Invasion of the GOP body snatcher

Here’s Rich Lowry of the National Review, reporting on how the conservative CPAC group shamelessly kowtowed to Trump:

In the course of a few days, President Donald Trump showed how thoroughly he has conquered conservative activists and the Republican party.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference, the attendees would have carried him in on a litter if they had been afforded the opportunity, and Republicans applauded everything he said in his address to the joint session of Congress.

The GOP reaction to Trump’s speech was one of the night’s fascinating subplots: Would Republicans applaud protectionism? Of course. Would they give a standing ovation to an infrastructure program that would have had them scowling in disapproval if Obama proposed it? Yeah, why not? Would they enthusiastically greet talk of paid family leave and investments in women’s health? By all means, sign them up.

But it’s even worse.  Right-wingers have made a big deal about how hard it is for their voices to be heard on campus, with Milo Yiannopoulos serving a a sort of poster boy for conservatives victimized by PCism run amuck.  Commenters tell me that the 1st amendment does force CPAC to listen to Milo, but if you don’t see anything ironic in CPAC inviting and then uninviting the conservative PC victim du jour because he seemed to (but didn’t really) advocate an age of consent one year lower than in many European countries, but then wildly cheer a man who brags about grabbing women by the pussy (confirmed by a dozen women), then there is something wrong with the “irony register” in your frontal cortex.

And here’s Jonah Goldberg from the same publication:

Again, what is remarkable is not what he [Trump] said, but what people heard. Consider the Tea Party Express, the biggest of the tea-party PACs.

“Since 2012, Tea Party Express has hosted the official Tea Party response to the President’s address,” the group said in a statement. “Last night was the first night that our address wasn’t necessary. Not because the ideas of limited government and economic growth have fallen out of vogue — because they surely haven’t — but because that speech was delivered on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives by the President of the United States.”

Maybe I’m crazy, but I’d bet that if President Obama (or a President Jeb Bush) had made a similar speech with similar spending commitments and no explanation of how to pay for them, the Tea Party Express would have mustered enough objections to respond.

No Jonah, you are not crazy.  You are one of the very few conservatives left who have not lost their marbles.

Here’s an even greater irony.  Immature alt-right brats sitting at their computer in their mom’s basement love to pin the label “cuckservative” on those conservatives who hold fashionably liberal views on issues like immigration.  These right-wingers don’t seem to realize that Trump will abandon them at the drop of a hat.  Trump will squeeze everything out of the GOP that he can, and then when they lose badly in 2018 he’ll toss them away like used tissue paper, and start striking big government deals with the Democrats. When you deal with the devil . . .

It’s going to be fun to watch.

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Update:  File this under “Presidents are less influential than you believe”:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing a new wave of questions about his ties to Russia, President Donald Trump is telling advisers and allies that he may shelve — at least temporarily — his plan to pursue a deal with Moscow on the Islamic State group and other national security matters, according to administration officials and Western diplomats.

In conversations with diplomats and other officials, Trump and his aides have ascribed the new thinking to Moscow’s recent provocations. But the reconsideration of a central tenet of the president’s foreign policy underscores the growing political risks in forging closer relations with Russia, as long as the FBI investigates his campaign associates’ connections to Moscow and congressional committees ramp up their probe of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.

The controversy has already led to the firing of Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who misled officials about his contacts with the Russian ambassador, and to calls by Democrats for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign after he failed to disclose his own meetings with the envoy.

Trump’s new skepticism about brokering a deal with Moscow also suggests the rising influence of a new crop of advisers who have taken a tougher stance on Russia, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and new national security adviser H.R. McMaster.


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23 Responses to “Invasion of the GOP body snatcher”

  1. Gravatar of Steve F Steve F
    4. March 2017 at 08:26

    I learned how Trump is able to do this by reading Scott Adams covering pacing and leading.

    What happens when the “liberal” view of immigration subverts liberal institutions themselves?

