The GOP? Screw Them

Thirty Years ago, ok 28, we picked up a copy of P.J. O'Rourke's Give War a Chance, a collection of his mid 80's to early 90's writing. O'Rourke began an essay called Second Thoughts about the 1960s thusly, What I believed in the Sixties. There follows a long and hilarious explanation of how he got from hippie to Reagan Republican. O'Rourke starts the middle of the piece with, What I Believe Now, 'Nothing. Well nothing much.'

Indeed, as the Never Trump shyster Jonah Goldberg likes to begin every other paragraph.

We wrote yesterday and previously how we've lived through two conservative revolutions and came away like a college kid looking for sex and only getting a hand-job. We started in '94 with Newt, the Contract with America and the 104th Congress. We held a collection of domestic policy Neo-con beliefs about the size of government, marginal tax rates, entitlement reform and the like.  We clung to these through the Tea Party Revolution, even through Paul Ryan's Speakership. Naively so. So naively so.   

That 104th Congress accomplished...not very much. Newt's ideas were abstract and difficult to explain. There really isn't a good response to Save Medicare and Newt wasn't the man to deliver it anyway. Ditto the Tea Party. Ditto Ryan. We assume that blue eyed pretty boy is running for Wisconsin Governor in 2022. We'll gladly donate to Ryan's Dem opponent. Not kidding. Given how political gravity works, Ryan will probably win, one of the real tragedy of Biden's 'victory'.

After 25 years it's controversial to say only women menstruate, the debt is bigger than ever, we have troops in places no one cares about, and the leviathan government is bigger than we could have possibly imagined in 1995 and totally isolated from the public. Wanna know how bad that last bit's gotten? When we arrived in DC it was a misrun crap-hole with a crackhead mayor that took a week to clear the snow. Now DC is the richest city in the nation. Areas like Dupont Circle, once a notorious hangout for heroin addicts and transvestite hookers, is gentrified and trendy. 

So it was all a sham, all of it. The GOP stormed Rome and...became fat and decadent like the Romans.  All those southern conservative young guns who went for drinks at Heads, the Dubliner and Bullfeathers where they bragged about burning the place down became middle-aged lobbyists and Capitol Hill career hacks - a job we once wanted ourselves. I was there.

What I believe now. Nothing, well nothing much.

Newt Knows! Newt On!

Last Sunday Ben Shapiro, who is often wrong, interviewed the right guest, Newt Gingrich.

Newt is an interesting man, author, college professor, politician. As House minority WHIP he forced the resignation of Democrat House Speaker Jim Wright. In 1994 he engineered the Republican takeover of the House in. Newt was the first GOP to fight in a generation.

As speaker, Newt got Bill to sign welfare reform and made a pragmatic deal on spending which balanced the budget.

What looked to us like a disappointing tenure at his resignation in 1998 now seems like a successful tenure.

Newt is a deadly political prognosticator and one should always listen closely to what he says. He combines election experience and acumen with historical perspective. Newt has won a lot and knows his history.

We recall him on the radio on election day 2004, calling bullshit on the bullshit exit polls showing Jean Francois Kerry (D-FR) had won.

In Shapiro's fascinating and perhaps best interview, Newt talks about his time as speaker during Bill Clinton's impeachment and restates the case against the man. His regrets are quite interesting. 

We hope he's secretary of state in Trump's second term.

This blog suggests watching the interview in its entirety:

In Which Newt Gingrich Agrees with William Stroock

Quoth Newt:

The great political surprise of 2018 will be the size of the Republican victory.
After members of the elite media have spent two years savaging President Trump, lying about Republican legislation, and reassuring themselves that Republican defeat was inevitable, the size of the GOP victory in 2018 will be an enormous shock.

I agree. I know I've written this somewhere before, but Newt knows a thing or two about electoral waves. As House Minority Whip he engineered the GOP Coup of 1994 and took over congress. He saw it coming when no one else did.

Ten years later, when the al Qiada sympathizers in the media leaked phony exit polls saying that Senator Jean Francois Kerry (Vichy-Fr) was going to win, Newt took one look at the poll internals and said Merde. He then went on Rush, went all over right-blogisphere to proclaim said polls Merde. I watched, read and listened to that unfold in real time.

So when Newt, a fellow alternate history author I might add, says the GOP will win bigly in 2018, the GOP will win bigly in 2018.

Talking about the sex-perverts running the media, his Newtness also notes this:

As I listened to the end of the year "analysts," I was struck by how little they know, how little they have questioned their own mistakes, and how mutually reinforcing their false information has been.

Damn straight. How wrong were these people last year? They didn't just say Trump was going to lose, Charlie Cook, Chuck Todd, Chris Everett Mathews and all the rest of them said Hillary! had a 98.6 percent chance of winning.

Meanwhile, your humble blogger had been screaming for weeks that Trump was going to win.

Who to trust now....lemme see here.. let's roll play this...fade to a JEOPARDY!

[Oh for fek sake. Why do you do this to me, lord?-Ed]

Alex Trebek:     'Humble William Stroock Reader (HWSR), you have the board.
HWSR:              'I'll take political prognosticators for a hundred, Alex.'
Alex Trebek:     [bells and buzzing] 'A Daily Double'.
HWSR:              'Hmmmmm....let's make it a true Daily Double, Alex!'
Alex Trebek:     'Answer...a brilliant author who correctly predicted Trump's victory...'
HWSR:             'Who is...William Stroock?.
Alex Trebek:     'Correct!'

So there you have it.

Charlie Cook says a blue wave is building for 2018. William Stroock says there will be a Republican realignment.

Who's the smart money on, motherfucker?

answer