuitive realities; the Old Grey Mare ain't what she used to be. And the sooner she comes to grips with that, the better. |
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