Yep

 

I would add that Trump is not widely expected to win.  The latest batch of polling shows Trump barely ahead of Biden, and not much different than it has been for much of the year.  A squeak-by advantage well within the margin of error. 

Perhaps that is good news, and shows social and Christian conservatives saying enough.  Maybe Christians and others who value the Life movement are saying , they have debased themselves and held their noses for eight years.  But they will not simply act like sheep and push the appropriate button as Trump moves to diminish opposition to one of the most critical moral crises in modern history. 

Trump was never a conservative by any stretch.  The Left portrayed him, as it does all enemies, as a far right neo-Nazi misogynistic racist.  But in honesty, Trump in many things has been left of center, especially regarding animal pleasures.  Why the sudden party platform shift, I don't know.  I do know I've heard little push-back from conservatives - social, Christian, Catholic or otherwise.  And nothing will play up to the 'lie of the pro-life movement' more than standing by as that movement is chipped away at by the GOP while handing over votes in due order.  

It might just be time that we accept the end of the Christian era and a new phase in the history of the Faithful.  It's not time to compromise the Faith to stay loyal to a party that has never really wanted us in the first place, and increasingly is making that clear under the leadership of Donald Trump. 

Ouch

I'm not a fan of appealing to comedy to make a political point, but I almost felt sorry for the GOP with this one:

At the end of the day, charging forth into battle with the GOP on your side is like storming the beaches with an accordion.  They have proven themselves worthless time and time again.  Reagan was a fluke, not the rule.  While I have no doubt about the sincerity of some in the GOP, the party as a whole looks on people like me as an annoyance at best.  And when it comes to fighting for the most important virtues and truths, I don't see them being worth much in the long run. 

And I know, there isn't much else politically to grab at this point.  Nonetheless, I never kid myself that the GOP is, at best, like grabbing a life preserver that is taking on water.  

How great was the Arnold

Thanks suckers folks!

I recall back in 2004, Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the darlings of conservative Republicans.  They couldn't get enough of the guy.  I took my kids to see President GW Bush when he came to Columbus that year.  I've long tried to see presidents if they are in the area.  I think it's a good experience, and I wanted my sons to see the current president in person.  Bush got applause to be sure.  FWIW, former governor Taft, a Republican in an arena filled with Republicans, got overwhelmingly booed.  But nothing compared to the rave screams of adoration that came when Arnold took the stage to introduce Bush.

Arnold has a long connection to Columbus.  His Arnold Sportsfest is one of the big events of the year in Central Ohio.  Part of the cheers could be due to that.  But overall, the praise and adulation he received here in the Buckeye State was repeated across conservative media, conservative talk shows, conservative punditry and even conservative churches.  Heck, I remember some conservatives wanting to change the Constitution so Arnold could run for president!

Why?  The guy has virtually nothing in common with any conservatives I know, religious or otherwise.  His rather explicit interview here, in which he dumps on religion and the afterlife, certainly explains his lack of moral connection to religious conservatives.  Schwarzenegger has long stood as an example for those coming from the far corners of the world to indulge in all the porn-orgy culture America has to offer.

Many of his policies are nothing close to what Conservatives endorse.  As often as not he would get along just fine with the good folks on The View.  Heck, even libertarians should shrink from him.  I recall him joining people like Chris Christie and stomping on the idea that gays are anything but forced to be gay by birth.  Therefore, all attempts to help them be anything other than flaming homosexuals must be crushed.  That's not libertarian.  It's hell and gone from conservative views.  

So what was it about him?  That he put an 'R' in front of his name?  I've often said I was ahead of the curve where Trump is concerned.  I didn't like the guy back when liberals, Democrats and Hollywood power players loved the guy.  What changed?  For me, nothing.  But for them?  He put the dreaded 'R' in front of his name.  Once you do that, to those inclusive left of center activists you become discount Hitler.  Perhaps conservatives view that from the opposite perspective?   

I don't know.  It can't be just because of the 'R'.  After all, Mitt Romney has an 'R' in front of his name and I think there are more ostrich racing fans in the world than there are conservatives who care about him.  Perhaps Romney's is a case of conservatives learning lessons about blindly following people because they have an 'R' in front of their name?  

