Columnist.
"I trust in the good judgment of the American people." So said a radio host I admire (not one of the screamers) about six months ago when the rise of Trump was still notional. At this moment, looking at both parties, you have to ask whether judgment is being applied at all or whether we're in the much more dangerous realm of emotional release. Let's start on the left. Democrats have made careers out of pretending that "government" has money to distribute, that the rich don't pay their fair share of taxes, that most of the problems of black America are attributable to white racism, that deficits can be eliminated by raising taxes on the few at the top, that women are victims in need of government redress and that climate change is the greatest national security threat we face. Fairy tales.
"Burn it down." That's the slogan of faux conservatives who now rejoice that the Republican Party is being smashed by a slick, howlingly transparent grifter. The urge to destroy has a kind of pornographic appeal to a certain personality — but it's a shock to find it so widespread. The Republican Party is choosing an odd time to commit suicide. Obama's two victories were painful setbacks, but in the Obama era the Democrats lost 13 U.S. Senate seats, 69 House seats, 913 legislative seats, 11 governorships and 30 legislative chambers. All that stood between Republicans and real reform at the federal level was the White House — and the Democrats were sleepwalking toward nominating the least popular major player in American politics.
Mitt Romney made a compelling and urgent case for why the Republican Party's soul is at stake in this election cycle. And speaking of Romney, his experience in 2012 illustrates why those who are shrugging that it is too late to stop Donald Trump are mistaken. Attempting to stop Trump is not some underhand effort to steal a prize that he has already won. "Trump is winning fair and square, so why should the nomination be grabbed from him?" asked former Secretary of Education William Bennett. It's a fair question, but here's the answer: He hasn't won yet. Not even close. Only 15 of the Republican primaries or caucuses have been completed. Most years, things wrap up early, but that doesn't mean it's illegitimate to battle on. The 2008 competition between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama didn't conclude until June.
Does the Republican field have the sense to change tactics when the very nature of the party and country are at stake? Ted Cruz, who bears some responsibility for the rise of Trump, keeps aiming his Jimmy Swaggart-style pitch to the choir, unctuously proclaiming his status as truest, bluest conservative in the race, and as such the logical tribune of the grass roots. Cruz encouraged them to destroy the "Washington cartel" and boy did they listen — except not to his benefit. Irony: The greatest crony/corporate Democrat in America is alive and Ted Cruz's campaign is nearly dead. John Kasich and Ben Carson are deaf to everything except their own egotism.
The latest CBS poll suggests that the Donald Trump juggernaut continues to roll, with 35 percent of Republicans supporting him. Ted Cruz, his nearest rival, garners 18 percent. Jeb Bush, the candidate who should have been the obvious choice if conventional wisdom about money and politics was even remotely true, is dead last with 4 percent. In vain does Ted Cruz protest that Donald Trump is not a conservative. Among those who describe themselves as "very conservative," 35 percent favor Trump, versus 30 percent for Cruz and 12 percent for Rubio.
"Trump and Sanders are disruptive, and people who welcome chaos for its own sake are dangerous."
As the results of New Hampshire's primary were coming in Tuesday night, some commentators on Twitter were jubilant about the "disruption": that is, the victories of an inane socialist demagogue and a foul-mouthed nationalist demagogue and what they represented to the "establishment." Yes, mobs are disruptive. Madame Defarge enjoyed a good shakeup herself. Sen. Bernie Sanders believes that eight years of the most leftist president in American history have left the plutocrats in total control. Channeling the late Hugo Chavez, he promises to lift the minimum wage to $15 per hour, provide free college educations for all and deliver universal health care (with only a small tax on the middle class). How will he pay for it? "With a tax on Wall Street speculation."
Dear Gov. Bush: There are many ways to express your love of country. One is to serve as president. In your case, that path seems closed. Since April, you spent the better part of $15 million in Iowa, yet you came sixth, winning just 2.8 percent of the vote and one delegate. At this rate, you'd need to spend $18,540,000,000 to win the nomination -- which is more than even Right to Rise can manage. There is no shame in losing, of course, and it's always possible that New Hampshire will shock the world by giving you a victory, but let's face it, the RealClearPolitics average of New Hampshire polls has you at under 10 percent (under 5 percent nationally), and your donors are panicking. After what was supposed to be a reassuring post-Iowa conference call with your campaign, one donor told Politico, "Have you ever heard the phrase 'rattle of death?'"
What is a political party? By the intensity of internecine conflict among Republicans, you might conclude that it's a church. Sen. Ted Cruz is among the leading voices of a faction that wants to treat the Republican Party as a confession — singing to the choir, denouncing heretics and damning sinners to hell. This appears to be part conviction and part political calculation on Sen. Cruz's part. He's fully convinced that a Republican can win in 2016 by energizing the base. "The evangelical vote," a Cruz strategist told The Cook Political Report, "is the largest unfished pond of voters — it's a frickin' ocean." Convinced that dispirited white, evangelical voters stayed home in recent elections but can be roused by a sectarian candidate, Cruz barreled into Washington, D.C., in 2013 spitting fire not just at Democrats but at his own party, too. They were all part of the "Washington cartel," he thundered. Republican leaders were not just weak or ineffective — they were treacherous.
