And The Trump Rise Fallout Continues *Open Thread*

Oh, boy. There is so much going on post-Cruz and Kasich (still suspicious timing to me) departures from the Republican side of the Campaign slate leaving – astonishingly – Trump as the Last Man Standing. And is there ever a ton of fallout as a result, as well as vows of #NeverTrump from all kinds of quarters.

A large group of policy experts at the John Jay Iniative, for example, have declared that many of them will not be helping The Donald out any. From The Hill:

[…] “I have no intention of voting for Hillary Clinton and I have no intention of voting for Donald Trump,” said Daniel Runde, who worked on Romney’s team four years ago.

“I’ve been a lifelong Republican. I’ve never voted for a Democrat for president and I have no intention of voting for a Democrat in my lifetime,” he added. “But at the same time, in my lifetime I’ve never been presented with a candidate who’s anti-free trade, who rubbishes our partners and allies, insults our friends and neighbors [and] has an irresponsible foreign policy.”

[…]

Many critics accuse the GOP front-runner of failing to paint a cohesive foreign policy vision, and say that he has relied on platitudes and shallow promises about “winning.” The policies he has laid out — such as halting foreign Muslims from entering the country, renegotiating the U.S.’s role within alliances such as NATO and reinstituting harsh interrogations — have struck many as unwise and unjust.

One founder of the John Hay group, former Romney adviser and ex-State and Defense Department official Eliot Cohen, organized a letter now signed by 121 prominent GOP national security officials promising not to support Trump, because he would “act in ways that make America less safe.” […] (Click here to read the rest.)

The article notes that not all of the members are boycotting Trump, but many are.

But there is something else that is stirring since Trump’s inexplicable rise to the top of the GOP. That would be the sense of liberation some are feeling as a result. This piece by Amanda Carpenter in the Conservative Times lays it out (h/t Facebook Friend):

[…] Consider yourselves liberated. There’s no normal obligation to support Trump as the nominee.  He has both policy and personality issues that make him unfit for the highest office in the land.

Speak your mind about the direction you’d truly like to see the party go without any reservations about where the nominee stands. Because, guess what? No one knows where Trump stands anyway.

Take jobs, for example. Does he support unions? Right to work laws? Price supports? What subsidies? Government money for job retraining? The list goes on. And, he’s a businessman.

That’s really the least of it though.

Yesterday, the day he essentially clinched the nomination, when he was ten points up in Indiana, he was peddling a National Enquirer story linking Cruz’s father to the assassination of JFK and threatening to use punitive taxes and tariffs to prevent an American company from relocating.

If this is how Trump acts when he’s winning, I dread seeing how he acts when he becomes angry and his power is threatened. Without a shadow of a doubt, Trump played dirty to win. He was willing to say and do anything to win. His behavior is not emblematic of a patriot; he’s inclined to be a tyrant.

Again, the silver lining is that we are all free to say exactly how we feel about the man. The Republican National Committee pledge goes out the window when the nominee will almost certainly rule as a liberal authoritarian bully. […](Click here to read the rest.)

Carpenter makes some good points, doesn’t she? No one need feel beholden in any way, shape, or form to the Republican Party. Nope, not one bit. People are now free to declare themselves Conservatives, Independents, Libertarians, or simply Anti-Trumpers.

Oh, and speaking of jobs, Trump has already come out saying he is considering raising the Minimum Wage. Yep. Thanks, Trumpanzees, for claiming that past was NOT prologue when it came to the lifelong liberal that Trump is. Morons. Sorry. Just slipped out.

There is something liberating indeed about this shift for many Conservatives, which is why many are now calling for a third party. From The Federalist:

[…] What I am proposing, in short, is a third party that will serve as a Republican leadership in exile, waiting to either reclaim our occupied homeland or to build a new home for our band of ideological refugees.

Let me be more specific about what such a third party might accomplish.

First, it would provide a parallel track for local, state, and congressional candidates. The Obama years have been a huge success for Republicans on every level below the presidency. In several wave elections, Republicans have reclaiming statehouses across the country and both houses of Congress. Now all of that is in danger.

[…]

The second function of a new third party would be to give the sane right-leaning media something constructive to do. While much of the right’s broadcast media is on the Trump Train—including a lot the talk radio entertainers and Fox News talking heads—very little of the right’s print and online media is budging in his direction. An informal survey of my colleagues over the past few days shows that very few have abandoned their #NeverTrump stance or seem likely to do so. (No one affirmed that with more style than this.) For people who make a living off of nothing but the force and clarity of their ideas, Trump is too much of an intellectual embarrassment. We just can’t make ourselves support him.

[…]

That’s the kind of attitude we need right now, not just from a potential leader, but from ourselves. We need the spirit of George Washington, who rallied the Constitutional Convention with advice that turns out to be the best answer to our dilemma today: “If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair.” (Click here to read the rest.)

There is much, much more to this article, and I highly recommend it. But it does give a little bit of hope in these dark days that there are things we can do, that there are like-minded people out there who are providing concrete suggestions and options as to where we go now.

That is no small thing, if you ask me. What do you think? This is an Open Thread.

 

Tags: Conservatives, Donald Trump, GOP, Minimum Wage, Third Party