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.

Will Colludes Again

My latest over at Inforos:

Republican political guru Karl Rove, often derisively called ‘Bush’s Brain’, managed George W. Bush’s two successful presidential campaigns in the 2000s. Rove focused on defending the red, Republican leaning states and maximizing conservative turnout in battleground purple states like Florida and Ohio. However, the Bush-Rove brand of free-trade and open-borders conservatism was unpopular with white working-class voters in Rust Belt states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states no Republican presidential candidate had won since 1988. As such, Rove’s strategy was inherently defensive. The Rust Belt became the Democrat’s Blue Wall, invincible against Republicans. Republican nominees John McCain and Mitt Romney stood little chance in these states in 2008 and 2012. In 2008 McCain’s campaign publicly gave up on Michigan.

Click on over for the rest.

We was Had

Via Breitbart, Paul Ryan was and is a weak, pathetic man:

An upcoming book reveals former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has returned to attacking President Donald Trump’s character, taking particular offense to his dismissive nickname for pornographic actress Stormy Daniels.

Politico Magazine’s Tim Alberta writes in American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump that Ryan “Now out of office and trading in his power suits for a blue vest” is once again criticizing the president and “saw retirement as the ‘escape hatch,'” according to an excerpt obtained by the Washington Post.

The Democrat Party wants to turn the Southwest into North Mexico but Trump said Stormy Daniels is a horseface.

Paul Ryan is a loser. A failed veep candidate and a failed speaker. Ryan lost the House to Pelosi and AOC. He was supposed to be the conservatism of wonkiness, the idea man. The speaker who'd get conservative ideas enacted. 

He didn't.

Ryan managed not to stop Obama's agenda or advance the Trump agenda and it seems he's more upset with Trump than the left.

Ryan and the rest of the GOPe is how we got Trump and why need him more than ever.

Notes on the Immigration Legislation Kabuki

The hardcore 'Goodlotte Bill' died last night. This would have legalized 800,000 illegal Mexicans, built a wall, ended chain-migration and the visa lottery.

Effeminate Speaker Paul Ryan's bill was scheduled for a vote last night, then this morning, now next week. 

This bill will legalize something like 1,800,000 illegal Mexicans, increase legal immigration, H1B1 visas, tamper down chain migration (though not stop it)  and build a wall. Ryan postponed the vote becuase he's making changes to the bill. He plans to add E-Verify. 

With E-Verify and perhaps a few other goodies we could live with the Ryan Bill.

Of course it's all academic becuase the Dems will use the racist* filibuster to prevent passage of anything.

This morning Trump told Ryan to 'forget about' passing an immigration bill till after the election.

We feel this is an excellent strategy. Trump wants to legalize the 800,000 DACA illegal Mexicans, build the wall, end chain migration and the visa lottery. These four ideas are extremely popular. 

This is a great platform for the fall and it can split the Dems. Trump can go to concerned Latin voters and say, 'I'm trying to fix DACA but the Dems say no.'

Always trust Trump. Never bet against Trump. Don't get tired of winning.

*The Dems used the racist filibuster to block both the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act.

Wither Paul Ryan

In an interesting piece on Paul Ryan, Politico says the speaker is planning on packing it in.

If true this would mark the passing of a generation of conservatives such as myself.

We grew up in the age of Reagan and Bush and the only Democrat president we remembered was Jimmy Carter.

New Gingrich shaped us politically. This was the 90's, the era of policy wonkism with ideas coming up from the think tanks like Heritage and CATO and being adopted by a second generation of conservatives who wanted to reform the way government worked.

We used to have ideas on everything from garbage collection, to schools, to Medicare and Social Security reform.

Politically this never really worked and few of the ideas ever really got adopted federally. No one really gives a crap about school vouchers.

The failure of the likes of Ryan and myself led to Trump. All hail Trump.

Via Time

You don't get much more Gen-X than this

Wither Vichy GOP

Strange, Corker and now Flake. Three establishment senators lost or on the verge of losing their primary.

The establishment base crumbles.

First that base showed a crack after the budget and legislative bungles of the Republican led Congress. in 2015-16. Despite having both houses they got nothing done and forced no concessions from President Obama. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell patiently explained to us rubes that under the American system Congress cannot bend the president to its will.

Trump saw the crack and like February rain poured within and froze. The crack widened further.

Then the GOP gained control of the White House. Still nothing got done, not even the repeal of Obamacare which the GOP had promised for nearly a decade. The filibuster, you see, and budgetary rules, McConnell and pretty boy Ryan explained. The crack ever widened.

We were suckers. We fucked up. We trusted them.

The base crumbled.

Of course Corker and Flake's comments about the president have been shameful. Imagine if they had attacked the Democrat Party in the way they are now attacking President Trump.

Are you listening, W?

Right now the media narrates that these three GOP senate seats  (Alabama, Tennessee and Arizona) are threatened because nice moderate Republicans are replaced by scary Trump types.

Well, here are Trump's results in 2016-

Alabama:    +28
Tennessee:  +27
Arizona:     +4.5

The GOP has some work to do in Arizona. Otherwise, keep dreaming.

By 2019 that establishment base will be rubble.

(Photo by Gage Skidmore)

Shooting Blanks

Vichy GOP

So with Paul Ryan's Obamacare repeal and replace bill its hard to avoid the conclusion that the Speaker doesn't get it.

In a lot of ways this is not his fault. He's the same generation as I, and he came of age in the era of Newt and W, Heritage policy papers, Weekly Standard movement journo pieces, and a slew of policy-wonk ideas. Paul Ryan has certainly loaded this bill up with those.

This reminds me of previous failed GOP big idea bills, W's Social Security plan of 2005, the immigration reform bill of 2006, the debt ceiling fiasco of 2011, Marco Rubio's own attempt at immigration reform in 2014; all loaded with ideas none of which will work.

Frankly Paul Ryan's bill is a surrender document. All that remains is for the Dems to ad their bits ala No Child Left Behind.

Fortunately both the GOP squishes like Senator Collins of Maine, and hardliners like Senator Paul of Kentucky pronounce the bill DOA.

President Trump is a deal maker of course and I suspect this bill will be negotiated and marked up to acceptability. But I've always been an optimist.

Look, Mr. Speaker, this isn't about tweaking medical delivery systems or medical savings accounts. This is about repealing the most vile piece of American legislation since the Fugitive Slave Act. You got the power, use it.

The Dems wouldn't hesitate.