The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Ace of Spades Goes Full-On Populist?

Posted on | December 9, 2015 | 269 Comments

Because I’ve been up to my ears in radical feminism for the past year, I haven’t monitored the day-to-day developments of the GOP presidential primary campaign the way I did during the 2012 cycle. As a result, I am unaware (and really, do not care) which of my blogger friends are supporting which candidate. My attitude for the 2016 campaign can be summarized in three words: Anybody But Clinton. After my (ultimately futile) hyper-involvement in the 2012 campaign, I simply do not want to expend mental or emotional energy worrying about who the Republicans nominate. Others do not have that attitude, however, which brings us to Ace of Spades discussing the latest Donald Trump controversy:

Laura Ingraham: GOP will rip itself apart at convention to avoid nominating Trump.
Krauthammer: Trump’s proposal is “deeply bigoted,” “indefensible.”
Josh Earnest: Trump’s proposal consigns him for the new and improved “Wrong side of history,” which is now “the dustbin of history.” . . .
Ingraham points out that Trump’s proposal comes in a particular context: When the establishments of both parties already want to take him out, and are willing to seize on whatever cudgel is at hand to do so.
They’re not going to beat him this way.
The establishment’s yelling about everything has gone from tedious to exhausting to infuriating.

Read the whole thing. I had noticed, occasionally, Ace’s increasing frustration with the GOP establishment the past year or so, but I guess I underestimated the intensity of his frustration, or his seriousness about the immigration problem. Knowing Ace, he’s the last guy I would expect to dive off into Pat Buchanan/Peter Brimelow/John Derbyshire paleoconservative-style populism which I’m not saying he has, but I think he definitely now understands the teeth-grinding fury the Old Right felt toward the GOP’s constant compromising with liberalism. Insofar as any conservative is serious about defeating the Left, I think, he must eventually experience that kind of reaction. The alternative is to become an unprincipled centrist hack like Steve Schmidt or Nicolle Wallace.

Honestly, I’ve got a Zen-like serenity about the Trump phenomenon. The prospect of Trump going thermonuclear and running as an independent is the worst-case scenario, and so what? He will do it or he won’t. Republicans who want to stop Trump from winning the GOP nomination have to reckon with that possibility, and let them worry about it.

Not my problem.

If Ace is saying “burn it down,” there may be no alternative. It is not Trump’s fault that the GOP establishment is impotent. It’s not Ace’s fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not your fault. That arrogant fat-faced bastard Karl Rove? Yeah, I’m willing to blame it all on him, because why not? Populism needs a scapegoat and he’ll do. So if everything goes sideways between now and November 2016, and Hillary Clinton is elected because Trump went third-party and got 34% of the vote . . . ?

Burn it down, I say, and blame it all on Karl.




 

Category: Ace of Spades, Election, Republicans

Comments

269 Responses to “Ace of Spades Goes Full-On Populist?”

  1. Daniel Freeman
    December 9th, 2015 @ 7:12 pm

    What the hell are you going on about? I didn’t even mention classlessness.

    Liar. You used the words “clownish” and “goofiness”. Or are you going to insult my intelligence now and pretend that wasn’t what you meant?

    I know people in the upper class. I know what they think of Trump. Or perhaps you’re a middle-class useful idiot that didn’t know what those terms were meant to be euphemisms for? I suppose that’s possible.

  2. Paul
    December 9th, 2015 @ 7:15 pm

    You implied that was the reason I didn’t support him. Even if he was dead serioius his ideology would be enough to disqualify him.

    Yeah, the billionaire corporatist is the guy who really has your intersts at heart. Speaking of useful idiots

  3. Paul
    December 9th, 2015 @ 7:19 pm

    Gotta love the logic of Trump supporters. They hate the GOP because it doesn’t follow through on promises, so they get behind a candidate they openly acknowledge is basically lying to them.

    Yeah that will show the GOP.

  4. DeadMessenger
    December 9th, 2015 @ 7:35 pm

    None of this would be a problem if we all just voted Cruz.

  5. DeadMessenger
    December 9th, 2015 @ 7:42 pm

    As one of the Floridians who foolishly put that traitor in office to begin with, I can confidently equate Rubio to a somewhat more masculine Hillary in his thought life.

    Cruz it is.

  6. DeadMessenger
    December 9th, 2015 @ 7:47 pm

    At war with Islam? From listening to Barry, I thought we were in a war with white Americans, and all Christians and Southerners. And the NRA.

  7. DeadMessenger
    December 9th, 2015 @ 7:52 pm

    Whatever it takes to keep The Lying Murdering Money Laundering Hag Who Shall Remain Nameless out of the WH.

  8. DeadMessenger
    December 9th, 2015 @ 7:54 pm

    I have to agree with that premise. Trump is a liar, and a buffoon.

    Iused to say that if it came down to Hillary or Trump, I’d just sit it out, but now I’m thinking I’d rather have a lying buffoon than a Lying Buffoon.

  9. Quartermaster
    December 9th, 2015 @ 8:24 pm

    You miss the point. As usual.

  10. Quartermaster
    December 9th, 2015 @ 8:25 pm

    Don’t flatter yourself.

  11. Quartermaster
    December 9th, 2015 @ 8:25 pm

    And, you didn’t read. No surprise there.