  2. Gravatar of Jim Glass Jim Glass
    4. March 2017 at 09:08

    That Trump has been able to make himself hero of CPAC is a wonderful object lesson on the nature of politics.

    Donald has never been a conservative for a day in his life. He was very openly a classic liberal rich Upper East Side Manhattan registered Democrat until the day he decided to run for president — with his campaign contributions going predominantly to “a Republican enemies list“, Hillary, Harry Reid, John Kerry, Edward Kennedy, Charles Rangel, Chuck Schumer, Ed Rendell, Rahm Emanuel, the New York State Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, the national Democratic party’s House and Senate campaign committees, and onward.

    Now he’s suddenly the hero of CPAC, Rush, Sean and the rest – for whom real lifetime conservative Republican politicians were never real or conservative enough. How could this happen? Trump was struck by lightning on the road back to Manhattan after that press corps dinner where Obama mocked him before the world (and worse, Donald’s rich friends), had the revelation that he was to run for president, knew he couldn’t do it as a Democrat, looked around for alternatives, and the rest followed.

    Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Bryan Caplan should be thrilled. I can’t think of a more transparent real-life example anywhere, anytime, of Bruce’s theme that political leaders always speak and act far more on the basis of will work for them than what they believe, and Bryan’s theme that the great mass of ignorant voters (if rationally so) will happily believe anything they want to, and are extremely gullible and open to manipulation when doing so. I mean, really, CPAC takes Trump – who funded Democrats and the Left right through Obama’s first term – as more of a true conservative than real lifetime true conservatives? They’ll happily believe *anything*! Bruce and Bryan should be planning out years worth of new papers right now.

    BTW, it is interesting that today, for the first time in history as far as I know, *both* major parties are being driven by populist forces headed by politicians who *aren’t* party members in anything but a technical sense who hijacked the parties from the outside when they made their runs. Trump was a registered Democrat until 2011 when he decided to run, and we know which party he supported until then. And Sanders wasn’t a Democrat (other politicians in Vermont have been quoted saying Bernie’s goal there was to “destroy” the Democratic party) until he decided to run, and since has left the party, so today he’s not even technically a Democrat — but he is still leading the Sandersistas who are re-shaping the Dem agenda. Something interesting in national politics is going on with this.

  3. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    4. March 2017 at 09:18

    “President Donald Trump is telling advisers and allies that he may shelve — at least temporarily — his plan to pursue a deal with Moscow on the Islamic State group and other national security matters, according to administration officials and Western diplomats.”

    -Considering the Syrian government is fighting ISIS the most and fastest it has in at least a year, this is utterly moronic, if true. Trump should totally remove Cotton- and McCain- approved nuts like Mattis and McMaster.

  4. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    4. March 2017 at 09:43

    “Trump will squeeze everything out of the GOP that he can, and then when they lose badly in 2018 he’ll toss them away like used tissue paper, and start striking big government deals with the Democrats.”

    -The same Democrats who refused to confirm his cabinet appointments? Nice try, but Trump is no Ike.

    I agree Milo should not have been forced out of Breitbart or have been canceled on by CPAC.

  5. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    4. March 2017 at 09:49

    Scott, don’t you think this proves that Scott Adams is right and you are wrong? You checkmated yourself. 😉

  6. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    4. March 2017 at 09:51

    BTW, Bush was a “compassionate conservative”, McCain had a larger fiscal stimulus planned out than Barry O, Romney was a friend of TARP and being tough on China’s cheating (easily accepting his endorsement from Trump due to his supposed knowledge about how the economy works), and Trump is Trump. This is typical for the post-Dole GOP. Trump has gone a bit further on the nationalism, which, I think, is necessary and proper for the time, and much superior to invade-the-world invite-the-world stale Bushism.

  7. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    4. March 2017 at 11:28

    @C. List: How so? Adams thinks Trump is a genius of manipulation getting otherwise discerning people to vote for and support him. Reality shows he’s an idiot elected by other idiots and supported in a cravenly partisan fashion by Reps who would be tearing him apart if he was a Dem (which he is) and opposing everything he suggests if Obama or Clinton proposed it.

