Giving up on the convention chairs for a moment, as my cell phone was needing the attention of a power source, I exited the breakout session I was hanging out in regarding LTE’s and Talk Radio, and wanted to go exploring,
I passed by the Microsoft XBOX ONE lounge, as I’m afraid I’d enjoy that too much, and it would be a huge time suck.. And I ended up wandering into the blogger’s lounge.
It’s equipped with a TV feed from the floor for the main session, and power outlets. Lots and lots of power outlets. And there’s a cadre of bloggers from national organizations, including the nice gal to my right from Reuters, whom I struck up a conversation with. She asked me to let whoever comes to reclaim the iPhone cord she’s using that she wasn’t trying to steal it – she just needed to plug in badly.
There’s chatter in the room about the candidates, mainly Trump, and how the candidates are going about countering him wrong. One of them quipped that the candidates should point out regarding the Proposed Trump wall for Mexico “Ronald Reagan challenged Gorbachev to tear down that wall, yet here you are declaring that you want to build one.”
And that was a good point.
It was quite lively in here for a while, but now finds itself surprisingly quiet, as people scan the net, or peck out articles.
It turns out the owner of the appropriated power cord did come back in, with it turning out to be an AFP staffer. And yes, she was cool with the gal from reuters using it.
I will not be voting for Trump in the primary, but we do need to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. There is a fundamental difference between around West Berlin during the Cold War and a wall that would be built along our southern border. The former was built to keep East Germans and others in the Eastern Bloc from escaping communist tyranny. The latter would be built to protect American workers, American citizens, and the American way of life from gang members, terrorists, and people who want to come to our country to take advantage of our welfare system, health system, educational system, and unenforced labor and immigration laws.
here’s the thing about trump. i enjoy that he has widened the scope of available discussion topics during this election cycle. i enjoy that he has taken a group that is perennially depressed about the usual GOP tactical choices, and infused some excitement via his blunt directness. i enjoy that he seemingly evades every trap and cubbyhole that the national media wants to quickly box him into. republicans need that kind of skillset themselves. BUT: i do not enjoy the longterm effect of his campaign; he is doing structural damage to the two party system, and much of it to the republican side. he is also damaging the integrity of the political system at many levels. trump is intentionally exploiting cracks in the trust people have for the two party system, to make new footholds for a person like himself. he’s now expanding his brand to include a previously nonexistent ‘care for all people.’ (don’t barf yet.)
we’re not even TALKING about the big wave of resistance trump has yet to meet – the many earnest people in this country who haven’t rushed to political rallies yet, who work hard in the private and public sector as stakeholders in government policy, who will take the air out of trump’s balloon later because he is so antithetical to the kind of adept political expertise the country needs in the next president. those are the people who will cause trump the most trouble, and they are the people watching what the republican party does right now.
republicans are doing themselves no favors by taking their usual dum de dum de dum quiet stroll while the trouble comes and goes yet again. people HATE ‘staying above the fray’. george c. scott was a flaming lib, but his character general patton got it right in that movie’s opening speech: “americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser.” americans love the sting of battle. if i can go to the showbiz well one more time, there was a great star trek the next generation episode called ‘tapestry’; in it, the captain suffers from a heart defect stemming from being injured in a barfight as a college student. he gets to see how his life goes if he avoids the fight, and instead of commanding, he’s a low level functionary on his own ship, and he himself is a weak shell of a man because he shirked the call to battle from that incident onward. he embraces the barfight then, ill effects and all, for the greater good that it brought him.
at some point, the top republicans in congress and in the campaign are going to have to display an ability to fight if they’re going to restore the party and excite the base constructively. republicans in congress sandbag themselves and we see it all the time and we hate it!! it’s like they’re hostage to the subtle threats from the bullies of the media-bureaucracy combine – – we see them carefully deserting party goals, conservative ideas and constantly winning ‘half a loaf’ of pretty crappy bread, over and over. THERE IS NO FIGHT in what boehner and mcconnell do, there’s too much ‘ridin’ the storm out.’ i would say this is the prime thing that most of trump’s current support base understands about republicans because of congress, and they flock to trump’s brash boldness in reaction to it.
when confronted by a bully or a mafia-like force, people have the choice to quietly give ground to them, OR turn, stand and punch back letting the pieces fall where they may. boehner was good at fighting losing battles to the last possible second when he was minority leader — THAT boehner needs to come back and win the battles, newt-style. i have no idea how to help mcconnell, sorry. but if fighting-boehner comes back mcconnell could do worse than simply follow boehner’s lead.
fight dammit. that’s all the voters trailing behind trump are telling the republican party. bush and the other top non-trump tier need to hit trump with a better fight – – bring trump back down to the right size – “even ZEUS couldn’t do what that crazy mogul is proposing” – – reframe WHY the country is broken – “the system didn’t fail, reid and pelosi failed and WE will set it right again.”
that’s what people want. i think it would do john boehner and jeb bush good to set aside an hour each morning to get together at a gym somewhere and lace on the gloves and try to beat the living tar out of each other, then go and kick trump’s billion dollar butt.
An interesting essay. You make some interesting points. I, too, have some problems with Trump. I am not convinced he is a conservative and am not sure he will have the skill set to get anything done in Congress. He has a bit of the Janklow my way or the highway approach. While Janklow got things done, I suspect the Democrats in Congress will block him. They at least have the cojones to fight back where the Republicans lack the ability to stand up to a dictatorial President. It would be fun to watch, however. You make a statement: “he is doing structural damage to the two party system”. I do not disagree necessarily, but I do not necessarily believe this is a bad thing. We have been living for some time with the Democrat Socialists and the Democrat Socialists Lite who call themselves “Republicans”. I for one am ready to see parties that actually oppose each other. I am wondering if the Republicans are going to go the way of the Whigs. Unless they start representing the people they keep asking them to vote for them, they will be gone.
I suspect we will see the highest voter turnout in history for 16’s POTUS election. From o-Care to Isis and Trump to Hillary every level of American society will have been touched by the presidential election process. Win or lose What Trump will do is emblazon certain issues into the General Publics vocabulary demanding plans of incorporation into policy. Someone is going to win each primary and whomever can resonate best with the GP will win.