RUTHFULLY YOURS

An ocean of conventional wisdom is telling us that an independent conservative candidate, should one emerge, will go nowhere fast. But a short while ago, an ocean of conventional wisdom was telling us that Donald Trump at the top of the Republican ticket violated the basic laws of the universe. This is plainly a moment in American politics in which the extraordinary can happen.

Here are five reasons why the #NeverTrump movement might provide the only serious competition to the Democrats this November — and could even siphon off a few who are themselves looking for an alternative:

The greatest asset of the #NeverTrump movement is Trump himself. It has become obvious by now to almost all that the GOP presumptive nominee cannot change his spots. Trump promised that after knocking out John Kasich and Ted Cruz, he would tone down his act. “I will be so presidential,” he pledged, “you will be so bored.” But his antics continue — the insults, the tweets, the recycling of tabloid trash that might endear him to his die-hard supporters but mystify or repel almost everyone else. Either Trump does not know what the concept of “presidential” means or, more likely, he is inextricably stuck inside the same cartoonish character he has been all his life.
During the primaries, Trump’s Republican adversaries mostly held fire, trembling in fear lest they offend Trump voters. Typical was Cruz, who only unloaded on his tormentor on the day he pulled out of the race. Hillary Clinton (assuming she will be the Democratic nominee) will not be so constrained, and neither will her surrogates. Indeed, the Democrats are already having a field day auditioning a cornucopia of ridiculous and offensive pronouncements generated by Trump over decades. To be sure, these negative attacks will do nothing to dampen the fervor of Trump’s fans. But they will inevitably have a discernible effect on everyone else.
Then there’s the news media. They were relatively gentle to Trump in the primaries when there were 17 GOP targets to scrutinize. Now there is only one Republican standing, and journalists everywhere are entering the operating room suiting up for a vivisection. In 2012, mild, moderate, respectable, sane Mitt Romney got a taste of what it means to be under the journalistic knife in a general election. The liberal press is now going to cut out Trump’s liver, fry it up and eat it out of a taco bowl.

Which brings us to Trump’s taxes. He says he cannot release any of his returns from the past decade because they are all under audit. According to tax professionals, that is almost certainly either a fib, a falsehood, or a lie, and in any case is hardly a reason why they cannot be made public. Whatever Trump is trying to conceal, the news drumbeat to release the returns will now grow louder and more insistent. Eventually, it will reach a volume that will cause political pain.
A parallel deficit of substance, yet much more important, goes for policy. The proposals Trump has put forward appear to be based almost entirely upon imaginary thinking. His plan to reduce the national debt to zero in eight years while leaving entitlement spending untouched is about as realistic as manufacturing gold out of seawater. His promise to create a deportation force to ship out America’s 11 million undocumented aliens is no more feasible. Trump got away with this and more in the primaries. In the general election, he will be held by journalists and by his opponents to a standard that he shows no signs of being able to meet.

“The Reagan horse left the 2016 conservative barn many months ago, and it is coming to be time to pause and assess whether we are really left with only two bad choices — or with a bad Trump and a far, far worse Clinton. If it is the latter, then it is an easy choice in November.”

I watched Donald Trump serially blast apart all my preferred candidates — Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz — as if for sport they were sent up in succession as clay pigeons. And now the November Rubicon — vote for Donald Trump, or stay home and de facto vote for Hillary Clinton — is uncomfortably close. Most of the arguments pro and con have been aired ad nauseam.

The choice is difficult for principled conservatives, because no sooner should they decide to vote for Trump than Trump will surely say something outrageous, cruel, or crude that would ostensibly now have their imprimatur on it. And note, this matters to conservatives much more than it does to liberals. Few Obama supporters at Harvard or the Ford Foundation or the New York Times worried much in 2008 that their candidate had dismissed his own generous grandmother as a “typical white person” or that he tried to get away with airbrushing out the obscene Reverend Wright and mythologized his close friendships with reprobates like Bill Ayers and Father Michael Pfleger.