I just can't say.  I simply know as I watch so many still rally around Donald Trump, it's a question I keep asking.  A man who spent most of his life embodying so much of what conservatives oppose.  Not to mention supporting him despite his actions in recent years: Throwing conservatives under the bus where the Covid vaccines were concerned, declaring anyone who fails to conform an enemy of the Don (and having perhaps the least loyalty among his subordinates that I have ever seen), his open support for issues we conservatives are supposed to find unacceptable, his attacks against fellow Republicans over issues we are supposed to agree upon, and his continued behavior as if he is one of the highest paid employees on the 'Keep Democrats in the White House' committee, I wonder.  It's a mystery I can't figure. 

Why I'd generally prefer to have a liberal on my side when playing a strategy game

I saw this story about Elon Musk slamming those who want to work from home.  In a strange way, this is something that both sides appear to oppose.  When the lockdowns happened, many legions of workers had to work from home.  Happened in our house, and in households around America.

Well, one of the first things to go with the passing lockdowns was tolerance for this work at home culture.  Now I have no doubt that, with work ethics being what they are, in some cases productivity suffered from this work at home movement.  But I also know in other cases it didn't.  I know, as in my wife's department, productivity increased because most liked working at home and worked their tails off to show it could be beneficial to the company.   Plus, my wife's level of title and those around her means they spend much time meeting with people from almost anywhere in the world not down the street.  So where they actually are physically doesn't matter. 

Nonetheless, it's clear from media reporting on this subject that most to the left don't like this.  Why?  I don't know.  I have a feeling there is something rather freeing and family focused with people liking to be home.  They like being away from the mandated cattle herding.  They enjoy not having to turn the kids over to state regulated daycares at the age of six months forward. Something about that goads the modern Left. 

But why are conservatives against it?  Again, if productivity suffered I can see laying out an ultimatum that you'll get your act together or else back to the office.  But otherwise?  Why are conservatives assuming the worst from people who want to work from home?  Many of these workers, when asked, have said they like being home, close to the kids, allowing the kids to stay home and not be shoved into a daycare center to be taught by minimum wage workers.  They feel it has helped their families, their kids, and their overall priorities. 

Why are conservatives against this?  Shouldn't they be the ones charging forth and saying 'You're darn right, if the job allows and you are productive, you should be close to home, close to the family, close to kids. After all, we value those things!'

Instead, most conservative responses are right there with the liberals.  Only in the case of conservatives, it appears to be some 'only slipshod lazy loafers want to stay home because they're losers' reasoning.  No consideration for the family/kids angle.  In fact, in a few cases where I've seen people bring the issue up in an online discussion, the conservative response has been the classic Limbaugh principle: if you want to work at home, become a corporate mogul and you can do anything.  Otherwise, suck on it and put those kids in the daycares and get to the office since you're probably a slothful ne'er-do-well in the first place.'

I've never seen a movement more willing to shoot itself in the foot, and shoot one another, and destroy its own principles and values, than modern conservatism.  Conservatives often talk about liberalism coming after them to destroy what conservatives value.  I don't think the Left needs to. It merely needs to stand aside and let conservatives do all the heavy lifting where destroying conservative values and priorities is concerned. 

For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.  Luke 16.8b

I am about 14% convinced

That Donald Trump is a liberal mole.  I know, I know.  I'm half joking.  But there are times when he does things that seem 100% to do no good for conservatives, to play into leftwing stereotypes and hysterics about conservatives, and goes a long way toward undercutting conservative concerns about the emergent Left.

So news headlines exploded that Trump came out and said the election was so corrupt and illegal, it's time to ditch the Constitution.  Now there have been radicals wanting to abolish the Constitution since I was in school.  In recent years, the 'Constitution as racist slave doc' has picked up steam thanks to BLM and similar activism.  On Memorial Day in 2021, ABC News reported on a survey that found over 40% of Americans believe it's time to burn the old thing and start anew.  And this doesn't count those calling for parts of it, particularly certain Amendments to the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, to be rewritten, reimagined, or done away with.

Conservatives are rightly incensed by this development. Not because they think the Constitution is holy Scripture, or God, or Gospel - a charge often leveled at them by those on the Left.  But because, just like those who say this non-heavenly planet is important in terms of climate change, how we order society is also important, even if society isn't Heaven.  And in the history of the human race, our Constitution is about as good as you get.  So the strong case for preserving it can be made.

