Monday, March 14, 2016

Let’s End the Identity Crisis


[Guest Contributor - Donald G. Mutersbaugh Sr.]

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, made these pathetic, opening remarks at the last Republican debate: “I want to get something completely clear, because there’s been a lot of talk about this. This party is going to support the nominee — whoever that is — 100 percent. There’s no question about that.” Why would he even say that? Is it a lame attempt to try to unify the party and ask the candidates to play nice? What these politicians still don't seem to understand is that the people are having a political revolution. I wrote about this August 2, 2015 when I explained The Birth of the Electoral Paradigm Shift. “The message that Mr. Trump brings to the game is resonating with the electorate. Perhaps they see in him somebody who is not a professional politician!” I think that this article about “Why I support Trump – and resent the elites trying to destroy him” is a must read analysis by John C. Kluge. Think about this:

 

“Our country is going broke, half its working-age population isn’t even looking for work, faces the real threat of massive Islamic terrorist attack and has a government incapable of doing even basic functions. Meanwhile, conservatives act like cutting Planned Parenthood funding or stopping gays from getting marriage licenses are the great issues of the day and then have the gumption to call Donald Trump a clown. It would be downright funny if it wasn’t so sad and the situation so serious.

 

“It is not that I think Donald Trump is some savior or an ideal candidate. I don’t. It is that I cannot for the life of me — given the sorry nature of our current political class — understand why conservatives are losing their minds over him and are willing to destroy the Republican Party and put Hillary Clinton into office to stop him. All of your objections to him either apply to many other candidates you have backed or are absurd.”


Continuing with this line of thinking, the following was reported in the news:

“Billionaires, tech CEOs and top members of the Republican establishment flew to a private island resort off the coast of Georgia this weekend for the American Enterprise Institute's annual World Forum, according to sources familiar with the secretive gathering.

“The main topic at the closed-to-the-press confab? How to stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump. (The meeting was not planned to be a strategy session on how to stop the GOP front-runner, but rather evolved into one, as a subsequently obtained agenda makes clear.)…

 

"The key task now, to once again paraphrase Karl Marx, is less to understand Trump than to stop him," Kristol wrote. "In general, there's a little too much hand-wringing, brow-furrowing, and fatalism out there and not quite enough resolving to save the party from nominating or the country electing someone who simply shouldn't be president." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aei-world-forum-donald-trump_us_56ddbd38e4b0ffe6f8ea125d

 

It’s a pretty sad day in our democracy when a cabal of the elite considers doing something to keep the establishment in power. “A highlight of the gathering was a presentation by Rove about focus group findings on Trump. The business mogul's greatest weakness, according to Rove, was that voters have a very hard time envisioning him as "presidential" and as somebody their children should look up to.” This, of course, coming from the same person who went ballistic on election night 2012 saying that Romney was going to win. ."  Even worse, “…Bozell told Bloomberg News [,] If I had 1/100th of Karl Rove's money, I would have been more productive than he was. Republican advisor Rick Tyler attacked Rove in an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "They lost every race. It was a colossal failure," he said. "They went out with their power points and convinced people to give money, but it was as pathetic a performance as I've ever seen...Clearly, Rove has too much control over the purse strings." http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/11/11854/biggest-loser-2012-election-karl-rove

 

It is a sad day when you have people who are as rich and powerful as these people who are trying to subvert the democratic process of allowing the choice of the nominee by we, the people. It is difficult to imagine how all of the voters in all of these primaries would feel if their choice of the candidate is suddenly thrown out at the last minute by the establishment. So much more could be done if all of these resources were allocated in a positive way.

 

“Instead, Mr. Trump’s challengers are staking their hopes on a set of guerrilla tactics and long-shot possibilities, racing to line up mainstream voters and interest groups against his increasingly formidable campaign. Donors and elected leaders have begun to rouse themselves for the fight, but perhaps too late….Two of Mr. Trump’s opponents have openly acknowledged that they may have to wrest the Republican nomination from him in a deadlocked convention.” http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/donald-trump-republican-party.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=3&referer

“GOP leaders are grasping for a last-ditch idea stop Trump from claiming the nomination, from talking about a contested convention to discussing whether to rally around a yet-to-be-determined third-party candidate. All are long shots at best and would likely have the effect of ripping the Republican Party apart in irreparable ways.” http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/03/rubio_kasich_ponder_whether_th.html

“With a few days before major Republican primaries in states such as Florida and Ohio, the Republican establishment has turned their attention to creative ways to defeat conservative businessman Donald J. Trump, who appears to be unstoppable.

 

“Now, it’s been confirmed that a major group of Republican donors and insiders are working hard to convince former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (a Republican) to run for President!

 

“Apparently, the plan is to have her run as an independent.” http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/bombshell-new-republican-candidate-enter-presidential-race/

There are a lot of citations in this article; there is a reason for that. You just can’t make this stuff up! I didn’t want any of my readers to think that I was in a room somewhere dreaming of alternatives; what I have presented is the reality of what the Republican establishment is trying to do. In the process they are showing the citizens of the USA what a fractionated, arrogant, self-serving bunch of people they are and that they have no identity – all the while worrying about Trump destroying the “branding” of the party! The establishment must decide which is more important: electing Donald Trump President or losing the White House to the Democrats? A Republican third-party candidate, besides ruining the Republican Party’s chances of winning the election, would destroy the party. I have one last scenario to present:

“If Trump sweeps Florida and Ohio, he could clinch the nomination by winning just more than half of the remaining bound delegates that are in play on Tuesday and afterward, according to scenarios developed by Josh Putnam, a political science lecturer at the University of Georgia and blogger at Frontloading HQ….But Trump remains basically the only candidate who appears likely to get the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination before the Republican National Convention. Under all four possible Florida-Ohio scenarios, Cruz would need at least 77 percent of remaining delegates to clinch the nomination -- a feat that seems unlikely at this time.”


 

Regardless, as Mr. Kluge says in his previously cited article: “Perhaps none of this means anything to you, and the movement has left me behind. If it has, I think conservatives should understand that it is leaving a lot of people like me behind. I can’t see how that is a good thing.”

 

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Donald G. Mutersbaugh, Sr. earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland and his Master of Business Administration degree from Mary Washington College. He is the former Associate Administrator of Information Resources for the U.S House of Representatives under Speaker Newt Gingrich.

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