Aside from his dubious political loyalties, Trump persists in being mean-spirited. He seems uninformed on many of the issues, especially those in foreign policy; he changes positions, contradicts himself within a single speech, and uses little more than three adjectives (tremendous, great, and huge). But the problem with many of these complaints is that they apply equally to both the current president and the other would-be next president. When Hillary Clinton, playing to the green vote, bragged that she would put miners out of work, and then, when confronted with an out-of-work miner, backtracked and lied about her earlier boast, we had a refined version of Trump’s storytelling. The Clinton Foundation’s skullduggery and Hillary’s e-mail shenanigans seem to trump the Trump University con — and involve greater harm to the nation. Her combination of greedy Wall Street, for-profit schmoozing and paint-by-the-numbers progressivism is repulsive.

Trump’s cluelessness about the nuclear triad is a lowbrow version of Barack Obama’s ignorance, whether seeking to Hispanicize the Falklands into the Maldives (wrong exotic-sounding, politically correct foreign archipelago, Mr. President), or mispronouncing “corpsman,” or riffing about those Austrian-speaking Austrians; or perhaps of Hillary Clinton’s flat-out lie about the causes of Benghazi, hours after she had learned the truth. I don’t think reset, Libya, Benghazi, red lines to Assad, step-over lines to Putin, and deadlines to Iran attest to Clinton’s foreign-policy savvy. It is easy to be appalled by crude ignorance, but in some ways it is more appalling to hear ignorance layered and veneered with liberal pieties and snobbery. The choice in 2016 is not just between Trump, the supposed foreign-policy dunce, and an untruthful former secretary of state, but is also a matter of how you prefer your obtuseness — raw or cooked? Who has done the greater damage to the nation: would-be novelist and Obama insider Ben Rhodes, who boasted about out-conning the “Blob” D.C. establishment, or bare-knuckles Trumpster Corey Lewandowski?

Reprinted from Breitbart.com.

The conservatives who have declared war on the primary victor are displaying a myopia that could be deadly in November when Trump will lead Republicans against a party that has divided the country, destroyed its borders, empowered its enemies and put 93 million Americans into dependency on the state. This reckless disregard for consequences is matched only by a blindness to what has made Trump the presumptive nominee. When he entered the Republican primaries a year ago Trump was given no chance of surviving even the first contest let alone becoming the Republican nominee. That was the view of all the experts, and especially those experts with the best records of prediction.

Trump – who had never held political office and had no experience in any political job – faced a field of sixteen tested political leaders, including nine governors and five senators from major states. Most of his political opponents were conservatives. During the primaries several hundred million dollars were spent in negative campaign ads – nastier and more personal than in any Republican primary in memory. At least 60,000 of those ads were aimed at Trump, attacking him as a fraud, a corporate predator, a not-so-closet liberal, an ally of Hillary Clinton, indistinguishable from Barack Obama, an ignoramus, and too crass to be president (Bill Clinton anyone?).

These negative ads were directed at Republican primary voters, a constituency well to the right of the party. These primary voters are a constituency that may be said to represent the heart of the conservative movement in America, and are generally more politically engaged and informed than most Republican voters. Trump won their support. He won by millions of votes – more votes from this conservative heartland than any Republican in primary history. To describe Trump as ignorant – as so many beltway intellectuals have – is merely to privilege book knowledge over real world knowledge, not an especially wise way to judge political leaders.

A chorus of detractors has attempted to dismiss Trump’s political victory as representing a mere plurality of primary voters, but how many candidates have won outright majorities among a field of seventeen, or five or even three? When the Republican primary contest was actually reduced to three, Trump beat the “true conservative,” Ted Cruz, with more than fifty percent of the votes. He did this in blue states and red states, and in virtually all precincts and among all Republican demographics. He clinched the nomination by beating Cruz with an outright majority in conservative Indiana.