Then lo, along comes Donald J. Trump and, according to media reports, says 'burn it, burn it now.'  Well conservatives just received another stone in their shoe when it comes to stopping this.  Oh, they can condemn Trump's statements, but it just gave those who want the Constitution burned an extra name to drop, and it gives the Left in general the chance to rise up and be bold defenders of our founding documents!

As a bonus, Trump did this just as the first Twitter dump occurred.  The dump suggested strongly that not only was Twitter purposefully targeting conservative accounts, but Democrats may have been party to the tactics.  This was a first in Elon Musk's grand restructuring and revealing of Twitter and its policies.  It should have been headline news.  But thanks be to Trump, most MSM outlets played an easy misdirection by plastering across the headlines that Trump was calling for an end to the Constitution.  The Musk and Twitter story being relegated to page fourteen behind the grocery ads. 

I get that Trump did some good things.  The Supreme Court likely being the best.  But there are times when he seems to go out of his way to harm the conservative brand as much as possible, to affirm leftwing stereotypes about conservatives, and undercut whatever opponents of the Left are trying to accomplish.  So while I wouldn't say I'm really 14% convinced he's a leftwing mole, I would put it around 4%. 

Why orthodox Christians putting their hope in the GOP is a profitless endeavor.

Exhibit A.

Of course the problem isn't the bill, which goes out of its way to enshrine gay marriage as a core American value.  It's that it accepts the premise that once you let those rascally conservative republicans do something like limit abortion rights, the next thing you'll have is lynchings and gas chambers and women dying in back allies and tortured homosexuals.  That's what this bill was all about, riding that wave of media hysteria that claimed with Roe overturned, the next thing they'll do is go after gays, interracial marriages, and other nasty things. 

The idea that 'once a conservative wins, the universe is that much closer to exploding' is an oft invoked media narrative.  Time and again whenever the press reports on a conservative proposal, it's framed as either an immediate threat to various groups, or a stepping stone toward Jim Crow, swastikas and pogroms.

The Republicans who voted for this are either too thick to know this, or they don't care because they are no more conservative than Bernie Sanders.  Or, like many conservatives, they operate on the idea that if we just insist we're not like those nasty racist sexist bigot conservatives over there, they'll like us - they'll really, really like us!  Foolishness of the highest order.

In any event, the GOP is all there is for those who don't want to support a party beholden to the secular paganism of the global Left.  Those who don't want to crawl into a cell and let the world burn that is.  Because the Left is a movement increasingly clear in its designs to destroy liberty, freedom, equality and the sanctity of life.  

Nonetheless, never forget how flawed this alliance is for those who seek the right means to the right ends.  At best it is the least of the evils.  At worst it's a terrible and ultimately fruitless waste of time. 

He's alive!

Ohio senate candidate J.D. Vance is alive!  Rumors were beginning to swirl here in the Buckeye State.  Since he won the primary election, we've seen neither hide nor hair of the man.  No commercials.  No ads.  No Super PACS.  Nothing.  I've not seen local GOP threads mentioning him.  There has been no news from local Republicans of any appearances or talks or get-togethers.  Nothing.  If it wasn't for his opponent Tim Ryan, you'd never hear Vance mentioned.

So at least he's alive.  He talked to FOX - a national news outlet - so barring conspiracy theories, he's up and moving.  Why he's decided to follow the Biden principle of staying underground and pretending like he doesn't exist, I don't know.  It worked for Biden because he had the DNC, the MSM and most major institutions in our country on his side.  Vance does not have that benefit. 

That's why I can't figure it out.  Why ignoring Ohio, Ohio voters and keeping away from us and not promoting his campaign appears to be his strategy.  You can bet the results won't be to your favor when the only one talking about you is the one who wants to defeat you. 

Not what conservatives need

Representatives like Sarah Palin.  She was done dirty by the press, I'll admit.  But since then she's done nothing but confirm the insults and mockery aimed at her.  Her instance on answering any question with ''I'm just a mamma grizzly' was one in a long line of actions that solidified the Left's contempt for her, and made defending her all the more difficult. 

Here, she's reported to openly flaunt Covid restrictions by eating out a mere two days after testing positive.  Even with Omicron, the standard is five days if symptom free. Now, I'm the last one to say I agree with the way Covid has been handled.  And it isn't hard to see that much of what is happening has more to do with control and money, and far less to do with our well being.

