By Irene F. Starkehaus –
At this stage in the primary process, it may, in fact, be inevitable that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for President of the United States. I think it's a fair assumption that Illinois isn't going to have much of an impact on the Donald Trump tsunami. Unless Rubio, Kasich and Carson bail by March 15, and two of three of those candidates have indicated that they won't, this thing is already over.
A fait accompli. With up to five people on the ticket, if Illinois goes for Cruz, it will be the political equivalent of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. If Illinois goes for Trump, it just adds to the inescapability of the iceberg's destructive force.
If you are a conservative Republican, and you've ever tried to imagine how you would have behaved in times of political or social upheaval, you will now have the opportunity to learn a little something about your own character and how it feels to witness the devolution of an historic miracle of governance that was two hundred years in the making.
As I'm writing this post, you are getting a preview of the chaos as the Supreme Court with one member short after the Feb. 13 death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia starts hearing cases. Let that fiasco whet your political whistle for a while, and then imagine how it will be when three additional social engineers are there to legislate from the bench.
Let's start with the basics. Donald Trump labels himself a conservative. He has never lived like a conservative. He has never spoken like a conservative. He has never considered himself to be a conservative prior to his foray into politics, but there it is. Voila! Now he's a conservative.
Does he defend Planned Parenthood as a legitimate business with a legitimate purpose? Well, sure. They've done great things – you know, except for slaughtering millions of preborn children, they are a fantastic organization. And Al Capone did many, many great things for his neighbors when he wasn't machine gunning his political enemies. Adolph Hitler loved his grandma and could make the trains run on time when he wasn't busy gassing the Jews.
Trump is incapable of calling evil by its name, and that should be a huge red flag…a stupendous red flag…a flag of such crimson magnificence and proportion that even Margaret Sanger might sit up and take notice, but he has no problem disparaging the character of his fellow running mates.
Nevertheless, his Trumpeteers will see his slander against Republicans as a show of strength when it's actually weak and spineless and easy, and they will offer him undying devotion and loyalty because he can call out Marco Rubio for being short and suggest that the brain surgeon isn't smart enough.
His Trumpeteers believe that his street fighting tactics against conservatives will translate into something that can take on the Clintonistas. Trump promises that he will politically end Hillary Clinton, but he's too lily-livered to point out the malevolence of an organization that butchers and sells infant body parts to financially support Clinton's candidacy.
That. That right there – calling Planned Parenthood an embryonic chop shop – that's too hard for him. But lambasting Clinton will be easy. He can't articulate the intrinsic wickedness of late term abortions but he can take on the Russians. Go figure.
So conservative is Donald Trump that he even goes so far as to call any conservative that doesn't agree with him a "so-called" conservative.
Baby, that takes some testicular fortitude to tell the people who have always walked the walk and talked the talk and done the heavy lifting of conservatism that they are witless wannabes, but poof! As the titular head of the Republican party, he gets to make that distinction. He defines what conservatism is just as George Bush the Younger did. Just as George Bush the Elder did. Just as Jeb Bush tried to do. Just as Bob Dole did. Just as John McCain did. Just as Mitt Romney did.
Still, the primal force behind Trump's rise to power under the conservative moniker fails to alarm – in any appreciable way – the people who would otherwise be leading the charge against the blatant solecism. Under the circumstances, the term "conservative" couldn't be made to look any more ridiculous if Hillary Clinton herself donned it.
The willingness on the part of conservatives to place a crown on anyone who is even quasi-adept at unscrupulous mimicry only ensures the obsolescence of the conservative movement. We are doing it to ourselves. Bend over, grab your ankles and don't you dare whine about how surprised you are when this master of negotiation screws you. He's as much as telling you he will.
Ah – but the power to commandeer conservatism didn't flow through Trump or any of these political opportunists from on high to transmogrify our Bill of Rights into bargaining tools for pragmatic, commonsense politicians who know how to negotiate. That power comes from you and me.
Understand the reality of our founding. There is nothing commonsensical about taking on the world's most powerful government to promote the blessings of liberty for posterity. Donald Trump is absolutely correct on this point: to dissident against powerbrokers is an act of lunacy that has only a small chance of success. Our Founders' actions make no sense. It's saner, more pragmatic to sell off piecemeal the liberties that nature's God bestowed upon us and to appease.
To defend the Constitution, to defy autocrats, to draw a line in the sand against people who value nothing but the accumulation and centralization of power – this requires the faith of a true believer. Someone who truly believes in the principles of liberty as precepts that are innate and immutable. This requires someone who will do everything in his power to protect the Constitution because the Constitution is nonnegotiable.
The first thing I'm here to tell you is that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are two sides of the same coin. They are pragmatic. They are opportunists. They are relativists with no moral compasses guiding them.
On one side you have a woman who looks the other way when her husband serial cheats on her – cheats and worse – because she would rather be a whore for power than insist on anything remotely resembling dignity and honor. On the other side you have man who has promised before God and witnesses to love, honor and cherish until death do they part… three separate times with three separate women.
Well, you oughta know, Republicans – those women are still alive. What should that tell you?
It should tell you that there are a lot of angry skeletons out there. He lied. He cheated on his wife and his family…oops, I mean families. What makes you think you are going to fare any better?
Ah. So let's refuse to vote for him when he becomes the Republican nominee. Right?
Wrong. I'm also here to tell you that when Trump secures the nomination, I will vote for that SOB because – given the alternative – I would rather vote for the head of the coin than the ass of it. That's what I'm going to do and I'm not going to feel anything remotely like the sting of hypocrisy when I do it. I know he's a train wreck. If you don't like train wrecks like I don't like train wrecks, then do something about it now. Otherwise, "All aboard!"
The last thing I'm saying on the subject is that when he screws over the conservative movement, we will find ourselves with very few moves left to make. With that said, you'd better get your game on and get ready to fight like a Founder.
