The Uprising of the American Party?

These days, being a lifelong republican is met with some angst. Many times in the past I have written about the disarray of the democrat party and how that ultimately effects their standing with the voters, and of course, how it effects elections. But here we are, republicans, pretty much in a mess worse than I have ever seen on the democrat side. And what is it all about? Donald J. Trump, of course. He's absolutely frazzled the establishment—and frankly I don't think they know how to handle this. But it should be easily explained away for these guys if you ask me.

Why is Donald Trump, our nominee, resonating with the voters of our party?

Look, it's a simple thing really. I have long said that I do not feel a need for term limits in Congress and the Senate so long as the voters are engaged and paying attention. We have a system designed where it is the people's choice who stays or who goes when it comes to elections. The only reason term limits would be needed is when voters are pretty much tuned out, not paying attention, and just checking boxes at the polls without knowing what it is their elected officials accomplished...or did not accomplish.

Clearly the voters are engaged right now, at least for sure on the republican side, and what they have concluded is that the republican party has not done their job. Thus, Donald Trump gets their vote.

But yes, this is a time of angst. If you have paid attention to the republican party over the years the one thing many of us have argued is that we do not ever have a candidate that speaks directly to the people. We wind up with guys who look exactly like the tired and old stereotype of a typical republican. Old rich guys.

Granted, Trump is old. And he's rich.

But, he's Donald Trump. And say what you will about why Donald Trump is a household name for many Americans no matter which side they happen to be on, he has at least accomplished one major thing—he has tuned in many Americans to the electoral process who may have never bothered to care or tune in at all to.

So, he at least has our attention. Republicans and democrats and independents and non-voters alike mind you.

And because they (the American people) are now tuned in they now also realize an awful truth. Washington D.C. and all of these elites who reside there now, and who frankly have been there before them for many years, are screwing us over and good. And they have gotten away with it largely because no one was paying attention, and no one was there to bring it all to light. Donald Trump is saying to the American people what is wrong with the process, what is wrong with America, and why it is so important we all get it this time around and begin the long and daunting process toward real change. To start the process of restoring America to HER people as it was intended by our founders, and stop dead in their tracks the establishments on both sides to stack the deck and rig the whole kit and kaboodle to the detriment of everyone.

Americans rejoiced about change not so long ago when Obama made it his promise to bring it about. But he didn't change anything for the better, and unfortunately no one was paying attention to what he failed to do, and thus he was elected twice.

So, the republican party now has a guy at the forefront who is speaking to swaths of Americans, who is bringing new excitement to the electorate and bringing new-found interest to the party, but yet all they want to do is shut him down. Why? Because they don't like what he says, or how he says what he says. Look, the truth is that Donald Trump is more like you and I despite his billions of dollars in the bank than any career politician, and frankly I think this is one of the reasons why he scares the hell out the establishment the way he does, and why they are so eager to try to shut him down. He's an American. Dare I say an everyday American? When he speaks about economics, and when he speaks about wars, and when he speaks about back room deals in Washington he speaks like each and every one of us speaks in our break rooms, at our family gatherings, and in general to our friends. He says what is wrong, he does not parse his words, he does not spout off in terms no one can understand, and in ways that skirt the truth and make the ugly sound pretty. And again, this scares the hell out of the establishment because for years they have been able to use words in fancy ways to make the American public see things in a different light than the truth would lay out before them.

If you have a good thing going and no one is any the wiser, why throw a cog in the wheel to mess that up?

That's exactly what the establishment has had for years. A good thing. The people were none the wiser. And so long as they were none the wiser, why mess that up?

Trump is the bad guy, and the target of establishment republicans, because he threatens to mess up a good thing they have had going for years. That's why they want to shut him down. That's why they want to rally around Hillary Clinton, attacking Trump instead of her. Because Trump threatens their existence in a way no one before him really has. He's telling the American people the truth. He's shedding light on well hidden realities. He's engaging regular, working people like you and I. He's getting us, the American people, the average working Joe, to see that what politicians tell us, what they promise us, and what they do, and what the effects of lies, innuendo, and spin do to hurt us greatly with us virtually unaware it is even happening—but slowly. The pain comes slowly. The tactics and the policies and the fancy speak hurts us in calculated measure over time so that piece by piece, bit by bit, wrong by wrong, we simply get used to things as they are, and by the time things are so bad—we don't feel the pain as greatly. It has become the norm. It has become our way of life.

