T. Belman. McCarthy is remiss in not mentioning Sarah Palin. She started the movement when she ran for Governor of Alaska. You will note that she won that election due to her attack on the establishment for its corruption. When she was the Republican nominee for VP, her wings were clipped by McCain who refused to let her fly.
When she was considering running for the Republican nominee for President for the 2012 campaign, she laid out her platform in many of her speeches. Remember such phrases as “Drill, Baby, Drill”, “all the above” and crony capitalism and “drain the swamp”. She was for “constitutional conservatism’. She was for getting the government off the backs of the people and removing regulations. She was firmly against amnesty for aliens. She favoured simplifying the tax code. She never failed to remember the vets. She gave rise to the Tea Party and her endorsement in political races in 2010 and 2012 were much sought after. She also was a staunch supporter of Israel and mentioned this in all her speeches.
You may recall that very early on in the primaries, she endorsed Trump before anyone else did.
Trump simply embraced all her positions and ran with them. He even aligned with Breitbart and hired Steve Bannon who ran it. You will recall that Sarah Palin very early on developed a close association with Breitbart himself. Brietbart and Bannon made a movie on Palin at their own expense. Trump also hired many of her advisers.
So I was very disappointed when Trump didn’t acknowledge her in his speech on election night.
By Andrew R McCarthy, NATIONAL REVIEW
It will take a long time to analyze exactly what happened in the extraordinary election of 2016. It is already clear, though, that what propelled Donald Trump to the presidency was his grasping, before others caught on, that the contest was far less about right versus left, or even Republican versus Democrat, than about the country versus Washington.
He is now President-elect Trump. On Monday, however, he seemed a likely loser. In his pre-mortem, Charles Krauthammer opined that, even in defeat, Trump would remain the de facto leader of the Republican party because he had “created a movement.” I think, though, that the movement actually created the Trump candidacy.
Indeed, the movement was emerging fitfully in the late stages of the Bush 43 administration — a time when most people would have pegged Trump (to the extent he had identifiable politics) as a member of the establishment camp that catalyzed the movement. It is the movement whose outlines were sketched by Angelo Codevilla in 2010, pitting “the ruling class” against the country — the latter consisting of ordinary Americans of all races, ages and creeds, who were outraged when the bipartisan Beltway and its corporate cronies colluded in a massive wealth transfer to bail out insiders in the mortgage meltdown.
It is the movement that gave rise to the Tea Party and other grassroots revolts against Washington’s monstrous growth and intrusiveness, the rigged system that prospered as everyone else’s economy flat-lined. In the Obama years, as the divide widened, the political establishment took on a post-American cast. But the American people, it turns out, still like being the American people. The electoral blowback, beginning in 2010, has been intense, notwithstanding Obama’s 2012 reelection (in which he lost nearly 4 million voters from his 2008 victory).
Equally intense has been the opposition to Washington’s way of doing business. While the media have been unable to hide their disdain for what the narrative holds to be the divisive forces that prevent Washington from “getting things done,” increasing numbers of Americans, across ideological lines, objected to the things Washington was doing. Donald Trump saw an opening to become their champion, and that is what he made — or remade — himself into. For a very long time he was not taken seriously, just like the alienated forces he represented were not taken seriously.
I certainly did not believe he was for real until very late in the game — and I say that as someone who has been aligned with the anti-ruling-class temper from the outset; I simply never thought Trump was the right vehicle for the movement. But that was not for me to say, and now I get to hope and pray that he proves me wrong. Again, it will be a while before we get an accurate picture of the dynamics in the electorate. I feel confident, though, that Trump’s success — particularly in redrawing some of the electoral map — is due to breaking the consultant mold.
I am no expert in this field, but it seems that our elections for the last generation have been about appealing to segments of the country at the expense of other segments, with the goal of getting to 50 percent plus one. I do not mean to suggest that Trump did not have segments of the electorate to which he strongly appealed — obviously, he did. But I do think that Trump, especially in the last months of the campaign, did a better job than recent Republican nominees have done in appealing to blue constituencies.
Some of this featured more pandering than I am comfortable with. I would rather see conservative candidates trying to convince individual Americans that conservatism is how they will prosper — as opposed to trying to repackage conservatism into something that it is not, in order to appeal to groups as groups.
The point, however, is that Trump took his case to black voters, Hispanic voters — traditional Democratic voters who have been failed by Democratic policies. Trump, especially in the last months of the campaign, did a better job than recent Republican nominees have done in appealing to blue constituencies. That brings me to a final thought, about caricature.
Because the media lean left, they depict progressive activists as representative of the demographic group to which they belong — such that, for example, you are led to believe all American Muslims think like CAIR, all Hispanic voters oppose enforcement of the immigration laws, all women are pro-abortion, and so on.
