Wednesday, December 07, 2016

"Trading results for respectability"

Ann Coulter writes,
...There’s a long and tragic history of Republicans who won the war but lost the peace by trading results for respectability.

...The first President Bush not only promised not to raise taxes, but also laid out the steps Democrats would take to get him to break that promise. “And the Congress will push me to raise taxes,” he said in his iconic 1988 convention speech, “and I’ll say no, and they’ll push, and I’ll say no, and they’ll push again, and I’ll say to them, ‘Read my lips: No new taxes.’”

He was a good prognosticator! Congress did exactly as he’d anticipated. But instead of saying “no,” Bush caved.

That betrayal cost the GOP its most popular issue. As the Times’ Michael Wines put it (shortly before Bush predictably lost his re-election bid), with the president’s sellout, Republicans gave up “a political weapon so fearsome that it had destroyed three Democratic presidential candidates in 12 years.”

The Times had spent months hectoring Bush about the “yawning deficit,” denouncing his “obdurate refusal” to raise taxes, and promising “political popularity” for the “needed” tax hike. But the moment Bush raised taxes, the Times couldn’t stop crowing about his broken promise.

Trump has just annihilated 16 far more experienced Republican rivals, the Clinton machine and the entire media/Hollywood/Wall Street complex by raising the one issue no other politician would touch: putting America’s interests first on immigration.

What promise do you think they want Trump to break?

Manifestly, if anyone in Washington seriously wanted to build a wall, deport illegals, return criminal aliens to their own countries, end the anchor baby scam and prevent jihadists from immigrating here to kill Americans, it would have been done already.

...The entire Washington establishment is unalterably opposed to enforcing our immigration laws.

On immigration, Trump will be furiously opposed by: Democrats, Republicans, the permanent bureaucracy, the Chamber of Commerce, George Soros, The Wall Street Journal — in fact, the entire media, except four webpages, six bloggers and five talk-radio hosts — and hundreds of taxpayer-funded immigrant grievance groups. And that’s just off the top of my head.

He’ll even be opposed by his own hand-picked U.N. ambassador! (It is an amazing fact that at the 2016 State of the Union, both the Democratic president’s address, and the Republican governor’s response, attacked candidate Trump’s immigration proposals.)

There’s a reason millions of Americans were showing up at Trump’s rallies chanting, “Build the Wall!” and not, “End Obamacare!” “Cut taxes!” “Save the Second Amendment!” — or any other slogan that could have been chanted just as easily at a Jeb! Rally.

...But if Trump chooses from among the few people who know how to get it done (Kris Kobach, Kris Kobach or Kris Kobach), his promises will be kept. He can relax. He can spend all his time playing golf, living in Trump Tower, yelling at American CEOs trying to outsource jobs — and engaging in appalling conflicts of interest with his businesses.

Trump is down to his last wish from Aladdin. He can impress The New York Times, or he can make America great again. But he can’t do both.
Read more here.

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