    Scott Adams was ‘right’ about Trump for entirely wrong reasons.

  8. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    4. March 2017 at 14:30

    Jim, Great comment.

    Harding, You don’t seem to understand that the Syrian government is worse than ISIS.

    Until Trump came along I constantly pointed out that the GOP was all talk and no action on reducing government. I pointed to Bush. And my commenters insisted I didn’t understand that the new GOP was dominated by the Tea Party, and they really did favor smaller government. Who was right?

    Christian, I’ve been saying this from the beginning.

  9. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    4. March 2017 at 15:12


    Christian, I’ve been saying this from the beginning.

    You said from the beginning that Adams is right and you are wrong? How so?


    You don’t seem to understand that the Syrian government is worse than ISIS.

    That’s right up there with Johnson’s “What is aleppo?” comment. It’s even worse. Please don’t elaborate any further.

  10. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    4. March 2017 at 15:14

    @msgkings

    Adams thinks Trump is a genius of manipulation getting otherwise discerning people to vote for and support him.

    You got it, my congratulations. What exactly is your point again?

  11. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    4. March 2017 at 15:33

    “Harding, You don’t seem to understand that the Syrian government is worse than ISIS.”

    -What kind of crack have you been smoking? I don’t support the drug laws, but as long as they exist, they ought to at least be applied equally.

    Obviously, the crack has been enough to make you think Jim’s utter nonsense comment has even the least bit of truth. Trump has claimed to be a conservative for a long time -since at least the early 1990s. I mean, did this never happen?
    http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/18/trump-endorses-mccain/

    “And my commenters insisted I didn’t understand that the new GOP was dominated by the Tea Party, and they really did favor smaller government.”

    -Since you’re on crack, I suspect this is pure hallucination on your part. Certainly, I never insisted any such thing, and I’ve never seen a single commentator here do so.

    Once the crack has worn off, would you care to defend your nonsense?

    BTW, Sumner, is this physical crack you’ve been taking, or the more potent intellectual crack described by Boldmug?

  12. Gravatar of Steve F Steve F
    4. March 2017 at 16:12

    How is the Syrian govt worse than ISIS?

  13. Gravatar of Bill Ellis Bill Ellis
    4. March 2017 at 18:34

    Scott Says…” These right-wingers don’t seem to realize that Trump will abandon them at the drop of a hat.”

    I think he won’t ever abandon them on what truly important to them… because…

    THE BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE…
    and that’s all that is…or ever was… important to them…

    As long you understand that as long as the beatings are kept up… Trumpers will be happy… you will never be surprised again.

    They see beatings as how to get things done… They see our nation’s problems as being caused by people who have moral failings…(mostly people of color ). They believe these failings should and can be punished out of them…

    GDP, Inflation, unemployment, stock market, interest rates, Deceits, debt… and any other thing that matters you can think of… if it moves in a bad direction under trump it will be blamed on someone else by Trumpers…Any positive move …will be attributed to our hero, Trump…All this stuff is a wash to them… all of this is to their minds subject to being distorted out of their comprehension…

    But they know a beating when they see it… And they’ve been told fro a long time who deserves to be beaten down…

    Trump knows what wins the hearts of his supporters… So the beatings will continue…

    Trump just might punish enough poor people and people of color to satisfy America’s need for a scapegoat… and win a second term…

    It’s not really about economics…America is pretty sick right now…

  14. Gravatar of msgkings msgkings
    4. March 2017 at 22:06

    @Bill Ellis: great post, as sad as it is to read. Hard to feel good about the country right now.