Nonetheless, that doesn't give me or anyone a blank check to do anything we feel like doing.  As I have said, Covid is unlike anything I ever had.  It's a bugger to get, and we count ourselves blessed by having been infected by a lesser strain of the virus, if this is what the lesser strain is like.  Hopefully the resistance from this infection will match others, and will go toward that immunity down the road.

I wouldn't wish it on anyone, however.  A month later and we still have slight traces of the thing.  If she has tested positive, then the basic, decent, common sense, humane response is to avoid others.  If I get the flu, I don't run to the theater or the health club.  I  stay home and avoid my family and friends.  That's because I don't want to infect anyone.  Ancient wisdom and common good thinking that still works. 

This is clearly 'flaunt the rules' thinking, hoping conservatives will cheer her on. Oh, she may infect others, but what of it?  She's sticking it to the Left!  No.  She's being, for want of a better word, a jerk.  Some day conservatives will figure out how to fight to win, not fight to live up to the negative stereotypes. 

Why the GOP is seldom more than the bare minimum lesser of two evils

Amazon has thrown its support behind a GOP sponsored bill - get that, GOP sponsored - that would legalize marijuana on a federal level. 

Pardon me as one who dealt with families ravaged by drugs in my ministry days, as well as encountering it far too close in my own family's lines.  That's why I don't take drugs flippantly.  Along with AIDS, the global death count for the sex and drugs revolution has nearly surpassed WWII. We won't even get into the abortion rates that are needed as a safety net for this era of decadence. 

Speaking of Authentically Pro-Life, you have a better chance of baking Kosher ham than claiming the title while giving a nod to the Sex, Drugs and Rock n' Roll revolution that has claimed and ruined so many tens of millions of lives, especially among our youngest. 

So naturally the GOP is going to rush forth and open the doors for making drugs legal from coast to coast!  Hurray!  And I say drugs because I'm not stupid enough to think it will stop here.  For those who say, "But Dave, they've had legal drugs in Europe for decades!', uh huh.  Let's look at Europe, c. 21st Century to see how that has gone:  A civilization more than happy to let let future generations suffer its death as long as they have sex and drugs at their disposable now.  

Have I said ours is not the generation that will inspire future epic songs and poems?  

Blame Mitch McConnell

I'm sure, like anything in history except the American Civil War, there were many factors and causes behind what happened yesterday.  But let's face it, the GOP has forever been the party of 'snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.'  

The odds were already stacked in the Democrats' favor.  You had two sub-par GOP candidates to  begin with, plus one with a fair share of ethical 'indiscretion' charges buzzing about.  You also had a Democrat juggernaut and leftists superstar in Stacy Abrams (who the Left/Press would obviously love to see in the Oval Office someday), pulling the strings.  Then you had 2020, Covid, and the idea that all rules and standards are now out the window, and out of dumb, blind luck, the changes all go to the advantage of Democrats.

Even with political acumen that would shame Metternich, the GOP would have had an uphill climb.  So it should come as no surprise that, with this high of deck stacked against it, the GOP was all but torpedoed when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stepped in and did one of the lamest, stupidest, and most disastrous political maneuvers I've ever witnessed.

Now I've watched conservatives and Republicans (not always the same) do this sort of thing for most of my life.  Once Reagan left, conservatives lost their last political party.  No small number of Republicans would gladly see those Jesus freaks and other social traditionalist wackos head for the hills.  Since then it's been a battle for who gets the Republican compass, often seeing the worst extremes of various sides having the loudest say - and often aided by the media always trying to play up the bad press for the GOP.

So I get that those of more libertarian leanings wouldn't support a massive government bailout with no clear way of paying for itself.  I understand that it's key in conservative circles to pine for a smaller, less intrusive government.  I know conservatives fancy themselves as the ones advocating personal responsibility and accountability in life; to roll up the sleeves, grab the boot straps, and overcome whatever comes our way.

And there is nothing wrong with these things.  I support them too, at least to a point.  But here's the thing.  When fighting on philosophical or principled grounds, do the fighting up front.  Especially where the government is concerned.  If you don't want the government interfering, then take the slings and arrows of a hostile news media and stand your ground months ago and prevent the government from swooping in and wrecking the lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of Americans.  That's when you fight, at whatever cost to your reputation, your political career, or your ability to attend the best parties with the Washington elite.