"I am not a member of any organized political party," Will Rogers quipped in the last century, "I'm a Democrat." If today's Republican Party were organized, if its storied "establishment" were even a shadow of the leviathan its detractors claim, the world would look very different. Republican Party leaders would long since have organized an advertising campaign in the early caucus and primary states to show voters that Donald Trump is: 1) nothing resembling a conservative, 2) not a friend of the working class, 3) not a particularly successful businessman (despite inheriting a vast fortune, he's managed to clock four bankruptcies) and 4) temperamentally unfit to be president.
"There are three questions about Benghazi that have never been satisfactorily answered."
A new movie that touches upon the election prospects of one female candidate for president debuts this week. Will "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi" provoke thousands of angry viewers to march on Hillary Clinton's home with torchlights and pitchforks? Doubtful. The film is somewhat oblique. Hillary Clinton's name is not mentioned. The infamous Susan Rice clips blaming the attack on a video do not appear (though the film does mention, slightly mordantly, that "press reports" are citing a video). Yet even for those coming to the question for the first time, the film very clearly conveys filmmaker Michael Bay's outrage that a tiny band of unbelievably brave Americans was left to fight off a company of al-Qaida-linked terrorists for, yes, 13 hours, while the vast land, sea and air resources of the U.S. military were not sent to their rescue.
At a time and day — 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday — when most Americans are sleeping in, the Kemp Forum on Expanding Opportunity convened in the capacious Columbia, South Carolina, convention center. Even at 8:15, it was tough to find a seat. South Carolina's important primary is Feb. 20, and doubtless some of the more than 1,500 attendees were attracted by the opportunity to hear from six of the Republican candidates for president. (It would have been seven, but Carly Fiorina missed her flight.) Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, John Kasich, Marco Rubio and Mike Huckabee offered their views on how to fight poverty and expand opportunity. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump declined to attend.
Are you opposed to "common sense" gun laws? These are what liberals like Hillary Clinton are always proclaiming their support for. In their telling, expanding background checks, closing the "gun show loophole," and restricting Internet sales will, in the words of liberal columnist E.J. Dionne, "(limit) the carnage on our streets, in our schools and houses of worship, and at our movie theaters." That's not an argument — it's moral grandstanding, and not a word of it holds up under scrutiny.
About 15 years ago, on Christmas Eve, our family departed from the traditional American Jewish observance of the holiday (ordering Chinese takeout) and elected to find an open restaurant. We drove to the local city center (or what passes for it in suburbia) and were stunned to find that not only were all of the restaurants open; they were packed.
In December 2011, the candidate who led in the Iowa polls was not Rick Santorum (who ultimately squeaked out a victory there), nor Michelle Bachmann (who had driven Gov. Tim Pawlenty from the race by winning the Iowa straw poll earlier in the year), nor Mitt Romney. No, the leader was Ron Paul, with 23 percent.
There are few more repugnant spectacles among the liberal elites of this country than the festival of smugness that follows any comment by a conservative public figure that can be twisted into a racial slight. This week it is Justice Antonin Scalia's turn. In an oral argument over affirmative action, Scalia said: "There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to — to get them in the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less advanced school, a less — a slower track school where they do well."
The dictionary defines "bogeyman" as "an imaginary evil spirit, referred to typically to frighten children." Hello, Donald Trump. It's not clear whether he set out intentionally to elect Hillary Clinton, but there is little question that he could not be fulfilling the role of Republican bogeyman to greater effect. As Commentary's Jonathan Tobin noted, during a week in which the disastrous fecklessness of President Obama and his party in the face of terrorism ought to have been Topic A, we are all talking about Trump instead. Brilliant.
In the aftermath of Paris and before San Bernardino, Hillary Clinton articulated the forced catechism of the left: "Let's be clear: Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism." What happens when a major political party becomes so wedded to political correctness that it feels constrained to deny reality? Clinton could hardly have chosen a less opportune moment to squeeze her eyes shut about the threat of Islamic extremism, a threat that is glaringly, blazingly obvious.
"Who is happy?" asks a sage in the great Jewish wisdom compendium "Sayings of the Fathers." Answer: "He who is contented with his lot." And how, this Thanksgiving Day, do you acquire contentment when you are constantly barraged with evidence that others have more beautiful possessions or are better looking, more talented, healthier, more admired, more loved, more valued? I count my blessings. Here is a partial list of what I'm thankful for on Thanksgiving 2015.