In opposing the clear choice of the Republican primary electorate the “Never Trump” crowd is simply displaying their contempt for the most politically active Republican voters. This contempt was dramatically displayed during a CNN segment with Trump’s spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, and Bill Kristol, the self-appointed guru of a Third Party movement whose only result can be to split the Republican ticket and provide Hillary with her best shot at the presidency. Pierson urged Kristol to help unify the Party behind its presumptive nominee. Kristol grinned and answered her: “You want leaders to become followers.” Could there be a more arrogant response? By what authority does Bill Kristol regard himself as a leader? Trump has the confidence of millions of highly committed and generally conservative Republican voters. That makes him a leader. Who does Bill Kristol lead except a coterie of inside-the-beltway foreign policy interventionists, who supported the fiasco in Libya that opened the door to al-Qaeda and ISIS?

I have made my disdain for Trump loud and clear…..but….he won. He did not win by intimidation…there were no New Black Panthers standing thuggishly at the polls, as there were in 2008 and 2012. There were no votes cast by dead people as there were in 2008 and 2012. His victory was fair and square. I would urge conservative pundits and legislators that more good can be done by accepting the fact, and offering advice, foreign and domestic policy insights, and measured support. Nothing will be gained by becoming outlier conservatives with no input or influence. There are gifted and principled conservative legislators and pundits who can counsel Trump. They should do so.

It’s quite simple Hillary is worse.

And I have two words of advice for Sarah Palin, the Republican Barbara Boxer, ….just shut up! It is better to be presumed an idiot than to speak and remove all doubt. rsk

David Horowitz and Victor Davis Hanson nail it in the following columns.

Some of my fellow Republicans have declared they will never, under any circumstances, vote for Donald Trump. They are pessimistic about the party’s chances in November and seem more motivated by long-term considerations. They think devotion to the “anybody but Trump” movement is a principled and courageous stance that will help preserve a remnant of the conservative movement and its credibility, which can then serve as a foundation for renewal.

I sympathize with this perspective, but I am planning to vote for Donald Trump. Why? Because the stakes for my country, not merely my party, are simply too high.

I was one of the earliest and loudest critics of Mr. Trump. I mocked his appearance, demeanor, ideology and ego in the strongest language I have ever used to publicly criticize anyone in politics. I worked harder than most, with little apparent effect, to stop his ascendancy. I have not experienced a sudden epiphany and am not here to detail an evolution in my perspective.

I believe this presidential election cycle favors Republicans, due more to President Obama’s shortcomings than to any of our virtues or cleverness. I also believe that Donald Trump will have the hardest time of any of the Republican candidates in winning. He has stubbornly stuck to the same outlandish behavior and tactics that have served him so well to date. Mr. Trump continues to have the last laugh at the expense of his critics and competitors, myself included.

I think electing Donald Trump would be the second-worst thing we could do this November, better only than electing Hillary Clinton to serve as the third term for the Obama administration’s radical policies. I am not pretending that Mr. Trump has suddenly become a conservative champion or even a reliable Republican: He is completely unpredictable. The problem is that Hillary is predictably liberal.

There will be none of her husband’s triangulation. Republicans are fooling themselves if they think this President Clinton would sign into law policies like Nafta, the crime bill, welfare reform, or the deficit reduction packages that marked Bill’s tenure. While Bill felt compelled to confront Sister Souljah—and less directly Jesse Jackson—to appeal to moderate voters, Hillary is more responsive to pressure from Black Lives Matter and the far left. I have no idea what Mr. Trump might do, while Mrs. Clinton is predictable. Both are scary, the former less so.

The next president will make a critical appointment to the Supreme Court, who will cast the tiebreaking vote in important cases that will set precedents for years to come. Issues like the sanctity of innocent human life, constitutional protections for religious liberty and Second Amendment rights, and limits on the unelected federal bureaucracy hang in the balance. CONTINUE AT SITE

The party has nominated someone who cannot win and should not be president of the United States. We anticipate a landslide defeat, and then a struggle to take the party back from his team and his supporters and win the following presidential election. Meanwhile, we need to figure out how to conduct ourselves.