You do not - repeat, not, that is not, ever not - decide that the time to take the stand is after you've been defeated, after you acquiesced, after you went ahead and pushed through legislation that stands against your values, after you've conceded one loss after another, and then demonstrate your resolve by torpedoing the one part of a bloated government overreach that could actually help individual Americans hurt by your inability to keep the government from hurting them.  Bad optics doesn't begin to describe it. 

This is when you stand up and say something along the following: 

"We labor continuously to prevent America from slipping into yet another failed socialist state of the kind we've witnessed all too often.  To that end, we did attempt to find more constructive, targeted and beneficial ways to fight the onslaught of the Coronavirus while minimizing the harm done to millions of Americans in the process.  Nonetheless, we were unable to stop some of the worst examples of government intrusion and oppression we've witnessed in our lifetime.  While we continue to stand firm on the principles of small government and the freedom of Americans to pursue their own ends, we realize our failure resulted in a massive government driven overreach that has devastated the lives of millions who have done nothing wrong other than live in our country during such a time as this.  Despite such a measure cutting against our core values as this legislation, we understand our failure should not be resolved on the backs of those who were harmed by our government's lack of control or vision.  Therefore, we will stop any unnecessary spending, exploitation or agendas in the form of massive bailouts for international or corporate interests, but will ensure that the spending we do endorse at this point goes directly to those businesses, institutions and families who have been harmed by our inability to stand firm when we should have done so."

Or something along those lines.  Not 'We'll go ahead and push through whatever spending there is, but by golly, now we will take a stand that will only devastate the lives of millions of schmucks who didn't have the good sense of becoming millionaires, since that's the type of bold sacrifice we crave!'   As long as Republicans act as if there is no limit to the lives of other dolts they're willing to sacrifice so they don't have to take the big stands that might compromise their popularity inside the Beltway, expect more of what we saw in Georgia yesterday. 

The worthless and treacherous Republican Party

In one thing Mark Shea was right.  Fools who kept supporting the Republican party as if the GOP gave a rip about anything conservatives or Christians cared about were fools indeed.

Nothing has shown the wisdom of Mark's insight more than the last few weeks.  Almost overnight, the GOP has gone from stunned silence to embracing the Marxist driven narratives and revolution to overthrow America and the Christian West.

So it's the GOP - that's the GOP - proposing we ban Columbus Day, and replace it with Juneteenth (the celebration of the end of slavery focusing not at all on anything white Americans did to end it).  That's the GOP.  The ones conservatives and traditionalists and others who love our country thought they could count on to defend our country, its traditions, its heroes, it heritage.   The more I watch the GOP cave, surrender and betray, the more I think of this scene from the movie Braveheart:

In his fight against William Wallace, King Edward I thinks he has the Irish on his side when lo, the rascally Irish stop and shake hands with Wallace.  Sometimes you just can't count on people to stay loyal.  A lesson played out more than once over the course of human history.

That's what we're seeing now.  As if to say, "Whew, thank  goodness we can stop the charade.  Now we can finally trash this pissy country and its pissy heritage and its pissy Christians and get with the powers and money changers at the new Marxist parties with the T&A", the GOP is showing themselves for what they've been for decades. 

People say 'But the party of Reagan!'.  Here's the dirty secret.  It was never the party of Reagan, as Bush, Sr. made clear when he immediately began trying to distance himself from Reagan's brand of conservatism.  It begrudgingly chocked down those hayseeds and religious hicks at voting time, but were happy to vomit them out time and again between election cycles.  Since Bush's time, it's been one long, slow betrayal after betrayal until now they're finally showing their faces.

The shock is that we still imagined the GOP, if it didn't care about the social and religious conservative side, still cared about America.  In a pinch, we still imagined the GOP would rise to the occasion and rally with others out to defend the heritage of the civilization that brought human rights, democracy, freedom and the dignity of the human person to the world.  Boy were we wrong.   Happy 4th of July. 

As of now, the GOP will get no more votes of mine.  For all that he became, you have to give credit where it is due.  When it comes to what the GOP was and has been for years, Mark Shea was very, very right.

Wo ist der GOP?