Because progressive activists are quick to smear their opponents as racists, sexists, homophobes, etc., the media echo the smear and often make it stick. Yet, it is not only possible, it is essential, to appeal to traditional Democratic constituencies as Americans, rather than as members of groups too immersed in progressive dogma to hear a conservative, pro-American message. And even if they aren’t won over, Americans will respect and appreciate the effort. That’s how inroads are made. I don’t know what the Trump years will bring, but I think there is a lot we can learn from how he made his way to the White House. Meantime, though there is lots of water under the bridge, let’s remember that he ran as a conservative.
Whether that is because he has become one or because he recognized he needed to adopt some conservative positions to be viable, we will find out in due course. What we owe our country is to be receptive and to try to help him be the best president he can be. — Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior policy fellow at the National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.
Sebastien Zorn Said:
Odd coincidence that you should mention Morris Cohen, “Two-Gun” I remember when he came on the scene, for me anyway, in the 40s, of course he’d been active long before that with Sun Yat Sen I think, and later others. I was reading about him again only a month ago. I have a book detailing his life somewhere in storage.
Edgar G. formerly “Austin”.
@ bernard ross:
Watch Rebel Media – Trump did not win because of an increase in the white vote but an increase in the votes from minority groups,
Watch it.
There was no Whitelash – It’s a lie
There was Minority group-lash.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
There’s a choreographed dance going on right now in this “peaceful transition of power”, Clinton and Trump, Obama and Trump schmoozing making nice, thanking people who are present just enough to avoid putting people to sleep. Trump is winning brownie points with his critics for doing the dance so winningly and “hitting all the right points.” He won. There’s an etiquette to becoming President. Traditions to be observed. Do you want him to become like President Carter who antagonized even his own party in power so badly he couldn’t get anything done?
Progressives focus on style at the expensive of substance. Every phase of the campaign required a different persona. Let him do his thing. He’s on our side. He knows what he’s doing.
My take on it is that Trump can be an opportunist. Probably goes with the territory for being a billionaire. Palin kept a low profile during the campaign. Probably no accident there.
@ bernard ross:
Sarah Palin, at the time she ran for Vice-President, had been director of Alaska’s Oil and Gas Commission, the largest most important regulatory agency in Alaska, the equivalent of Alaska’s (an oil state) energy secretary for 6 years. She had been Governor — and a very successful Governor who rooted out corruption before she was hounded out of office unfairly and hypocritically for being allegedly too much of a Prima Donna towards subordinates – in a way that looks like nothing compared to Tricky Hillary — She then interrupted her successful Governorship and ingeniously launched her career as a writer and media pundit to pay off the frivolous lawsuits by Progressives.
(I know it’s sexist, and goes against my Feminist upbringing moreover, but it’s a simple fact that I’ve had a lot of bosses and teachers, male and female, and some of the men but most of the women lashed out at their subordinates when under pressure. When I worked as a temp, in the ’80s, most of my mostly female co-workers prayed to be assigned to male bosses who were so much easier to work for, as a general rule, aside from the occasional monster), Mayor, City Councilwoman, Head of the Parent Teachers Association, An activist in the PTA, a Soccer Mom activist (community organizer if you will), she’s written books, columns, founded a powerful political machine, she founded an inter-state conservative youth political organization when she was some thing like ten.
She won a beauty contest, not just with her looks, but by winning the talent portion on flute. Have you ever tried to play a flute? She was right about Ukraine, she was right about the reason for the unnecessary oil spills. She’s a staunch friend of Israel and the Jewish people. She built a business with her husband and raised several kids — of her own, one of whom is disabled. And she’s younger than Obama. Most of this was before she ran. McCain should have been her Vice-President.
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that she had been a TV sports journalist for ESPN somewhere in there. And all before she was fifty. She’s like a year or two younger than Obama.*
She reminds me of what Tom Lehrer said* before one of his songs about Mozart: “It’s a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he’d been dead 5 years.
*I think it’s this one but the remarks were on another recording of a live performance:
Tom Lehrer – Clementine
*”To me personally, the only function of philosophy is to teach us to take life more lightly and gayly than the average businessman does, for no businessman who does not retire at fifty, if he can, is in my eyes a philosopher.”
So not her.
