WarSclerotic

The Incredible Shrinking NeverTrumps, American Thinker, Jared E. Peterson, November 7, 2016

It’s been a great pleasure to watch the massive return of ordinary Republican and conservative voters to the only man who can prevent eight more years of America’s rule by the poisonous, destructive and corrupt Democratic Left.  In states that are normally solid Republican at the presidential level (e.g., Texas and Utah) the American Propaganda Ministry’s non-stop carpet bombing of Donald Trump took its toll for a while, as Utah flirted briefly with an irrelevant Romney sponsored spoiler and some Texas Republicans fell into uncertainty. But those states are solid now, and the race as a whole has tightened astonishingly over the last ten days.

It’s hard to know what demographic movements account for the narrowing (or, for that matter, whether what we’re seeing is simply more honest polling as Election Day nears); but there’s no doubt that the return to Trump, or recent declaration for Trump, by Republicans and conservatives who had not been openly with him before is a large part of the story.

The collective efforts of CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, the New York Times and Washington Post to destroy Trump’s character and to hide his enormously popular agenda from public view couldn’t succeed forever in the internet era.

Ordinary Republicans examined and reflected on Trump the man, and sensibly concluded that, though imperfect, his character and past conduct fall far short of disqualifying — particularly when compared to that of his opponent, now unmasked as the most odiously corrupt human being ever to seek the US presidency as a major party nominee.

But less important than character and personal conduct, Trump’s overwhelmingly conservative agenda has finally gotten the attention it deserves from his natural voter base.

And even the most rigorously conservative among normal voters are concluding that 75-90% of a loaf beats no bread at all, especially when the one offering no bread at all demands that they drink poison besides.

And so, in the end, ordinary Republicans and conservatives are streaming to Trump’s banner.

Meanwhile, the intellectual and political NeverTrumps add fresh coats of paint to the floor surrounding the corner they’ve painted themselves into.

Examples abound but a recent one stands out:

The snobbish, confused, out-of-touch-with-America David Brooks helpfully explained that Trump’s is a “campaign of hate” and that Trump’s supporters who do not have college degrees are voting for Trump because “they are just going with their gene pool.”

Does this New York City/Philadelphia Main Line-reared son of university academics have any idea how statements like that affect the mass of Republican/conservative voters who’ve made his cushy life possible? Does he know anything at all about the practical art of coalition building in a democracy?

Could statements like Mr. Brooks’ and the elitist world-view they imply explain at least in part why East Coast conservative intellectuals have failed utterly to halt or even slow the progress of the American Left through the nation’s cultural institutions?

Throughout this campaign an arrogant superiority and oily condescension has flowed like a river out of the New York-Washington NeverTrumps, reaching and inundating the heart of traditional America, in the Midwest and South, where the great voter base of American traditionalism and conservatism resides.  It’s going to be many years before the ground poisoned by that flow recovers.

But to a happier subject:

The national contest is finishing up close, extremely close, despite uniform recent predictions of a decisive Clinton victory from propagandists in the major media.

At the state level, too, there has been strong movement to Trump across the nation during the last week; battleground states have moved from “likely Clinton” to toss-up; Trump has inched slightly ahead in critical tossup states; and normally Democrat states, such as New Mexico and Maine, have moved into the unaccustomed status of tossup.

The RealClearPolitics No Tossups map of Saturday, November 5, 2016, shows an electoral vote of Clinton 297, Trump 241, and that assumes Clinton carries Florida’s 29 electoral votes. The RCP map has Trump carrying all the Romney states, plus Nevada, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire and Maine CD1.

On this electoral map, if Trump Carries Florida, he wins.  It appears that infamous Never Trump George Will is going to fall far short of his April 28, 2016 publically announced wish for a 50 state Clinton landslide.

But back to that wonderful phenomenon, the ability of ordinary Republicans and conservatives to get it right, despite ubiquitous media disinformation and numerous internal apostasies:

Unlike their intellectual betters, or embittered members of the Republican Party’s discredited and deposed royal family, or the Party’s two most recent failed presidential candidates, the vast majority of Main Street is moved by the realization that that they would have to live with the direct consequences if the Left triumphs.

A mentally clarifying realization, that.

The Trump haters among many conservative intellectuals and Republican royalty understand the enormous damage the Left will do if Clinton wins, but it doesn’t move them.  They are among “the protected” classes (Peggy Noonan). They can — so they think — survive and thrive under Clinton and the Left.

Whatever the outcome, none of us who’ve fought for Trump from the moment he clinched the nomination will forget or soon forgive conservative intellectuals — including David Brooks, George Will, Jonah Goldberg, William Kristol and Rich Lowry, to name just a few — and former Republican office holders and candidates who, for feeble reasons of personal grudge, style, language or social acceptability, went over to the leftist enemy.

They made weak attempts to defend their deserting the battlefield, but all their self-justifying language is chaff in the wind to anyone who compares what we know America faces under Clinton with what we have good reason to hope for under Trump.

Doubters can compare Trump’s definitive policy statement in his speech at Gettysburg, with almost anything out of Clinton’s mouth or with the Democratic Party platform.  William Buckley would have read and reflected on Trump’s program, considered Trump’s personal style and attributes, pronounced the program 75-90% great, the style and attributes occasionally problematic but not disqualifying, the alternative an unspeakable atrocity, and given Trump his full support.

The whole analysis would take Bill all of about five minutes if God would lend him to us for a short visit.

In making political choices in a universal suffrage democracy, especially for President of the United States, the agenda to be pursued is everything. Barring gross criminality, including the sale of access or influence, always support the candidate who will do the most to bring about and preserve the kind of country you would want for your children and grandchildren. Wherever possible forgive the personal and decide based on the agenda.

In the circumstances we face today, only a socially snobbish conservative intellectual or a failed Republican politician could be dumb enough, in the first case, or vindictive enough, in the second, to miss the opportunity of electing a President who credibly promises to work for an agenda containing upwards of 90% of what conservatives have sought for 25 years.

Embarrassment at social gatherings in Georgetown and the Upper East Side explain, but will never excuse, the Never Trump’s rejection of Trump.

Though Trump is now drawing huge majorities of Republican and conservative voters, his performance among both groups may not yet rise to the almost always requisite level of near unanimity. The race appears to be extremely close. If Trump loses narrowly, by a margin attributable to the Republican and conservative deficit created by the NeverTrumps, that suicidal crowd of snobbish apostates will own the Clinton/Left disaster to follow.

What are they going to do for a living?

Who will be their friends?