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Home Front: Politix
Victor Davis Hanson--Never NeverTrump: The Republican dilemma
2016-09-20
Any Republican has a difficult pathway to the presidency. On the electoral map, expanding blue blobs in coastal and big-city America swamp the conservative geographical sea of red. Big-electoral-vote states such as California, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey are utterly lost before the campaign even begins. The media have devolved into a weird Ministry of Truth. News seems defined now as what information is necessary to release to arrive at correct views.

In recent elections, centrists, like John McCain and Mitt Romney ‐ once found useful by the media when running against more-conservative Republicans -- were reinvented as caricatures of Potterville scoundrels right out of a Frank Capra movie.

When the media got through with a good man like McCain, he was left an adulterous, confused septuagenarian, unsure of how many mansions he owned, and a likely closeted bigot. Another gentleman like Romney was reduced to a comic-book Ri¢hie Ri¢h, who owned an elevator, never talked to his garbage man, hazed innocents in prep school, and tortured his dog on the roof of his car. If it were a choice between shouting down debate moderator Candy Crowley and shaming her unprofessionalism, or allowing her to hijack the debate, Romney in Ajaxian style ("nobly live, or nobly die") chose the decorous path of dignified abdication.

In contrast, we were to believe Obama’s adolescent faux Greek columns, hokey "lowering the seas and cooling the planet," vero possumus seal on his podium as president-elect, and 57 states were Lincolnesque.

Why would 2016 not end up again in losing nobly? Would once again campaigning under the Marquess of Queensberry rules win Republicans a Munich reprieve?

The Orangeman Cometh
In such a hysterical landscape, it was possible that no traditional Republican in 2016 was likely to win, even against a flawed candidate like Hillary Clinton, who emerged wounded from a bruising primary win over aged socialist Bernie Sanders.
More at site.
Posted by:JohnQC

#5  God knows he'll be blasted day and night for four or more years in a way that will make the horrific abuse aimed at W Bush look tame.

Part of that occurs because *we* don't require them to pay the price for their favoritism. STOP watching channels that offend your sensibility with their reporting. I gave up NBC, CBS, and ABC a few years ago. I watch ONLY college football and the NFL on those channels--and when they attempt to editorialize on those channels during football broadcasts, I send emails of complaint. Fuck them. I don't need those channels any longer. There's plenty of entertainment options out there that aren't (actively) attempting to bring down this country.
Posted by: Crusader   2016-09-20 23:52  

#4  America seems to have mostly bungled things since the end of the cold war. We really could use a reset. Hopefully Trump will be better than all the fear mongers suggest, hopefully having a businessman who loves his country will be what the US needs right now.

God knows he'll be blasted day and night for four or more years in a way that will make the horrific abuse aimed at W Bush look tame. But if he fixes a few problems and get the economy going nobody will care what the media says.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2016-09-20 23:08  

#3  No doubt HRC's "people" are quietly sending out feelers.
Posted by: Pappy   2016-09-20 20:12  

#2  It's only a dilemma if RINOs can't figure out how to monetize it.
Posted by: gorb   2016-09-20 13:20  

#1  I thought it was a good essay. Long, but good.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike   2016-09-20 12:37  

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