Surely the democrats have mastered that with the welfare state. 

It's like the mindset of an embezzler really. I can take a few pennies here and a few pennies there and no one really notices. The ones who get away with it are the smart embezzlers. The ones who get caught are the ones who grow impatient with the process of embezzling a little bit and then just go for broke. Politicians don't have to grow impatient. They control the process. For them they don't have to worry about getting noticed. There is nothing more friendly to an embezzler than the lack of an accountant. And for a politician, there is nothing more friendly than a voting public who is none the wiser.

Trump is the accountant who just walked in on a huge and long-time embezzlement.

And just take a look at who's who in the establishment now denouncing Trump—again—either directly or indirectly. Career politicians. Elites. Paul Ryan, the Bush family, and John McCain just to name a few. Go ahead and toss in the Romney family as well if you want to. These are family businesses...careers in politics. These are the embezzlers of our freedom and of our lives, stripping away one piece at a time, slowly but surely, but with calculation. And now someone has called their bluff. Now someone has shed light on their deeds, And now someone has the ear of the people.

Again, this scares the hell out of them.

The fact is that I am a republican. But I am also able to observe. I know what's going on and I don't like it. And that is why I can and do support Trump. Maybe it's not even a republican thing. Maybe that is just what I have been calling it all these years for lack of a better word. But I have checked the boxes just the same, and I had faith that the guys I sent to Washington with R's behind their names would do my bidding and make America a great place to live. I sent them there with the faith that they would right the wrongs of progressives and slam the door on liberal policies. I sent them there with faith that they would tell the American people the truth about why conservative principles worked better, and why anyone should rejoice in the implementation of conservative policy and ideology.

But they failed. And Trump is winning, at least when it comes to republicans. And he is dismantling the party. So being a republican these days is met with angst. Because I am angry as hell at my party and like so many American people are too. I am so angry that Trump resonates with me too. And I am angry that the republican party in all but denouncing Trump has shed light on the real corruption I denied was ever there within even my own beloved GOP. I am angry that it appears that the republican party, when all is said and done, really were no better than the democrats I so deplored were. I am angry that it appears that a two-party system is really just one party.

The political party.

And the rest of America be damned.

I am voting for Trump, now, not because he happens to the republican nominee. I am voting for Trump because I think he has the right plan to bring the country back to the people. Parties be damned. Republican, democrat, green party, libertarian, independent? To hell with all of that garbage. It's time to simply be an American.

Brokered Convention A Win For Hillary

So, we are of course still having to have the discussion, when it comes to the GOP convention in July, that there is a strong possibility of a brokered convention if Donald Trump, the clear front-runner in this presidential race, does not garner the 1,237 delegates he needs to seal the deal on the republican nomination. But why we are having this discussion at all is really the begging question, is it not?

In other circles someone commented to me that, "So you are okay if we break the rules for Trump if he doesn't get the required delegates?" I responded, and I think quite rightly, "Would we even be having this discussion if, say, Ted Cruz fell short of the 1,237 delegates before the convention?"

Of course that ended the discussion. Because the person who made that comment knows all too well that he would be okay if Ted Cruz, or anyone else for that matter, got the nomination without the required delegate count—but because we are talking about Trump here, that changes everything.

Because no matter how many times the GOP tries to give the impression it will support the front-runner, those of us who pay attention to what's between the lines know all too well if the GOP can find any way possible to deny Trump the nomination, that is exactly what they will do.

The thing that I find a little bit surprising here is that for years the republican party has been wanting desperately to find a candidate who can reach reach out and grasp hold of voters who might never even remotely consider voting for any republican candidate.

Donald Trump is doing that.

He is getting support from evangelicals and non-evangelicals alike. He is getting broad support (believe it or not) from women. He is getting broad support from (again, believe it or not) Hispanics. And while he may be falling a little bit short garnering support from blacks, there are still wide swaths of other demographics he is pulling toward the republican party that the party itself has not been able to do for a very long time.

He's even pulling in democrats.

There is another very big factor to keep in mind here and that is that Trump has also provided the republican party a huge (or should I say yuge?) increase in voter enthusiasm and voter turnout—when you look at voter turnout as a whole, enthusiasm and turnout is up 65% for republicans and down 45% for democrats.

