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‘We Are in for a Pretty Long Civil War’


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‘We Are in for a Pretty Long Civil War’

In back rooms and think tanks, Republicans are already mourning their party—and plotting the fight over who’s going to be in it after Trump.

By Julia Ioffe

October 28, 2016

 

 

As the country geared up for the third and final presidential debate last week, the fellows of the storied conservative Hoover Institution gathered in Palo Alto to present their research to the think tank's wealthy patrons. Elsewhere in America, in the homestretch of perhaps the weirdest election the nation has ever experienced, things were getting tense, excited, even feverish. But the rooms at the Hoover retreat at Stanford University could have doubled as a funeral parlor, and the lectures as eulogies for a bygone era. Larry Diamond, a prominent political sociologist known to fellow scholars as “Mr. Democracy,” talked about the breakdown of the party system. Kori Schake, a National Security Council official in the George W. Bush administration and adviser to the McCain-Palin campaign, spoke about how the U.S. was endangering the international order it had itself created. Peter Berkowitz, a conservative political scientist and commentator, gave a talk about “the unraveling of civil society” in America.

“Obviously the party and the conservative movement are very troubled, and there will obviously be a crisis whether Trump wins or loses,” Berkowitz told me later. “What are the core conservative convictions going forward?”

Story Continued Below

 

“If he wins, he will for all intents and purposes reshape what it means to be a Republican,” said Schake when I called her. “We’re fumbling our way through, which I hope will lead us to consensus, but we’re nowhere near it now.”

This election, the conventional wisdom goes, has done tremendous damage to the American body politic, but nowhere is the damage as severe as it is inside the party that nominated the wrecking ball known as Donald Trump. Now the party of Ronald Reagan is being led by a man with no discernible ideological leanings, save for an affinity with some of history’s ugliest. In the face of mounting evidence that Hillarious Clinton is set to dominate the electoral map on November 8, Republicans across the right side of the spectrum recognize there’s defeat coming. And behind the scenes, in conversations and closed-door venues—the Hoover gathering was not open to the public—the people who once considered themselves the heart, or at least the head, of the party have begun a very pessimistic reckoning.

As yet there seems to be no coherent vision for what kind of future November 9 brings for the Republican Party—or, for that matter, if there will even be a Republican Party they could support. “You’re assuming that ‘establishment Republicans’ are going to be Republicans anymore,” said Juleanna Glover, a GOP lobbyist and former staffer to then-Senator John Ashcroft of Missouri.

“The likelihood of the Republican Party surviving this, of there being another Republican president in the future, is small,” said one movement conservative who served in the Bush White House. “I don’t think the party survives.”

Far from the halls of the Hoover Institution and big Washington policy shops is a force they cannot control: the Trump campaign, a small collection of social-media gurus, Breitbart alumni, and Trump family members who have managed to capture the majority of Republican voters in the U.S., and who may use their new power to launch a media network, or take over as the new axis of the GOP, or both. And as the old establishment looks on in horror, the civil war in its ranks has already begun.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/donald-trump-2016-gop-civil-war-republicans-rnc-future-214396

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Might be better to pick a current article to show your hatred of the political party in which you claim membership.  This 5 month old hit piece rings a little stale in retrospect.  The fact that Trump won and there is still a Republican party renders this opinion as incorrect as “no path to 260”.  But it does give self-loathers a glimmer of hope.  So you hang on tight to that glimmer BA, I hope it’s enough to get you through the next 8 years.

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9 hours ago, RV ME said:

Might be better to pick a current article to show your hatred of the political party in which you claim membership.  This 5 month old hit piece rings a little stale in retrospect.  The fact that Trump won and there is still a Republican party renders this opinion as incorrect as “no path to 260”.  But it does give self-loathers a glimmer of hope.  So you hang on tight to that glimmer BA, I hope it’s enough to get you through the next 8 years.

 

What I found interesting was the fact it was pre-election. And now we see those on The Hill in disarray. Neither party is working and they can't seem to find a path on the left or right. And in case you have forgotten, I back no party. I believe we need at least one more if not two to break up the monopoly. Everyone agrees the two party system doesn't work, but when it's time to vote it's always the same...

 

B/A

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1 hour ago, bostonangler said:

What I found interesting was the fact it was pre-election. And now we see those on The Hill in disarray. Neither party is working and they can't seem to find a path on the left or right. And in case you have forgotten, I back no party. I believe we need at least one more if not two to break up the monopoly. Everyone agrees the two party system doesn't work, but when it's time to vote it's always the same...

