Do Not Forgive Them They Know What They Did

Do Republicans and social conservatives get it now? And not just the politicians – but also the voters. Will Republicans and social conservatives finally take the gloves off?

Does the Stalinist Show Trial conviction of Donald Trump make them now realize politics is not a parlor game? It is not a topic for talk radio shock jocks and television pundits? Do they now understand that pretending to espouse high-minded principles does not work?

Several years ago, while attending an event in Washington DC, I met a Republican pollster. He told me that the difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans do not hate Democrats but Democrats viciously hate Republicans.

What a revealing comment! Does this Republican strategist think there is no hate in politics? Nations go to war over politics. Political differences cause civil wars and revolutions. People are imprisoned and executed because of politics.

Republicans treat politics like a business transaction. Republicans and social conservatives lack zeal. Democrats have zeal, which is why Democrats win and Republicans lose.

And on the rare occasion when Democrats do lose – as they did to Donald Trump in 2016 and in 1994 – they will stop at nothing, repeat at nothing, to regain power. They have now gone so far as to politically prosecute a political opponent. Democrats used the latest in a series of fake investigations, impeachments, and criminal and civil trials against a former President of the United States of America to prevent his reelection.

Do Republicans think Democrats will stop with Trump? They are masturbating mentally if they do. They are all fair game now.

For years, I have watched as Democrats heaped abuse on Republicans whose only response was to grin and bear it. Democrat leaders and backbenchers alike took shots at Republicans. But the Republicans played the old coward’s game of pretending to be above it all because they were really afraid to fight.

Of course, in the end, Republicans lost. They lost the White House, the Congress, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and state and local governments. Democrats control America’s biggest cities, the center of American culture, business, and power.

The social conservative/Republican reaction to Democrat dominance was to flee, to run away. They believed that if they moved to the suburbs corrupt Leftwing Democratic Party ideas would not follow them. And for a while they were right. They could safely stay in their suburban enclaves and commute to the city for work and play. Indeed, even businesses moved to the suburbs. Republicans thought they prevailed. The cities were losing their economic might.

But a funny thing happened: Many of those businesses were controlled by CEOs educated at Ivy League business schools. They were indoctrinated in Left-wing ideology. Woke corporate executives gave leftist causes money.  Republicans and social conservatives abandoned the marketplace of ideas to the Left.

Republicans forgot law and politics are downstream from popular culture. As Plato supposedly said: “You can write the laws if I can write the songs.”

Social conservatives took false solace in the election of Ronald Reagan. He did what he could given both chambers of Congress were controlled by Democrats and had been for decades. They were so entrenched as the majority political party in America that Republicans were relegated to second-class citizens.

The reason for the GOP’s decline was that they abandoned Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Eisenhower to become the party of Wall Street and country clubs, replacing the small business owner, the farmer, and Main Street. Principles be damned these new Republicans said, cut a deal with whoever is in power. Republican George Babbitlike pusillanimity discredited and weakened them feeding further Democratic Party arrogance.

Then along came Donald Trump. He arose in the wake of the abysmal failures of C-Suite Republicans like Bush, McCain, and Romney.

Donald Trump idolizes Middle America. He knows they are the backbone of the country. He knows Democrats abandoned Middle America for a coalition of college-educated wealthy White liberals, tort lawyers, teachers’ unions, alternative sexual orientations, and government-dependent minorities. Trump knows Republicans abandoned Middle America for a coalition of corporate executives, free market fanatics, corporate lawyers, neocons, and those invested in the military-industrial complex. Trump knows Middle America pays the taxes that support those dependent on government social programs and government jobs. Trump knows Middle America furnishes the people who fight the wars, protect the lives and property of citizens, and build houses, skyscrapers, and highways. Trump loves Middle America and Middle America loves him. Trump wants to drain the swamp. For this reason, he needed to be stopped by any means.

Trump had to be destroyed.

Democrats, establishment Republicans, and libertarians cannot let Trump succeed. They cannot lose control of Middle America. MAGA needs to be stopped permanently.

They have succeeded – for now.  But a martyr has been created, and Pandora’s Box opened. The sleeping giant of the silent majority has been poked.

As the saying goes: “Be careful what you ask for.”