  15. Gravatar of Bill Ellis Bill Ellis
    5. March 2017 at 06:36

    I was visiting a bunch of Trump nuts recently… Loved ones… big extended Family gathering… 🙂
    As happens at these things people split into groups…one of the groups got to reveling in the trump victory…

    I sat down with them and listened… at one point they got on about how people should be forced to work instead of getting welfare… I asked what if there are no jobs…they informed me there are always jobs if you really want to work… I wanted to ask them if there are always jobs, why were you just blaming Obama for destroying all the jobs?.. but instead, I tried to be positive…

    I told them that I had been reading about proposals for Guaranteed jobs for anyone instead of benefits…

    Every single one of them hated the idea…

    I was like wait…this is really the same thing you guys wanted…Paying Work instead of benefits fro people without jobs…

    They could not see it that way… I heard…”Why should “they” be guaranteed anything? “, “that’s just coddling”, “bad incentivizing ”
    And “there is no such thing as a free lunch”…

    These are not stupid people… it made me pretty sad to understand that to these people…people I love..that the only thing that mattered… The only thing that turned a “good” Idea into a “bad” one was that what was once described as a punshiment…was now characterized as a reward…

    It was literally all about the need to punish for them… And they could not see it.

  16. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    5. March 2017 at 08:49

    Milo: in the end drag-queen conservatism went over like a lead balloon (despite it’s popularity in Mom’s basement)

  17. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    5. March 2017 at 10:06

    Steve, You asked:

    “How is the Syrian govt worse than ISIS?”

    It kills more innocent people?

  18. Gravatar of E. Harding E. Harding
    5. March 2017 at 17:16

    “It kills more innocent people?”

    -The allies in the Afghan war killed more innocent people than al-Qaeda did on 9/11. Does that mean the allies in the Afghan war were worse than al-Qaeda on 9/11?

    Sumner, stop commenting on Russia, Syria, war, and other stuff you have no clue about. Stick to econ.

  19. Gravatar of Lawrence D’Anna Lawrence D'Anna
    6. March 2017 at 10:50

    As a libertarian, I never expected CPAC to have any integrity to begin with. Of course they roll over for Trump, of course they flip their “principles” about trade and Russia and everything else as soon as it’s convenient. Their purpose in life is to beat the Democrats, whatever that means this year. Everything else is an instrumental goal at best.

  20. Gravatar of Becky Hargrove Becky Hargrove
    6. March 2017 at 11:58

    Bill Ellis,
    I can relate, and as sad as your story is, it’s good to know that “guaranteed jobs” is not going to work as a selling point for those presently “in power”. In recent years I’ve not been able to visit family enough, to learn that firsthand!

  21. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    6. March 2017 at 15:25

    @Bill Ellis,

    Interesting story! It’s also interesting because setting up a forced labor police state to punish people appropriately would probably cost a lot more and be a lot less efficient than just handing over cash to those in need. Of course I don’t know that for a fact, but it has “law of unintended consequences” written all over it, don’t you think?

  22. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    7. March 2017 at 14:50

    Harding, That’s a silly comparison, as we were fighting for a just cause in Afghanistan, and Assad is fighting for his own personal benefit. There is no social objective achieved to justify his mass murder.

  23. Gravatar of Tom Brown Tom Brown
    8. March 2017 at 02:56

    Scott, Steve Bannon (Lord of Discipline?) posted this on his FB page Feb 27. Thought you might like:

    I view the world for what it is; a harsh and cruel place. A society that continually lacks self control and discipline will fall into degredation and despair, rather than seeing prosperity. Discipline is what keeps order in society and even defines us as humans to a certain degree. It was the driving force in establishing rules and civility, and the driving force in our maintenance of an orderly society.

    Our President was elected with the acknowledgment that our society is broken in every facet and needs mending. Every. Single. Facet. Healthcare, education, social security, the media, racism, woman’s rights, the list simply goes on and on. The people recogonized that change was needed and we were ushered in.

    Getting the change we so desperately need is going to come with discipline. Spare the rod, spoil the child. What might seem drastic to some will be recognised as what is needed by the majority. Our time of greatness as a country has come again. These next few weeks are going to reveal much more of our plan. Keep an open ear and an open mind.

    Just look at the guy! Everything about his just screams “discipline.” That’s the photo he chose of himself.

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