Cruz
and Trump, the leading contenders on the Republican side, have their fierce
defenders and detractors, though
most people concede either would be preferable to the criminal serial liar or
the aged Commie on the Democratic ticket. City Journal had to
my way of thinking a really sound explanation for
Trump’s popularity:
What rankles most among workaday white Americans is that, even
as their incomes and life expectancies decline, and even as the protections
promised in the Fourteenth Amendment are eviscerated in favor of new minority
carve-outs, they’re accused of benefitting from “white privilege.” The rise of
Ferguson’s Michael Brown and Baltimore’s Freddy Gray -- the first a thug, the
second a small-time drug dealer -- as black icons of white oppression,
exemplify the perversions of Obama’s America. Fifty years after the passage of
the Civil Rights Act, a dramatically diminished racism is asked to account for
the ongoing infirmities of the inner-city underclass.
Trump is both a reaction to and expression of liberal delusions.
[Arthur] Schlesinger’s fears have largely come to pass; we’ve become what he
called a “quarrelsome spatter of enclaves.” Schlesinger was too much a part of
the elite to imagine that the class he always thought of as representing the
best of the future would come to be despised by a broad swath of Americans for
its incompetence and ineffectuality. But what Schlesinger saw on the horizon
seems to have arrived, with no sign of abating: we are in the midst of a soft
civil war."
As if to underscore the Republicans'
broad distaste and feeling of betrayal, Senate Republicans, giving up their
last shot to reining in our far left president, keep confirming
his wretched nominees for office.
After confirming a liberal
judge to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this week as their first
act of 2016, Senate Republicans are prepared to confirm yet another liberal
judge next week.
[snip]
On Tuesday afternoon,
Republicans will vote to confirm Wilhelmina Marie Wright, a sitting member of
the Minnesota state Supreme Court, to the United States District Court for the
District of Minnesota. Just who is Ms. Wright?
Writing a short entry for the UCLA
Law Review in 1990 (page 18-19 of PDF), Ms. Wright brazenly asserted that,
“[T]he practice of American racism is based on two principles: the sanctity of
property and the belief in the hierarchy of races
Giving voice to the many disaffected
rank-and-file voters is West
Virginia’s Don Surber:
This time, many conservatives just want the wall built. Trump
has not always been pro-life and pro-guns, but he is now and that is what
counts. He also is unapologetically politically incorrect, to the point of
being rude, but being polite has not gotten conservatives a damned thing. Trump
is bringing Democrats, independents and unregistered people into the party. Losing
just to meet some conservative purity test is a luxury Republicans no longer
can afford.
Washington conservatives -- Cable News Conservatives -- overlook
the fundamental principle of conservativism, and that is giving everyone the
same opportunity. America is best when she is a capitalistic society that
builds railroads and industry. The idea that only career politicians are
qualified to hold public office is not conservative.
But this year's election is not
about conservativism or liberalism. The survival of the nation is. It's not
about entitlements or foreign policy or balancing the budget. It is about
protecting the borders. We are reduced to that basic an issue because
Washington has failed to protect the nation from two simultaneous invasions. Trump's
response to Muslim terrorism in San Bernardino led to a chorus of clucked
tongues on cable TV, but the people watching at home cheered.