How did Barack Obama win, partly? Voter turnout. Voter enthusiasm. Voters all but fell over themselves to get to the polls, and of course there were great efforts by PACs and other groups to load up buses and get voters to the polls to check the box for Obama.

Without a doubt Mitt Romney screwed the pooch on the campaign trail and I lay that down easily as a large contributing factor to his defeat, albeit a nominal defeat, by what was clearly a failed incumbent president. But you can also attribute low voter turnout as a large reason why Romney could not fill the gap. Many republicans were so unenthusiastic, and so not smitten with Romney as the candidate, that they just stayed home. If even a fraction of those people would have gone to the polls, it may have sent Obama packing.

I think even the GOP has to know that, in part, this is precisely why they did not win the last election.

So along comes Trump and gets the juices flowing. It may not be the guy that the republican party had hoped for to bring this along. But nobody else has been able to do it. And instead of embrace the victory this is, they only want to trounce Trump, stay the course, and disenfranchise large swathes of the very voters they have been trying to attract that Trump has attracted. Hell, he has practically laid these voters at the very doorstep of the republican convention.

Of course part of the problem the GOP and other republican and conservative voters have is that he's too brash, he's offensive, he's inexperienced, he's unrealistic, and whatever other word one can derive to relate to, "He will destroy America and bombs will fly."

Horse pockey.

The fact is that Trump is doing exactly what every single other politician has done before him—and I think we can now safely call Trump a politician. Donald Trump is telling the American people what they want to hear. It's that simple. And it is resonating and that is why the voting public is responding the way they are.

Read my lips, no new taxes. You can keep your doctor. We will attack pork barrel spending...

All of a sudden we are actually believing that everything a politician says he will do will actually be done? I mean, really. Are we really trying to say that here? We're trying to say this with a straight face?

When Donald Trump gets into the White House, if that is what happens, he will face the same realities and the same challenges as every single president always does. Not only that, but what defines an administration's accomplishments or failures is also largely dictated by what the focus of the day happens to be. Things happen, things occur in the world that cause presidents to have to shift focus, and of course there are multitudes of people that will surround any president and provide him or her with whatever current intelligence on a variety of issues happens to be...

And with reality front and center courses change.

Why would Trump be any different? I mean, don't get me wrong, he has my support in large part because he will do some things differently to my mind. But there are myriad things he won't do just because he can't, or because there will be enough smart minds surrounding him to give him some very important statistics and data and examinations into what the real and true impact may be of anything he has proposed. And like all president's do, he will change course.

Look, the bottom line for me is that if Trump gets the nomination we may lose the general election. Okay fine. Or we may not. Who really knows, right? Polls have been wrong, pundits have been wrong. It's always so easy to try and make an idea a truth when we all know it's not. But a few things are certain to lose the general and ensure Hillary winds up in the White House. To my mind, and without any doubt, one of those things is to broker the republican convention. If the GOP actually denies Trump the nomination no matter if he has the 1,237 delegates or not, there will be far more anger from the voting public than ever before that their voice is not being heard, that the establishment is rigging outcomes, and that the American people are sheep while the government and all of the power-mongers within the system don't give a flying rats ass about what the people want.

Precisely, by the way, one of the reasons that right now a guy like Trump is blowing it out of the park.

At the end of the day I think we should simply be looking at who out of the remaining three candidates have the most delegates (or two if Kasich finally comes to his senses that he has no chance of winning) and say okay. That's the nominee. Because otherwise what is all this other process about? Why did we waste our time with campaigns at all? Why did we bother to go before the American people and see what they think about who is running? Why waste time with all that if at the end of the day it doesn't matter, and no matter who the PEOPLE want it comes down who the PARTY wants?

Trump: South Carolina And Beyond

I am not sure I will classify the Trump victory in South Carolina as necessarily a commanding lead. But the fact remains that Trump's win was by a margin of 10% over the second place winner Marco Rubio, and of course one of Trump's biggest critics, Jeb Bush, is no longer in the race. We have the Nevada primary coming up this coming Tuesday, and of course the big tell, Super Tuesday, is on March 1st. Something tells me that even if Trump doesn't win in Nevada, although he is predicted to win—again by a double digit margin—I think he will do very well when all of the numbers are in on Super Tuesday. And of course the field is going to narrow after Nevada's Tuesday primary, and by the time we get to the final call after Super Tuesday I think we'll be down to three candidates.

Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz. If Kasich's numbers don't add up in Nevada I think he'll drop out. So, perhaps, will Ben Carson.

In my opinion it is still too early to necessarily predicate on the idea that The Donald is an unstoppable force. But if we are looking at just the margins over the course of the campaigns, Trump at least appears to be the presumed nominee. The thought that crosses my mind is how can Trump have his Howard Dean moment in this race? He's said some fairly nasty things, and he said some things in the CBS debate just before the South Carolina primary that not only did not resonate with me, it rubbed a lot of voters the wrong way.

Yet he still won, and it wasn't really all that close actually.

If Donald J. Trump takes home the prize on Super Tuesday I think we can safely assume the republican voters in the caucuses have chosen who they want to see run against whoever is going to be the nominee on the democratic side—who I still think will be Hillary Clinton when all is said and done, and I am fine with that.

When I talk to most of my fellow republicans and conservatives of course I am chastised every which way but Sunday when I mention that I actually am rooting for Trump. Why do I like the guy?

•  He holds nothing back and takes no prisoners.
• He is the ONLY guy I think will actually address immigration reform even if I do not think he will be successful in having Mexico pay for the wall.
• He is the ONLY guy who I think understands fundamentally that trade is good, free market capitalism is good, but that we also have a rigged system that has stacked the deck in favor of OTHER nations while leaving American workers behind.
• Therefore Donald Trump is the ONLY one who is actually going to begin the process of renegotiating trade deals and ultimately to bring back jobs to American workers who badly need better than Walmart jobs to feed their families and pursue the dying American dream.
• He is deeply concerned about the advancement of ISIS, the instability in the Middle East, and takes seriously the very real threat of terrorism in the Homeland.

On the last point, I think all of the candidates left in the race have serious concerns about terrorism as well, and aside from Bush

who I thought was extremely weak on the subject, I think all three top tier candidates—Trump, Rubio, and Cruz—would all take steps to curb the threat from Islamic Jihadists. Trump may take the strongest stance however, and with that said, I do think that while Trump has good intentions, on this issue at least, he is going to have to surround himself with the best military and foreign relations people to get his head wrapped around a strategy that will work, that will circumvent unintended consequences, and that will not cause more damage in an already sticky situation.

The one thing that does sort of twist the knife if you'll let me put it that way is that while Trump is getting all the attention on the republican side, the fact remains that where Trump has missed the mark is on substance. He's missed the how's and the why's and how come's. And I think in a general election this detail is extremely important. When Trump gets to the big stage alongside Hillary Clinton who, love her or hate her, has command of her policy, and is well spoken, Trump cannot rely on personal attacks to get the attention of the American people. He has to shred every single idea and statement that Hillary puts forth. He has to command every single issue. He needs to explain in detail why his policies would work, and why he thinks Hillary's would fail. He has to be tough on Barack Obama and his failed policies, which of course Hillary will tout as grand successes, but not just by saying the president was weak or incompetent, but by explaining in detail why he believes the president's policies were bad, how they affected the American people, and if continued how they will continue to affect the American people.

Substance, at the end of the day, is the one thing Trump has lacked throughout the campaign, and the only thing that gives me pause when deciding whether or not even I—a Trump supporter—can ultimately pull the trigger if I were to vote today. Can Donald Trump have a moment like he had with Jeb Bush in the CBS debate where he called former president Bush a liar in a debate with Clinton? I don't think so. I don't think that kind of an exchange would go over very well at all. Although, I do think he can be tough on the issue of Benghazi—but again the approach as to how you do this needs to be careful and calculated. It can't just be name calling and flame throwing. That won't work in a general election.

So all said I give Trump great props for a job well done up to this point, and frankly because of the bullet point issues I am concerned about personally, would love to see him go all the way and get these important things done like nobody else can or will. But as we draw nearer to the strong likelihood that he actually wins the nomination, he really needs to begin the process now of filling in the blanks, and giving us more than what he has given us in the past—he needs to give us the how's and why's and how come's we've been dying to hear.

Because one thing is certain. Hillary will explain her stuff, and whether it is right or wrong, if Trump can't explain his, hers just sounds more thought out and sometimes reality is not what counts. Perspective is everything, and if Trump is perceived as one who doesn't know his way around things, it will cost him the election without a doubt.