Oh where is the GOP, or any conservative leadership right now?  The Federalist asks the million dollar question.  Or, to be more to the point, where are Americans who love and value America and its traditions and heritage?  Where are the counter protests?  Where are the 'God Bless America' or 'America is Great' protesters? 

It's been stunning silence  Silence from the GOP.  Silence from Conservative leaders.  Silence from Christians who only in recent years seemed to think God and history and the rise of Democracy and all were things.

True, in the last few days we've begun to hear some talk, mostly from the GOP and President Trump. Talk that is.  I'm sure there have been right wing pundits out there, like Rush Limbaugh, pounding the drums.  I know Tucker Carlson has been calling a spade a spade.   But on the whole, more silence than noise.

What does that mean?  We're wimps?  We're all talk?  We don't really believe it?  By now those who would preserve the nation have had ample time to respond.  So far the response has been tepid at best.

We'll see, but I'm not optimistic.  By now there should have been tremendous push-back from the GOP in those areas where Democrats are seizing on the riots to aid in the destruction of our heritage.  We've had enough time to see organized responses from the street level.  Only a few weeks ago people were protesting in large numbers against the Quarantines.  Where are they now?  All in all, it does not bode well.

Ohio Republican Party Chairwoman Jane Murphy Timken throws truth under the bus

Why I don't support the GOP in a nutshell.  This woman, Candice Keller, said what is obvious to sane people - that the moral collapse of our nation is at least a major factor in the rise of the violent acts we're seeing.  She also said what many Republicans and conservatives are more than happy to say behind the scenes.  But let the cameras roll, and what do 70% of Republicans do?  Just what Jane Murphy Timken is doing, and that's turn on their fellows so that the Progressives won't say mean things to them.  Embarrassingly pathetic.

Attention Conservatives

If you don't want Americans, especially younger ones, to reject conservatism, then stop living up to as many negative stereotypes as possible.  To start with, stop trying to act as if Old Man Potter from It's a Wonderful Life or Gordon Gekko from Wall Street, or, worse, Ebeneezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol, are really the good guys. Stop coming in to say George Bailey's life still stinks because he doesn't have a huge home, expensive car, and massive bank account. 

In short, stop acting like the acquisition of financial gain is the source and summit of a meaningful life.  Stop acting as if the lusting for material wealth to the exclusion of all other priorities is what life is all about.  Stop acting as if what liberals say about conservatism being for the greedy and money obsessed and Mammon worshiper is actually onto something. 

Every year, you see things like this, whereby we're told that it's the money, stupid.  What's life?  What's friends?  What's the joy of a close family?  What's walking the extra mile?  What are these things if you don't have a crap ton of money in the bank?  Are kids or Christmas good?  Sure!  But only if you can squeeze that extra dollar out of them somehow!

Geeesh.  The point of this particular piece seemed to be that in light of the growing number of young'uns who are warming to a socialized economic model, despite what a logical appraisal of socialism should warrant, an obviously harsh message railing against greed and wealth might not be the best message.

Perhaps.  But did it ever dawn on conservatives that when conservatives write that a man's life isn't about family, friends, or helping others, but it's about the size of his home, car and bank account, you're falling into the very type of world that most people will ultimately rail against.  Yes, there are those who will become successful because that's all they care about.  But most people - God included - seem to think there are other things that are every bit as valuable.

What's more,  young people who see things like this article are apt to conclude that even if we might make more money following such a conservative message, in the end, we might end up more like Old Man Potter than George Bailey.  And if all conservatives can say is that they are wrong, and it's better to be Potter than Bailey if you just compare their bank accounts, I have a feeling we're in for a long, slow road down to the very socialism that conservatives are trying to avoid.

I'm disappointed but not surprised

One reason we have a president like Donald Trump is that American conservatives were tired of being shafted by the only party that wasn't at war with them.  As the March of Youth for Liberalism this weekend demonstrated, there is no level to which the American Left won't sink in order to gin up support for its cause.  That the overwhelming majority of the march was focused on issues and solutions that would barely phase the majority of casualties in our modern age of violence is entirely irrelevant.  It was using kids as shields for the greater cause of teaching a new generation to demand 'other' Americans sacrifice for their safety.

Conservatives have been fighting this growing plague for decades, turning to the only party not wholly and entirely invested in the post-Christian, post-Western, post-nationalist Left emerging across America and Europe.  And yet that same party continues to payback their support with the most limp-wristed, lame and impotent responses.