*Lin Yutang. 1895-1976. : Chinese Philosopher and inventor. Introduced Western Humor to China and Chinese classical literature to the West. When he died, both Chinese and Taiwanese governments sent representatives to his funeral. They both claimed him.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lin_Yutang
Another one Chinese national hero claimed by both like that. He also had such great influence that he was responsible for China abstaining from the vote on Partitition, allowing the U.N. recognition of Israel in 1948 to happen and defeating the Arab pressure for a vet:
Morris “Two-Gun” Cohen
http://www.aish.com/jw/s/Who-was-Two-Gun-Cohen.html
@ mar55:
Dept of Energy is mostly about nuclear. Dept of Interior has jurisdiction over Federal lands, where the hydrocarbons sleep.
However, I think Sarah Palin would make a fine Ambassador to the Russian Federation, because they still think Alaska belongs to Russia. A Palin nomination would be a clear message to Stand Down on Alaska.
Perhaps Gov. Palin might be a good choice managing all of the pipeline projects about to get approved.
@ mar55:
not familiar with her qualifications.. what are they, is she knowledgeable o energy…. e.g. guiliani would be good as AG because he has a strong prosecutorial background, was very vocal about having the evidence to convict hillary AND would be able to clean out the FBI and DOJ because of his legal and mayoral expertise.
All I know of Palin is that she was gov of alaska
@ yamit82:
@ bernard ross:
Sara Palin would be good as energy secretary. What do you think?
yamit82 Said:
the problem is that they will try to sabotage those parts of his agenda that do not agree with the donors… trade, tpp, hb1 visas, even possibly immigration. He can get democrats to pass some of them. Remember how they sabotaged him semi covertly… they can also do it covertly.
Huh, Comment in moderation for 3 innocuous lines???
Pls release and post/ Ted!!
bernard ross Said:
There are limits to what he can do and he needs them to pass his agenda. Trump needs to put his personal stamp on the party quickly and to pass all he can in the first 3 months.
Trump needs to purge the GOP traitors who are not only traitors to him but to the american people who they have transparently deceived and betrayed.
this is what enabled Trumps success, this is what neither the GOP nor dems nor any other party can achieve. All other candidates are tied to donors, this is what also enabled his success. His greatest difficulty will be dealing with the entrenched civil service, ideological elements of the GOP and dems, and big money opposition.
that’s because he is not really a republican or ideological conservative.. he is a nationalist willing to ignore ideology to solve problems… this comes from his business AND development/construction background. Another aspect of Trumps character will be, IMO, that if he finds that a platform of his is not a good solution he will change his mind and do something else…. which is what every developer does when he encounters an obstacle or problem that is not solved by his original approach. People should not expect him to follow party and ideological lines.
I dont beleive that donald is out to sell conservatism at all but that he sees some specific solutions congruently with conservatives.
this author is a conservative ideologue who does not get it. Trump is not trying to sell a conservative ideology to blacks, he wants to solve their problems. The author wants to own Trump as a conservative but he is mistaken. Trump is not a conservative or GOP… he is a problem solver and sees america frought with problems. Ideologues dont solve problems unless the solution is congruent with their ideology.
LOL, “even if they aren’t won over”…. this guy is a preacher trying to proselytize, he is uninterested, like most ideologues, in seeing or solving actual problems…. he is only interested in his ideological religion.
He did not run as a conservative… he ran as Trump. He did not even run as an establishment GOP, that was the only available party which he could use to solve the problem…. he had no chance of winning a dem nomination not only due to platforms and PC but because he recognized that their org is too strongly controlled to break in. To get to presidency the GOP was the sensible choice… starting a 3rd party would not be as viable to success as hijacking the GOP. Folks should start listening carefully to what he says, not to literalism but to the spirist and gist. He has said over and over that it is a movement… such a movement would normally start with a 3rd party which would lose… he might actually be a genius in disguise in making the decision to run, to hijack the GOP to his platform and agenda, and to beat the corrupt dem machine. Remember, he was already enormously knowledgeable to the inner working of both parties… he had to be to make the deals and build his projects. He has been enourmously underestimated… by me too. Here is an example of me taking my own advice to listen to him: I have never taken Trumps constant statments about how folks are incredible people.. the cops, the secret service, the people of iowa or michigan or wherever…. today I suddenly wondered if he actually really meant those statements rather than just being transparently opportunistic…. becuase if he did he might make an “amazing”, sincere and successful president in a “Yuge” way.
He might really unite the nation merely by seeking to solve problems without ulterior motives and outside of party and ideological lines.. as a nationalist. I also think he is not a mean guy and does have a heart… and will temper some seemingly harsh approaches with with empathy.
President-Elect Trump will not likely appoint Governor Sarah Palin as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court. But short of that, one can think he will place her somewhere in useful service of the United States of America.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
Sarah Palin wasn’t there at the Victory Speech. Trump only had time to honor the people that were there as he introduced them and that is what he concentrated on.
What is this ? “Daddy doesn’t love me enough?”
Geeez….relax already.