No, not Donald Trump and the Republican party today. George McGovern and the Democratic party in 1972. I was in those days a law student and active supporter of Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson, whose staff I joined when I got out of school. Jackson, who served in Congress from 1941 until his death in 1983, ran for president twice—in 1972 and 1976—and led the foreign policy hardliners in his party.

Watching conservative Republicans writhe in anguish over Trump, it’s worth looking back at what Jackson and the foreign policy hawks who surrounded and supported him—and detested McGovern and McGovernism—did back then.

Jackson’s biographer, Robert Kaufman, describes the time well in Henry M. Jackson: A Life in Politics (2000):

Jackson regarded McGovern’s impending triumph [at the Dem­ocratic Convention in Miami Beach, in July 1972] as an unmitigated disaster for the party. .  .  . [H]‌e stoutly resisted the inevitability of the McGovern candidacy by all means at his disposal right up until the Democrats nominated McGovern in July.

Supporters of Jackson and Hum­phrey, southerners, and organized labor had banded together in an abortive effort called “Anybody But McGovern.” .  .  . Even when Muskie and Hum­phrey formally bowed out, Henry Jackson would not. He received 536 votes for the nomination on the convention floor. I. W. Abel, head of the United Steelworkers of America, nominated him. Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia seconded the nomination.

So here’s a first lesson: Do not allow the Republican convention to be a coronation wherein Trump and Trumpism are unchallenged. There’s no reason others who won many delegates, from Rubio to Cruz to Kasich, should not have their names put in nomination. The party needs to be reminded that there are deep divisions, and Trump needs to be reminded of how many in the party oppose and even fear his nomination.

It’s been my great good fortune to know many patriotic Americans, a goodly number but by no means all of them conservatives, who are now supporters of Donald Trump. Similarly, many of my friends and allies in the conservative movement are immovably #NeverTrump. There is significant infighting between these camps. How can it be that people for whom the national interest remains paramount find themselves at loggerheads, after fighting shoulder to shoulder for decades against anti-Americanism and cultural decline?

The occasion for posing this question is my close encounter with the intensity of the rupture. Yesterday, I published on the Corner a post in support of exploring an independent candidacy for the presidency, a bid that could provide a credible alternative to both Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Hillary Clinton, who is certain to be the Democrats’ standard-bearer. What was most baffling about the negative reaction I got from some friends, colleagues, and readers — ranging from disappointment to white-hot anger — is that we are in basic agreement about priorities. It’s not like we’re not playing for the same team anymore. The bitter disagreement is about how to achieve the main objective.

And what is the objective? At this point, it is to prevent Hillary Clinton from becoming president of the United States. For most of us — those who reluctantly realize we must confront the strong possibility of defeat — there is also a corollary: to minimize the amount of damage Mrs. Clinton could do if she wins.

Interestingly, few of my pro-Trump correspondents see the objective as electing Trump for the good that he would do for the country. The case for Trump is that elections, as the estimable John Bolton put it in a recent interview, present a “binary choice.” The main attraction of Trump, for those who are attracted, is the belief that he stands the best chance of defeating Clinton.

While Trump has his fans, he troubles most conservatives — to put it mildly. That is because records matter more than late-life conversions, proclaimed with varying amounts of conviction and coherence. On his record, Donald Trump is a left-wing Democrat, whose newfangled conservatism is suspect. He is a deal-maker, whose positions, regardless of the fervor with which they are announced, are best understood as the start of a negotiation — endlessly elastic.

That said, the two principal objections of my correspondents are: (a) Clinton’s election would be assured by an independent bid — which many refer to as a “third party” candidacy, even though what I’ve endorsed is a run by an independent Republican (the distinction is significant for reasons I’ll get to); and (b) an independent bid is just a scheme to sneak a GOP-establishment operative into the White House against the will of the voters, who overwhelmingly rejected the establishment in the primaries.

These are the two objections I anticipated in my post. All I can do is elaborate on what I’ve said.