So whatever has happened in this charade of budget deadlines and budge compromises, there has been one ongoing consistent: Planned Parenthood continues to be funded at all times.  Supposedly conservatives are continuing to insist that abortion is the great moral crisis of our age.  After all, eliminate the right to life before it begins, and all other rights fade away.  Even as many post-conservative Christians throw abortion under the bus in order to curry favor with the pro-population control Left, conservatives are supposed to be about keeping it a central issue of the day.

So what happened?  Once again, the Republican majority congress sent a temporary budget to Donald Trump - their knight in shiny armor - that ensured Planned Parenthood would continue to be funded.  Supposedly this is why Trump was brought in, even if his own views on defunding Planned Parenthood, just like most of his views, were not easy to pinpoint.

But we know for a fact that each time he has had the chance, he has done nothing to get the Republicans, who control congress, to actually do one of the chief policy demands of conservatives, and that's defund planned parenthood.

It's been compared to Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, the way the GOP has treated American Christian conservatives over the last couple decades.  Sometimes, I'm inclined to agree.

…Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), joked that “It’s a good thing we have Republican control of Congress or the Democrats might bust the budget caps, fund planned parenthood and Obamacare, and sneak gun control without due process into an Omni…wait, what?”

If Republicans had fought for their voters

As boldly and passionately as they have fought Donald Trump, we wouldn't have Donald Trump.  I'm not happy about Trump, make no mistake.  Trump is the GOP version of everything that progressivism has hoisted on our nation for the last half century or more.  In many ways, he epitomizes the worst of what we have become.

Nonetheless, most die hard Trump supporters I know don't hate the Democrats nearly as much as they hate the GOP establishment.  That's because they've watched for almost 30 years as the GOP seemed to fall back and surrender on almost every front that mattered.  They've even watched as some Republicans increasingly seemed to share the contempt and derision held for conservatives that is common among the Democratic establishment.

They watched election after election of being promised the sky and the stars, only to end up with table scraps, and that's if they were lucky.  They watched as time and again, when Republicans held the orb, scepter and crown, the Grand Old Party would almost hand the prizes over to the Democrats in order to get more face time on the news.  They watched loss after loss, betrayal after betrayal.  They watched a party that, for 30 years, seemed to almost apologize to the media for being anything other than Democrats.  In 2016, they had enough. 

Trump got to where he got in the primaries because of the media.  We all know that.  Why the press did it is up to interpretation.  I have my ideas.  But nobody denies that the press was crucial for Trump's nomination.  When he was nominated, the GOP did something that many Republican voters hadn't seen since the Reagan years.  It became passionate and committed.  Not to the Republican voters, of course, but in their fight against Trump.  For the first time in many memories, the GOP was fighting for a cause.

And that, children, is why we have Trump. Many have said that America needs to move past a two party system.  But the solution is not a one party system.  Through the 90s and in the post-9/11 years, as the GOP made it clear that keeping seats at the insider party was their primary motive, the GOP and the Democrats looked less and less different. 

So they turned to someone who would damage the GOP brand as much as possible.  Not that I'm glad.  I don't like Trump's kindergartner approach to discourse.  I didn't like it when the Democrats used the popular culture to do the same with their own good cop/bad cop.  When the Democrats let comedians, pundits, and bloggers go out to do worse than Trump ever said, and then yucked it up at parties and dinners for a job well done.  Nonetheless, I have to admit why Trump is there.  With all the various problems in the world, it's hard to miss that to some Republicans, the biggest problem was their own party.  And it was a problem they will be happy to see Trump fix.

Republicans are why Trump won

I don't mean the usual 'Trump won because Republicans are a bunch of sexist, racist, homophobic deplorables who love their own'.  I mean he won because of George Bush's speech.  That speech was a long way around demonstrating that he and Hillary Clinton were essentially two sides for the same coin.  It was a long winded way of saying the old is over and the new is inevitable, we hope Americans don't get hurt and maybe now we'll spend more time listening and at least saying we'll help, but it is what it is.  In this piece, Tucker Carlson gets it (a little vulgarity there, it is about Trump after all).

