Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to thousands at a political rally at the Phoenix Convention Center on July 11, 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo: Getty)
The professional hand-wringers are freaking out over Donald Trump’s straight talk while displaying abysmal indifference to the deserved targets of Trump’s charges. The United States is incinerating, but all they can think about is Trump’s heated rhetoric.
Trump is resonating because, as a presidential candidate, he is giving public voice to many of the concerns that have Americans beside themselves. Some commentators have called attention to these issues for years, but it’s different when a candidate does it, especially a Republican candidate.
Democratic candidates have no fear of making controversial statements or even of taking extreme positions, because the liberal media agree with them and will avoid putting them in a bad light. But Republicans know that the media will exploit any opportunity to vilify them.
Republicans also feel pressure from the GOP establishment to pull their punches — not to say anything that would make them look too conservative, too extreme, too uncaring, too out of step with the popular culture. “Don’t sound judgmental. Moderate your words. Be respectful toward President Obama. And above all, don’t sound like one of those crazies.”
Then Donald Trump comes along and breaks all the rules. He is not beholden to anyone for funding, and he’s not a string puppet for any feckless political consultants.
The media are going bonkers, but it’s not because Trump sometimes uses insulting terms. Their real beef with him is that he is saying things on policy that they don’t want to hear.
The GOP political class is even more beside itself, doing everything it can to diminish him and cast him as an outsider. “Does he not realize what damage he is doing to our brand?” these insiders fret. The dirty little irony is that they are the ones who have damaged the Republican brand.
Say what you will about Democrats, but at least they stand for something and they act like the liberals they are. Republicans often talk a good game — good enough, in fact, to win the congressional elections in a landslide in 2010 and 2014 — but they routinely fail to deliver.
They whine that even with a majority in both houses, they can’t do anything to stop Obama and that if they were to try anything too bold, they’d be viewed as extreme and lose the next election.
Neither of those excuses is entirely true, and the increasingly frustrated not-much-longer-silent majority is done with their squishiness. Their job is not to get along with Obama. It is not to pass bipartisan legislation that always plays into Obama’s hands. It is not to pass cutesy bills, such as the Corker bill, that pretend to impede Obama’s disastrous agenda but actually facilitate it.
People are horrified and furious that Obama is destroying America at an ever-accelerating pace and that our cultural rot proceeds apace. They are tired of hearing excuses and empty promises from Republicans.
Trump is having none of it, and he is calling out Obama and the Republicans who are trying to tone him down — and it’s abundantly refreshing.
Meanwhile, the media continue to make Trump’s statements the issue instead of Obama’s daily — and I mean daily — outrages.
Are they focusing on Obama’s side deals with Iran to freeze the United States out of inspections and his bypassing of the Corker bill’s requirements that he report those to Congress? How about his alleged deal to defend Iran’s nuke sites against attack, even from Israel? His new rule that immigrants applying for legal citizenship no longer have to swear they will take up arms to defend the United States should they have any kind of religious objection to doing so?
No matter how much it may appear otherwise to us now, this country is not going under without a fight, and the silent majority is not going to tolerate cowardice from Republicans much longer. That Trump is doing so well is not an indication that there are a bunch of crazies on the right. It’s proof that people are at their wits’ end — and they’re not going to take it anymore. If GOP honchos were to try to bar Trump from the debates, there would be major hell to pay. Surely, they won’t be that foolish.
Many of us Reagan conservatives have told you for years that the key to Republican victory is not for GOP candidates to emulate liberals or appeal to some mysterious group of “independents.” It is to clearly and authentically articulate Reagan conservatism — without apology.
Notably, it is not just Donald Trump who is speaking out. Sen. Ted Cruz is fearlessly and brilliantly articulating mainstream conservatism, and he’s pulling no punches. The same is true of some of the other candidates. Cruz and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina are both putting on clinics on how to deal with media interviews — refusing to cede the narrative and hitting back hard against Democratic extremism.
This may very well be a turning point in our history and in the conservative movement. Obama has become more arrogant, defiant and excessive with each successive political victory and every Republican abdication. But he might just have finally done enough to awaken the majority of Americans who still love the country for which he is demonstrating unbridled contempt.
Let’s not give up on America just yet. The sleeping giant may have emerged from its coma. We still have people fighting for us and for America. They are fighting for things just a tad bit more important than worrying about whether this or that GOP candidate is sounding rude or extreme or how much leg Caitlyn Jenner is showing with her newest dress.
