Why Trump Exists

From a column by Ben Shapiro:

Trump is a product of a conservatism-less Republicanism, prepared for and championed by the intellectual elites who told us to ignore Mitt Romney’s creation of Romneycare and Sen. John McCain’s campaign finance reform, who told conservatives to shut up and get in line, who explained that conservatives had to throw over Sen. Ted Cruz and his government shutdowns in favor of Sen. Mitch McConnell and his pathological inability to take a hard stand against President Obama using the tools at his disposal.

When I mentioned the other day that National Review had decided to go after the Trump Supporters, I should have pointed out Jonah Goldberg's piece.  Shapiro starts off with Goldberg's litmus test, which was curiously absent back in 2012.  

National Review has been attacking Trump and his supporters with a huge amount of vitriol for some time now.  I still get National Review because my father keeps renewing my subscription, and I haven't the heart to ask him to stop; he thinks he's doing me some good, and it's not much skin off my nose to skim through the articles.  But National Review hasn't exactly been a "conservative" magazine for some time now.  They've purged any authors that might generate some controversy (Mark Steyn, John Derbyshire, a long list of others) and have been solidly behind the GOP establishment in just about every edition.  It's telling that my first look into the magazine is for James Lileks' one-pager of snark.  The articles?  Meh.  Maybe they're good, maybe they're not.  Most often I find myself wondering just who the hell is paying for the crap they put out.

I don't think Trump is a conservative.  In fact, I know that Trump is not a conservative.  But I also know that if you wanted to win the 2016 election, you do NOT attack his supporters as stupid, "un-conservative", or any other negative adjective.  I don't think Trump will get the nomination.  But after it's all settled and done, I want his supporters to vote for my guy.  And I highly doubt that will happen this time around.  Too much damage has been done, both by assholes like Jonah Goldberg and by the GOP itself, with Obama ass-kissers like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell in charge.

Things might turn around before Nov 2016, but as of right now I'm about to throw my hands up and walk away from the entire lost cause.  The GOP is being run by Democrats and various other big-government statist shit-slurpers, and if they get their guy (BUSH!) on the ticket, there is not a single real difference between how Jeb would govern and how Hillary would govern.

Short of a Ted Cruz nomination (which the GOP would hate, and if you don't think they're working against Cruz like mad then you haven't been watching) I don't see too many other candidates that can unite what used to be a massive voting base.