by Oletta Branstiter

Reality TV President – Not A Conservative

After a week of extra-special buffoonery, our President seems to be using his social media bully pulpit to scream, “How d’ya like me now?!” as his apologists continue to make excuses for him.

Conservative Constitutionalist candidates like Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker and Ted Cruz scared the crap out of the RINOs during the primary Presidential election of 2016.

When the choice came down to the statesman and law expert Ted Cruz or the egotistical demagogue, the majority of the Republican party elite were only too eager to throw their support behind someone they considered malleable enough to sustain their comfortable oligarchy.

Trump’s ridiculous and privileged childish persona presented an illusionary chance to hold on to the Establishment’s political influence and prestige. The Donald had identified his “mark” – the American people who are willing to throw Conservatism and the Constitution overboard in exchange for the opportunity to cling to the big orange “life-preserver”.  It’s always the same desperate ploy – to avoid the horrors of Hillary Clinton.

The power-brokers pegged Trump as their Great White Hope; someone whose ego could be manipulated to do their bidding as long as they led him to believe that he could enjoy the Monarchy of his dreams.

The only upside to this fiasco may be Mike Pence, whom many believe is the brain behind the throne, choosing effective cabinet appointments in spite of Trump’s ignorance and misguided motivation.

But the RINOs who endorsed and promoted this President thought they held the Trump card. Without their props, they wrongly thought that Trump would fear a collapse from the weight of his own hubris and cede to their authority for self-preservation.

Congratulations, Republicans, you’ve been trumped – by the Establishment.

Welcome to the status quo. 

Unfortunately, this is not only another win for the political elite, but it represents a huge setback for the Conservative cause which had such promise after the eight-year debacle of the Obama. Even the wise GOP Establishment failed to predict the damage a President Trump could do after he managed to dupe the electorate.

Trumpists are celebrating their newfound Nationalism under the reign of their own autocrat. Self-proclaimed “Conservative, Constitution-Protecting” websites that began by declaring their commitment to founding principles have thrown their promises over for the popularity of identifying with the winning team. True Patriots know that this election perpetrated an existential threat to our nation.

Andrew J. Bacevich opines in The American Conservative:

Trump’s success in hijacking the GOP has exposed the emptiness of that party’s claim to uphold conservative principles or any principles whatsoever. There too, Mencken got it right decades ago…

Writing just shy of a century ago, the Sage of Baltimore took delight in deriding the dully submissive average American as “a pliant slave of capitalism, and ever ready to help it put down fellow-slaves who venture to revolt.” Yet as Mencken went on to explain, “this very weakness, this very credulity and poverty of spirit, on some easily conceivable tomorrow, may convert him into a rebel of a peculiarly insane kind.” Mencken foresaw the likelihood of people expected to do what they are told one day deciding that they’d had enough.

Simmering popular discontent, he continued, would pave the way for “the professional mob-master, the merchant of delusions, the pumper-up of popular fears and rages” to offer himself as champion of the great unwashed.

This “win” actually pushes the Conservative cause back decades. When millions of American voters not only fall for but revel (albeit unknowingly) in the victimhood of a double con, Conservative Constitutionalists realize that our work just became exponentially more difficult.

Trump and his unprincipled elitist lackeys have redefined Conservativism to mean electing a “Republican”, no matter how crude, egotistical, ignorant, immoral, autocratic, and liberal he or she may be. By underestimating the gullibility of the masses, the GOP has created a stampeding monster that will crush the shining city on a hill as he stomps all over the very principles of Conservatism.

Let’s hope that there are still a few patriots left to recognize this festering dystopia and campaign against it. Bacevich suggests that:

…principled conservatives in direct opposition to those on the left who through ignorance or ill will cite Trump as reason enough to declare conservatism itself invalid and impermissible. As is already evident, through words and actions President Trump is already doing untold damage to core conservative convictions.

To regain any hope of restoring our Republic, we must now mount a battle against two fronts: deprogramming the deceived Trump cultists, while continuing to fight the Establishment protectionist agenda that is only too happy to sacrifice the last vestiges of Conservativism. Our task is to reconnect Americans to their first love: Liberty under the Rule of Law.

Our genuine fear is that this will prove to be a bridge too far.