The GOP has long preferred a more Democratic world view.  By the mid 20th century, it was not the party of the blue collar, religious conservative.  That was the Democrat Party back in the day.  As the Democrats were torn down and reborn in the wake of 1968, those social and religious blue collar types were getting anxious.

Liberals say it was the 'Southern Strategy'.  That's a liberal wive's tale where the GOP purposefully chose to embrace Nazi inspired racism to appeal to Southerners who are nothing but racists.  There is a shard of truth to that, as there is to most myths.  As the Democrats finally gave up on discriminating against Blacks as a core value, and decided to make WASP Americans the New Blacks, the GOP realized that backing off on 'Southerners are a bunch of racist hicks' rhetoric might do them some good voter wise. 

It wasn't until 1980, however, and the election of Ronald Reagan, that Democrats came in busloads over to the GOP.  And it wasn't because Reagan donned his white hood and swastika.  It was Jimmy Carter's failed presidency and the growing radicalism of the Democratic party that had finally pushed them over.  As the Democrat Party became more and more about embracing feminism, gay rights, environmentalism and the 'America's best days are behind it' mantra, the Reagan Democrats looked to the Gipper. 

Reagan wasn't exactly a life long conservative.  Anti-conservative Catholics are more than happy to remind everyone of his earlier sins regarding abortion.  He was also the first divorced president in history.  But he had changed, and he made social conservative issues a presidential matter, such as opposing abortion, pushing back on radical feminism, and building up America's strength and greatness a cornerstone of his campaign.

Nonetheless, he was not loved among the establishment Republican base, those Republicans who reflect a Hearst like viewpoint: strong military to protect Wall Street interests while going home to the mistress.  Things like abortion and homosexuality were off the radar, and they preferred to keep it that way.  Hayseeds clinging to their guns and religion were not the people they hung with.  But it was the base that Reagan wooed.  And the GOP has been at war with that coalition for 30 years.

In 2016, we saw the result of that conflict.  Those who voted for Trump were only half opposed to the Democrats.  If they didn't want Hillary, they were just as against the GOP establishment represented by the likes of G.W. Bush.  Oh sure, he paid lip service to conservatives and religious traditionalists at election time, but never in a way that he thought would sever him from the admiration of the 'Insider.'   The same insiders, I should mention, who ravaged and butchered him in the same way they are doing to Trump, or have ever done to any Republican for decades on end.  I guess the lure of being liked by the in-people is enough to overcome reality.

By defining himself as a 'compassionate' conservative, Bush already showed the world what he imagined to be a typical conservative, and that was the problem.  His whole speech here, with only the slightest modifications, could easily have been given by Obama, Hillary, Biden or anyone on the Left within that circle of beautiful people.  He basically as good as said 'This is a progressive world folks, and we have to deal with it.  Some might get hurt, and that's a damn shame, and now that they've fussed we're willing to listen a little.  But progress is the name, and global liberalism is the game.' 

Again, most Trumpsters I know are far less vitriolic toward the Democrats than they are the GOP.  Some, I think, don't care what Trump does, as long as he leaves the Republican establishment as a smoldering ruin.

At best Tim Murphy looks like a hypocrite

Republican lawmaker Tim Murphy is out.  The story is appalling.  Apparently, he tried to press his mistress to have an abortion (it later turned out she wasn't pregnant).  When she called him out on it, he responded that he doesn't even write all that pro-life stuff, it's his staff that does so.

At best, if the charges are true, he's a hypocrite.  A person who wants to impose values on others that he has no desire to live himself is a hypocrite.  And that's not even counting the mistress part.

At worst, he's also an example of what many social conservatives fear about the GOP - that it pays lip service to the concerns of traditional Americans once every two, four or six years, and then promptly goes about with the modern, progressive political and social world that gets you invited to all the best parties.

I know, I know.  Already some are pointing out that these tweets were miraculously released right as congress was pushing through Murphy's cosponsored anti-abortion bill.  I'm sure it's no coincidence.

But that doesn't change anything about Murphy, what he did, and what he represents.  Of course it doesn't mean anything about the pro-life movement, other conservatives or Republicans either.  Fair is fair.

But barring a revelation that this was all false, and he did no such thing (such as stupidly tweeting such things that can later be found and used against him), then his is a guilt that demands mercy, but also justice.  And that means calling it wrong, expecting him to pay, and understanding that wrong is wrong, outside of any political or ideological boundaries.