Trump and the GOP
A short reminder that the GOP would obviously prefer to lose the election rather than have Trump win. It's an obvious principal-agent problem.
By "GOP" I mean the GOP Establishment, Conservatism Inc., the pundit and election consultant industry, etc. All those people have cushy jobs, good incomes, fancy lifestyles and some degree of mainstream respect (or at least, toleration) from the Left.
Trump winning the election will give them absolutely no personal benefit. The politicians would have to deal with a brash and aggressive outsider, which is annoying. But think of the pundits and consultants. They are livid, and for good reason. Trump is obliterating their business model. He's winning the primary without spending a dime on them, and saying exactly the opposite of what they get paid for saying. Jeb Bush spent 150 million dollars on them, and he went to hell. Now think about that for a minute. 150 million dollars. That's a lot of money. That money went somewhere. It paid for lots of houses, cars, clothes, school tuition, restaurant fees, etc. Thousands upon thousands of people live off that sort of money.
Trump may be nominally part of the same thing, i.e. the "Republican Party", but what's in a name? Trump is a direct threat to all these people, and a not trivial threat to politicians who have made a career of being the tolerated opposition of the Progressive Soviet. If Hillary wins the election, these people will suffer nothing. Well, some of their donors may find it harder to get things done, and their donations may decrease a little. But probably not by much. Trump, on the other hand, is aiming for their throat. If Trump wins these people will suffer very real damage. Their family's lifestyle will be in jeopardy. So of course they'll sabotage anything Trump does.
Either Trump runs divide and conquer and plays one against the other, or he brute-forces his way to power by bringing enough new votes to compensate the loss of the upper-middle class vote. Average turnout in American elections is low enough for the latter to be possible, but it won't be easy.
10 comments
[…] By spandrell […]
So, from the Jeb Bush campaign alone, the Cathedral's outer party, the officially tolerated opposition, made 150 million dollars. A lot of people making a lot of money by going through the motions of opposing the Cathedral while actually totally supporting it.
[…] Source: Bloody Shovel […]
It must be pleasant to live in a world where everyone's motives are sordid and insincere except your own.
Wanting to defend your livelihood isn't sordid.
Also, it's one of important topics around here that outright insincerity is rare and organized insincerity on a non-trivial scale non-existent. So your second shot misses too.
[…] has it the GOP establishment wants to nominate Romney again. Which again shows they don’t really want to win. If all they want is to lose, they could nominate Cruz and lose even more worse. But what they […]
Good post over all. But I think this bit is completely backwards: "If Hillary wins the election, these people will suffer nothing. Well, some of their donors may find it harder to get things done, and their donations may decrease a little." Being major party out of power is almost always better for general party fundraising. When you're out of power, there is a fat detestable target face to aim at. Fundraising is a bitch if you're already in power. You have to elevate "enemies", whom many donors do not know well, to be the scape goat. Hatred of Dubya or Obama is much better motivator than hatred of Pelosi or Hastert. Yes, an outsider of Trump's (or Reagan's) stature can fundamentally alter a party. Certainly many GOP establishment are resistant, but I believe it is temporary. There's gonna be plenty of goodies to be had by being on a winning team with or without Trump. My bet is that well before the GOP convention, the bile will all be walked back, and the Republicans will prevent a shiny happy Go-Trump! face to the television audience. Hell, they did it for McCain.
McCain wasn't the establishment? Come on. The mere comparison is sacrilege. I can envision some parts of the Establishment (Gingrich seems to be for Trump, as are others), but the rank and file of the GOP, the pundits, the consultants, the Karl Roves and Ross Douthats are completely livid, and for good reason. If Trump does pull-off a top-bottom sandwitch against the Republican middle (top dogs and independents against the white collar workers of Conservatism Inc.) it'll be something to behold.
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