The political gurus and Brahmins that predicted the demise of Donald J. Trump from June 2015 on are now telling us that the Republican Party and the American political class has been blindsided by a political realignment that will lead to our party’s, and may been even our republic’s, ruin.
In the Party of Lincoln, there has been a continued unwillingness to listen or hear the voter since 2004. The Republican leaders of DC have neglected their supporters on issues after issue. From a fetishist’s desire to implement amnesty and increased immigration, to the pursuit of perpetual war, to Medicare Part D, to 40 years of trade deficits with no end in sight, a national debt no politician, save Tom Coburn, really cares about, and Obamacare, which according to the leaders’ narrative would be repealed if only the Senate flipped Republican in the 2014 election.
The so-called conservatives have told us that Donald Trump is a big government liberal. With all due respect, they are big government plutocrats. Donald Trump didn’t expand Medicare; Donald Trump didn’t craft a foreign policy that resembles more Woodrow Wilson than Ronald Reagan. Donald Trump didn’t grow the debt to $19 trillion.
When the elites were then told the people and their voters don’t like them anymore and are voting for what many believed to be a dangerous demagogue out of desperation, they refuse to change their ways. They, the politicians, pundits, and pseudo-intellectual conservatives attacked the people. They are so out of touch.
It should be no surprise because the people responded the same way by ignoring the 2006 Midterm Election, the 2012 Presidential Election, the historic defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, 2014 Senate Elections, and the early success of Trump.
They call the voters dumb, racists, bigots, xenophobes, homophobes, isolationists, whatever makes them popular at the Saturday night Georgetown cocktail party with their cabal of liberal friends and faux intellectuals.
The hubris of the Republican Party apparatchiks resembles the Ancien Regime of pre-revolutionary France, enjoying the high life while their people figuratively starve in the street paying for the decadence of the elites. As our Republican and conservative oracles sit in their luxurious K street offices and feel no effects of the recession or housing crisis, the Republican voter struggles to deal with student debt, taxes, regulations, and an ever-growing burdensome state. As their cousin loses his job at the coal mine or factory, our friends in DC give themselves another raise and throw another celebrity-studded gala. But according to Washington, the answer remains special interest trade deals for their corporate friends that bankroll their lobby shops, think tanks, and political campaigns.
In 1789, the French people, tired of paying for the largesse and debauchery of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, stormed the Bastille. Now, the Republican voters have stormed fortress Conservative Inc. This is scary and at times off-putting, but predictable. It may be not that their leader is the answer, but just as Robespierre was the inevitable outcome of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, Trump is the natural outflow of Boehner, Ryan, McConnell, Romney, and McCain.
When Marie Antoinette was told the people have no bread, she said, “let them eat cake.” This has been the answer of those confused souls that claim leadership of our party. The Washington wise men would not listen to the coming storm and now must reap its whirlwind.
It is little wonder that un-listened to, unappreciated, and un-liked Republican voters have told their political representatives, the punditry class, and pseudo-intellectual conservatives, “Off with you head!” Those who led us in to ruin now themselves have been ruined.