First, I would support only an independent bid that has a decent chance to succeed — either in getting the 270 electoral votes needed to win or, more likely, denying that Electoral College majority to any candidate, which would throw the election into the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. There, Clinton would stand the least chance of winning. If an independent bid lacked the capacity to compete realistically with the major parties, or lacked a candidate who could attract a competitive coalition, I would throw up my hands and vote for Trump. I am not trying to spare myself or anyone else the stark choice of Trump v. Clinton if that’s what we are realistically down to. I do not need a third option as a symbolic gesture so I can con myself into believing I haven’t helped elect Hillary. (In fact, I live in New Jersey, which will vote for the Democrat regardless of whom I vote for, or whether I vote at all.)

RELATED: What Chance Would a Third-Party Candidate Have?

Chances are that Donald Trump and his foreign policy crowd have not been reading The American Thinker. I would rather believe that Trump & Co. are just endowed with common sense and a genuine concern for the American interest. This also happens to be in the best interest of most people in the world — except for the jihad war crowd.

American Thinker and like-minded people have been yelling into the storm for almost eight years now, but we can’t take credit for Trump’s common sense in foreign affairs. Good sense guided American policy long before the Rise of the One.

The great exception to ordinary common sense has been Obama himself.

Donald Trump has been attacked as a populist lowbrow, but he has just given a foreign policy speech that makes more sense than any blowhard fantasy coming from the left. The Don didn’t promise to roll back the rising oceans, like King Canute, but instead he presented sensible policy goals to get us out of the swamp.

Trump is promising to be pro-American, in contrast to Obama’s fantasy policies that ended up killing hundreds of thousands of people abroad for no discernible reason at all. Obama bombed Libya for no stated reason except the obvious lie that we were going to stop genocide. Instead, things got much worse, and today Libya is still entangled in an avoidable civil war.

But the biggest, most desperately needed step has already been taken by Trump, even before the election.

Donald Trump has named the enemy in the Jihad War. He calls it “radical Islam.” That’s good enough, because it labels the war theology of jihad as the real enemy. We do not hate Muslims. We hate their indoctrination into a pre-medieval desert theology that makes war on infidels a first duty for every believer.

Shortly before the May 3 Indiana primary, a video of a Donald Trump supporter accosting Ted Cruz went viral. Surrounded by a throng of Trump fans shouting “career politicians have killed America,” the Texas senator tried to engage the man in a mock debate—without much success. Mr. Cruz made several attempts to discuss Mr. Trump’s record, then finally gave up and told the man that Mr. Trump “is playing you for a chump,” adding: “Ask yourself . . . why the mainstream media wants Donald Trump so desperately to be the Republican nominee?” The Trump supporter—whose favored candidate reportedly has enjoyed $2 billion in free media coverage—replied: “They’ve backed you every chance they get.”

Episodes like that, combined with Mr. Trump’s romp through the Republican presidential primary season, have shaken many people’s faith in the American electorate. But what if Trump voters, however uninformed, are still making a rational decision by backing him?
That is the contrarian argument advanced by political scientist Samuel L. Popkin of the University of California, San Diego, who has studied public opinion and elections for half a century. A native of Superior, Wis., the 73-year-old Mr. Popkin has also served as a consultant for the presidential campaigns of George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Mr. Popkin is perhaps best known for applying the rational-choice theory of economics to voting.

His seminal 1991 book “The Reasoning Voter” argues that voters are public investors who “expend effort voting in the expectation of gaining future satisfaction.” They “combine, in an economical way, learning and information from past experiences, daily life, the media, and political campaigns” to make reasoned judgments about politicians.

One of Mr. Popkin’s favorite examples of how “low-information voters” use “cues” to form logical conclusions is Gerald Ford’s eating an unshucked tamale, which signaled to many Latino voters that the president didn’t understand their culture. History repeated as farce this week when Mr. Trump on Cinco de Mayo tweeted a photo of himself eating a taco bowl: “The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics!”

Mr. Popkin, who was in New York City visiting family, sat down to talk on Wednesday afternoon, interpreting the often bizarre-seeming Republican primary season by using his political theory of low-information rational voting. CONTINUE AT SITE