Trumping the Republican Establishment

Trumping the Republican Establishment

Steve McCann

The alarm bells are reverberating throughout the halls of the Republican Establishment as the realization has begun to sink in that their days controlling the Party are over. Nothing is more telling than the Real Clear Politics average of the four most recent polls of Republican voters. The Establishment's favored candidates (Bush, Christie, Graham, Kasich and Rubio) account for only 24.7% of the polling results (Trump alone has 22.3%). The pent up anger over the abysmal performance of the Republican Party hierarchy over the past 27 years has justifiably reached a boiling point.

The current iteration of the Republican Establishment has been dominant in the Party since 1989, setting up a process wherein they have effectively chosen all the presidential candidates and steered a course of fawning cooperation with the Democrats. The responsibility for the current state of the country as well as its dismal future rests heavily upon their shoulders.

In 1988, thanks to Ronald Reagan, the Democratic Party was a defeated ragtag army of special interest groups and socialist wannabes. The 1988 election was another Reagan landslide as George H.W. Bush, running as Reagan's Vice President and heir, won the popular vote by over 9 million and the electoral vote 426 to 111. However, by 2015 a radicalized Democratic Party has become the dominant power in Washington, implementing a devastating agenda opposed by a majority of the American people. This was made possible, in great part, by the folly, hubris and avarice of the Republican Establishment. 

In the past six presidential elections the feckless (i.e. mushy moderate) Republican candidates, effectively chosen by the Republican hierarchy, have lost the popular vote by nearly 54 million (or an average of 9 million votes per cycle). They have averaged only 210 electoral votes out of 538 available (39%). Thanks to the efforts of the oft maligned grass roots, the Republican Party has controlled either one or both houses of Congress for 17 of the 27 years since 1989. With the exception of the Newt Gingrich's leadership of the House of Representatives for four years, the Republican leaders of both houses have been card carrying members of the Establishment as well as true believers in the philosophical bent of getting along with the Democrats by acceding to the overwhelming bulk of their demands in order to avoid confrontation and curry favor with a hostile mainstream media.

In the eight years from 2001 to 2009 when the Republicans did control the White House (and both Houses of Congress for six years) spending skyrocketed, the nation became embroiled in an unnecessary and costly, in both lives and treasure, war in Iraq, the federal bureaucracy grew exponentially, illegal immigration remained unchecked and persistent fealty to globalization continued the ongoing loss of jobs and wealth to other countries. These factors plus the nomination of another feckless candidate opened the door allowing the most radical President in the history of the United States together with a Democratic Party in step with Barack Obama's ideology to assume power.

The meteoric rise of Donald Trump as well as the showing of the many other non-establishment candidates is the end-product of a Republican Party too timid to be the opposition in a nation that can only function politically with two national parties. At any other time and place in the nation's history Donald Trump would not be considered a viable candidate, considering his checkered past political leanings, his previous monetary support of the Democratic Party and his unbridled narcissism. His latest reincarnation as a political superstar is thanks to the very Republican Establishment that now so loathes and fears him. 

However, as the nation is entranced with this latest reality show and rightly focused on domestic issues, over the next five years the international scene will become extremely perilous. While the media concentrates on the vile images of the atrocities committed by ISIS, the more dangerous threat to the United States is Russia with Vladimir Putin, an avowed admirer of Adolf Hitler, at the helm. Once the Ukraine has been neutralized he will turn his attention into forcing the hand of NATO by encroaching on the Baltic nations to test whether the United States and its European allies will have to will to come to their defense per the NATO treaty. Concurrent with that scenario, Russia's new best friend and ally, Iran, freshly released from any sanctions and free to buy and develop offensive weapons, will aggressively expand their hegemony in the Middle East precipitating another confrontation with the United States and its allies.

Dealing with matters of war and peace with the attendant lives of millions in the balance requires clear headed thinking without the intrusion of any rancor, emotion or ego. Characteristics in short supply with Donald Trump. Others such as Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal and Ben Carson exhibit these necessary traits and yet are in step with the economic and immigration policies as articulated by Donald Trump.

The desperation of the Republican Establishment will soon become virulent and their vitriol while aimed primarily at Trump will also target other so-called outsiders as well. That plus the inevitable splitting of the conservative and right of center vote as the nominating process unfolds will ultimately deny Trump the nomination.

Regardless, Donald Trump, who is a patriot and sincerely concerned about the future of the country, must stay in the race until it is an absolute certainty that none of the Establishment's favored candidates will win the nomination. At that stage by dropping out of the race he has the opportunity to go down in history as being the man who drove a stake through the heart of the current Republican Establishment and transformed the Party into a viable and determined opposition focused on making America great again. That will be a monumental feat far exceeding what he has done or will do in the business world.