VDH finally comes out with facts that should bother Republican Party Poobahs. But it gets worse, because both (R) factions are ignoring the Very Big Issues.
...United or divided, the Republicans have lost the popular vote in four
out of the last five national elections — 2000, 2008, 2012, and 2016 —
not because large numbers of Republicans voted for the Democratic
candidate, but because there are not enough Republicans to begin with.
And their candidates were not able to capture enough Independents and
Democrats, or to motivate enough first-time or lapsed Republicans to
register and turn out to vote, or to flip new demographic groups to
conservatism....
Yes, Trump lost the popular vote. But he also knew that the Reagan Democrats live in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and West Virginia, and that the Democrat Drunk chose to ignore some of them and openly insult the rest.
Anyhow, Hanson then goes through a list of agreed matters, and it turns out that there's lots of agreement between the factions. But then there's the problem-part:
...Never Trumpers now see the Trump base as prone to demagogic frenzies on
immigration and trade; too monolithically white; often-angry
blame-gaming losers of globalization; naïve rather than self-critical
about so-called white pathologies; and in their populism too dismissive
of the importance of political experience, impressive education, and the
changing demography of the U.S.
The far more numerous Trump base voters sees the Never Trumpers as too
self-important; predictably bicoastal careerist; too quick to judge and
write off their supposed ethical inferiors; too eager to get along with
liberals within their own bubble; too wedded to traditional definitions
of political qualifications and success; and more worried about decorum
than winning....
Read those grafs again, and you smell the stale Chardonnay d'Hillary: she could easily have voiced every word of the first graf (or actually DID), and she embodies all the attributes of the second. In fact, Hanson has ID'd 'the Establishment', or the "city class" of Angelo Codevilla.
...Trump is a symptom of widespread disgust, not the head of a carefully
crafted ideological movement with a checklist of issues. What created
him was furor at a smug, entrenched Republican political establishment....
Then VDH goes all justifiably Prophet of Doom:
...Meanwhile, the administrative state expands, the debt is headed for $21
trillion, crass identity politics tear the nation apart, the effort to
restore deterrence abroad grows ever more dangerous, and the campuses,
Hollywood, the NFL, and the media are reminding us that progressive
politics are now our culture’s orthodoxy, vital for success in nearly
all fields. And dealing with all that is the only conservative fight
that counts....
There is NOT ONE major Republican figure, with the possible exception of Ted Cruz, who is addressing the issues raised there. Why not? Basically, it's because talking about and campaigning on those issues is a pretty good way to lose, as Cruz found out.
We're down to prayer and fasting, people.
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