Tooth-Gnashing in the Republican Establishment

By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online
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13 thoughts on “Tooth-Gnashing in the Republican Establishment

  1. “They do not see Barack Obama as a genteel and nicely tailored grandee who is a well-meaning incompetent, but rather as a serious social revolutionary bent on fundamentally transforming America by any means necessary, more often illegally than not.”
    &
    “are perceived as wanting to get along when getting along at this eleventh hour will lead to perdition”

    Thank you Mr Hanson. two short statements that say it all. Your awesome Mr Hanson, usually I don’t seem to get your political comments or I feel they miss the mark. I stand corrected, one of the best articles that says it all.

    Keep up the history lessons on when and how civilizations fall and interact over the centuries, this really reinforces why it’s important to educate people especially the younger crowd. I know it took decades for me to learn some of the lessons you so easily explained. Keep up the great work. God Bless, long live America.

    PS: I’m a Proud Canadian, but think the USA is the greatest country in the world, for now! And it is the 11th hour and 59 minutes.

  2. How in the world do you see the big court as more conservative than liberal ? I see 4 thinkers, 4 commies, and a pretty-boy stupid ass who doesn’t know what he thinks (he and Boehner could be twins).

    I take it that you are a little put-off with Ted Cruz’s style. His only problem as far as I am concerned may be that he fights a little too well-mannered. I think he needs to spend a day or so with some rancher shooting a few rattlesnakes and rounding up some bad-ass runaway steers or something and he’d then be a little better-equipped to ride shotgun or cavalry with Donald Trump.

    To my way of thinking big dumb Jebby needs to pack up and go run Mexico or somewhere in South America and take all his innocent little luv bugs (like the one on the Drudge Report flipping America off this morn.) with him.

    I am a big believer in self-sustainability and hope the lessons of Sherman’s march will not be lost. I hope you will consider releasing the Army of the West section of your book as an anniversary edition. It could totally stand alone. It’s not too late to release it that way (150 just passing). I think men would read it.

    I just saw the movie Midway for the first time several weeks ago and had never really heard of it. Hope the lessons of that historical American event do not get lost either. Virtue and courage matter and need to be celebrated/remembered and taught over and over again generation to generation in order for a nation to survive. Luv your brain & Levin’s too. Please help with Article 5. It is one of our gens very critical “moments in history”.

  3. I suppose it’s a fundamental problem with conservatism–wanting to protect what you have and not rock the boat. That seems the attitude of CA state Republicans, especially before term limits. Assembly and State Senate Republicans were content to be a minority as long as they cot to keep their seats.

    It’s frustrating to watch CA become a tax and regulatory hellhole. It’s frustrating to see this happening on the national level with Obama, and the international level with the UN. I want to push back and I feel helpless to affect change. In a two party system, if one party is happily endorsing ruin, my only hope is the other. And the party elites for that other seem willing only to use this monopoly power to help themselves.

    It’s well and good to be bipartisan, but I can’t think of a single thing John Boehner actually accomplished with his tenure as speaker. It’s as if he thought that getting and holding power was an end unto itself. It might have been for him. That’s why he lost it.

  4. Dear Dr. Hanson,

    The paragraph detailing the frustrations of voters regarding financial integrity, open borders, selective enforcement of laws and the illegality (as opposed to incompetence) of Obama’s policies is the most succinct and accurate representation of my beliefs that I’ve ever heard enumerated. I am terrified that not only are we losing the attributes that created this great country but that it may well be too late to save our beloved country.

    Thank you for posting your terrific articles. I look forward to each new post, especially those pertaining to our (once) great state of California. God bless you, my friend.

  5. Mostly excellent points. I take issue with calling the entitled Bush a “good man” or Kasich “nuts and bolts”, while highlighting the supposed expertise on foreign policy that the dim witted Graham possesses. If you’re a career politician you’re out. If you’ve been successfully branded a loon by the populist left (Cruz) you’re out. Trump gets traction because he can actually swing leftist uninformed voters to think it’s finally cool to vote Republican. Let’s face it, this is America’s last chance to slow the collapse, and sad as it may be a Donald Trump might be the only answer. Carson isn’t even vetted yet, and is only there to give hope to the evangelicals that think abortion and prayer in school are our biggest problems. I think that millions would second guess pulling the lever for a 2nd black president on the heels of the most divisive racial period in half a century. Just like millions of evangelical voters stayed home the last time after telling themselves they couldn’t vote for a mormon after all.

  6. “They campaigned by Marquess of Queensberry rules — whether naïvely putting off-limits any criticism of the firebrand and foul-mouthed Rev. Jeremiah Wright (a sign of things to come)…”

    Too late for that anyway on his part. The media – as they are doing now with Carson – should have done that back in ’07, then Obama would have been eliminated from contention.

  7. and at this point in Republican Party history

    it gets easier and easier to tell which people have the big heads and which ones have the right hearts

    when their Actions or lack of Action speaks louder than their Words

  8. It never seemed to occur to the leadership within the GOP voting base expects to have something to say about who the nominee is. Normally it wouldn’t matter as the candidates would be differences in degree rather than kind.
    Because of the out and out perfidy elected Republicans have repeatedly demonstrated toward their own voters there is such a feeling of malice that neither side is talking to the other or even interested in doing so. Neither is there any cure for it but removal of the Gp leadership.
    Take me- In the past I have considered Trump a braggart and pretty much a total scumbag. And yet I find myself automatically lining up on his side- very much to my own surprise. It irks me often as I am not blind to his past. And yet because of repeated betrayals by elected GOP officials I have no alternative but to turn to him out of pure desperation. As dangerous as history has shown his type to be there simply is no alternative to destroying the GOP power structure as it currently exists.
    I’m certain Dr. Hansen can provide plenty of times when Republics have committed suicide in this fashion.

  9. The status of the U.S. becoming a socialist state might be better described by the present perfect, “has become.” Look at the food stamp numbers. Look at the unfunded liabilities. Look at the labor participation rate. Look at the crony capitalist boondoggles. Look at the structurally-permanent native underclass. Look at invasion-by-invitation by a foreign underclass. Look at the doubling of the national debt every eight years.

    Give the mainstream Republicans some credit as politicos whose fingers can accurately gauge the wind. At least their gyrations accurately reflect the country’s electoral reality. A reality that, absent an exogenous shock of catastrophic proportions, is not going to change any time soon.

    So vote for the RINOs anyway? Since they’re “doing what they can”? No way.

    “Idiots like you are going to get Hillary elected,” people of Wilson’s ilk tell me.

    To which the unanswerable reply is, and will remain, “Voting for the lesser of evils is still voting for evil.”

  10. “”” This crisis has two major components: the declining economic power of the United States compared to its major rivals, and the internal contradictions of American society, with the deepening alienation of the working class and particularly the youth.””” This is the true legacy of Clinton/Bush/Obama. The democrat William Jefferson Clinton planted the seed, nourished under Bush, and has just about reached full harvest under Obama. The interplay of the following: In the USA, it’s finance—–in China, it’s manufacturing and outright thievery—– and in Europe, it’s slow decay. The elections in the USA and then in Europe, compounding the interplay of Nations.———————Past conditions are assumed to continue into the blissful future, History tells a truthful tale——Change is inevitable. Cheers!!!

  11. Victor,
    You don’t think Donlad Trumph is a feasible or good choice?
    Best,
    J.W. Carter
    Caruthers, California

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