 

B/A

I know you back a particular political philosophy not necessarily a particular party, but I am confused by your statement.  Just because the Republicans are not silently and sheepishly falling in line behind Trump (unlike the way the Dems did with Obama) means that Congress is in disarray?  I do not see it that way.  Take the healthcare fiasco, I hope the House conservatives added to all the Dems makes for enough NO votes to kill the Ryan bill.  You may call that disarray, but I call it the legislative process.  It seems to me the Republicans in Congress are in a no win situation if you are the judge.  If they go along with Trump they are just lackeys, if they do not they are in a civil war.  Either way, in your eyes they are losers.  If there is a Republican civil war, it will be the new guard trying to wrestle control away from the established politicks, and that is something I think you have stated you would be in favor of.

 

I do notice the political party your expressed views are actually congruent with really is in disarray, but that fact is ignored by you.  The Dems are in complete leaderless meltdown especially after it was revealed the DNC screwed Bern, and many of his voters are actually in mutiny mode.  But that is not as interesting to you as a 5 months old Politico opinion piece hoping for a Republican civil war.

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16 minutes ago, RV ME said:

I know you back a particular political philosophy not necessarily a particular party, but I am confused by your statement.  Just because the Republicans are not silently and sheepishly falling in line behind Trump (unlike the way the Dems did with Obama) means that Congress is in disarray?  I do not see it that way.  Take the healthcare fiasco, I hope the House conservatives added to all the Dems makes for enough NO votes to kill the Ryan bill.  You may call that disarray, but I call it the legislative process.  It seems to me the Republicans in Congress are in a no win situation if you are the judge.  If they go along with Trump they are just lackeys, if they do not they are in a civil war.  Either way, in your eyes they are losers.  If there is a Republican civil war, it will be the new guard trying to wrestle control away from the established politicks, and that is something I think you have stated you would be in favor of.

 

 

 

I do notice the political party your expressed views are actually congruent with really is in disarray, but that fact is ignored by you.  The Dems are in complete leaderless meltdown especially after it was revealed the DNC screwed Bern, and many of his voters are actually in mutiny mode.  But that is not as interesting to you as a 5 months old Politico opinion piece hoping for a Republican civil war.

 

That's because you and people like you, myself included, understand that it is ok to think for yourself. While mind numb Democrats wouldn't know the first thing about an original thought. 

Simply put B/A what you are calling a civil war, we just call POLITICS. 

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Seems to me that the Left and their big money backers like George ( POS ) Soros want a civil war.  I understand political dissent and I am ok with that but when these obstructionist start paying people to disrupt and antagonize those with differing views it has crossed the line. If they want a civil war the blood will be on their hands and not caused by any Republican I know.  But they should know that we are armed to the teeth and ready.  This is exactly why Thomas Jefferson said " The beauty of the second amendment is that its not needed until they try to take it away..

BTW I'm On  my 3rd AR10 build,  4th AR15 build and first AR 47 ( LOL love the cheap Russian ammo ) right now since the election.

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2 hours ago, RV ME said:

I know you back a particular political philosophy not necessarily a particular party, but I am confused by your statement.  Just because the Republicans are not silently and sheepishly falling in line behind Trump (unlike the way the Dems did with Obama) means that Congress is in disarray?  I do not see it that way.  Take the healthcare fiasco, I hope the House conservatives added to all the Dems makes for enough NO votes to kill the Ryan bill.  You may call that disarray, but I call it the legislative process.  It seems to me the Republicans in Congress are in a no win situation if you are the judge.  If they go along with Trump they are just lackeys, if they do not they are in a civil war.  Either way, in your eyes they are losers.  If there is a Republican civil war, it will be the new guard trying to wrestle control away from the established politicks, and that is something I think you have stated you would be in favor of.

 

 

 

I do notice the political party your expressed views are actually congruent with really is in disarray, but that fact is ignored by you.  The Dems are in complete leaderless meltdown especially after it was revealed the DNC screwed Bern, and many of his voters are actually in mutiny mode.  But that is not as interesting to you as a 5 months old Politico opinion piece hoping for a Republican civil war.

 

What is particularly frustrating is the opportunity slipping through our fingers, exclusively because of the childish posture from the "left".

Instead of a full investigation over what sensitive data was stolen by the dem IT "contractors" that just also stole their mom's inheritance, the media is having a fit over who leaked the emails exposing the corruption in the dem "leadership".

Trump is now forced to compromise with cabinet picks, giving into establishment pressure, instead of being allowed to find constitutionalists.

It is only a matter of time before the opposition will be sticking their noses in the air and claiming Trump isn't doing everything he promised to do, and ignoring the fact it was THEIR whining, bullying, crying, and temper tantrums that slowed everything down.

Their short sighted ignorance is astounding.

I wonder, do they actually think the rest of us will forget what they are doing now, and once they have exhausted every pettey attempt to stop Trump, will they actually expect us to trust them again?
Don't they realize everything they are doing will one day come back to haunt them, just like what is happening in the Senate after they killed the filibuster?

This is what happens when parents don't punish their kids, and everyone gets a trophy.

They grow up to become snowflake crybaby feckless dolts.

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