  12. Fail Burton
    December 9th, 2015 @ 8:27 pm

    You mean like right and wrong?

  13. Quartermaster
    December 9th, 2015 @ 8:27 pm

    And, you have no idea what you are talking about. I couldn’t care less about Fleming, however. I read a bit of his stuff and thought he had some serious eccentricities. He was similar to you, actually.

  14. Quartermaster
    December 9th, 2015 @ 8:29 pm

    No VDare is mostly about immigration and the issues surrounding the mess. VDare is the primier outlet for writing on the issues of immigration. The Stormfront thing is simply a lie from SJWs who think anyone that disagrees with them is Nazi.

  15. Quartermaster
    December 9th, 2015 @ 8:30 pm

    I think it’s a good term.

  16. Quartermaster
    December 9th, 2015 @ 8:32 pm

    There are people on there with the skill set you don’t think they. They don’t do it because that is not their purpose. Frankly, the stuff you clutter the comment threads with on this site would be better nuked, and you with it. You’re simply a poseur.

  17. Wombat_socho
    December 9th, 2015 @ 8:46 pm

    We saw plenty of those guys here a few months ago, and you’re right – they were certainly all about proving they were smarter than the average “cuckservative”.

  18. Wombat_socho
    December 9th, 2015 @ 8:51 pm

    We didn’t want to let the Black Sea Fleet into the Mediterranean, and we wanted a convenient launching pad for strategic bombers and IRBMs.

  19. Wombat_socho
    December 9th, 2015 @ 8:52 pm

    Well, he and his administration certainly are.

  20. Wombat_socho
    December 9th, 2015 @ 8:53 pm

    That would be Vox Day and the Dread Ilk.

  21. Daniel Freeman
    December 9th, 2015 @ 9:19 pm

    Trump is literally the only candidate that is not at the beck and call of the exact same other billionaire corporatists that have produced this current status quo.

    Why are you so pro status quo? Are you benefiting from it and just don’t care about the declining success of the median American?

  22. Paul
    December 9th, 2015 @ 9:23 pm

    He’s a part of the system. He’s benefited from the very system that you call corrupt. This is a man who supports Kelo like takings where the government comes and takes your property away so that billionaires like Trump get to build their casinos.

    Wake up man. He’s playing you for a fool. He IS the status quo.

  23. Daniel Freeman
    December 9th, 2015 @ 9:30 pm

    I appreciate a vigorous give-and-take. Thank you.

    Now, I’m not going to fall for your distraction. Get some other candidate on the record opposing eminent domain, and then you’ll have an argument, and not one second before.

    If you want to vote for Cthulhu because you’re tired of voting for the lesser evil then great, that’s your business. But here in the real world we’re trying to maximize our futures.

    So take it back to something where there’s a difference between the candidates.

  24. Art Deco
    December 9th, 2015 @ 9:34 pm

    Not a whole lot, but they publish some dubious material (Kevin McDonald). They’re easy to sympathize with because they’re on the sh!t list of a crooked money-racket called the ‘Southern Poverty Law Center’, which the press treats as a serious organization even though they were exposed 15 years ago as a skeezy direct mail mill. (Exposed in Harper’s of all places).

  25. Paul
    December 9th, 2015 @ 9:52 pm

    Seems pretty on the record to me.

    http://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1284

    And yes, thanks for some lively discussion.

  26. daialanye
    December 9th, 2015 @ 10:05 pm

    Yeah, why don’t we all pick the guy who talks a good game? After all, what does performance matter so long as we temporarily feel good?

  27. daialanye
    December 9th, 2015 @ 10:08 pm

    Give poor Bambi a break! He considers himself not an American but a citizen of the world and probably the next Mahdi.

  28. Garym
    December 9th, 2015 @ 10:10 pm

    Very nicely stated. I wish I could write like you.

  29. Mike G.
    December 9th, 2015 @ 10:16 pm

    The irony, it burns.

  30. narciso
    December 9th, 2015 @ 10:43 pm

    surely you can’t be serious, Paul Hollander and Thomas Sowell are the most scrupulous of academics, they don’t go along with the Keynesian cartel

    I do agree with you about Dreher, who seems to have barely skimmed the epistles, urging retreat from public life, for Christians,

  31. Spare Me The Outrage | The Lonely Conservative
    December 9th, 2015 @ 10:53 pm

    […] I spent five hours in the car today so I had plenty of time to listen to talk radio. There was little talk about what a disaster President Obama has been, or how the Pentagon was ready to send help to Benghazi but the plan was nixed. No, it was all about what Trump said and what people are saying about it. […]

  32. Fail Burton
    December 10th, 2015 @ 12:23 am

    Generally speaking, you have your choice of voting for a suicide cult or a bunch of cowards scared of crossing the suicide cult.

    Enjoy.

  33. Fail Burton
    December 10th, 2015 @ 12:25 am

    I dunno. The quotes the SPLC sports are pretty stinky.

  34. Fail Burton
    December 10th, 2015 @ 12:27 am

    We are at war with whiteness and heterosexuality.

  35. Finrod Felagund
    December 10th, 2015 @ 12:39 am

    You’re making me flash back to the wonderfully politically incorrect Pink Panther movies, where Inspector Clouseau frequently calls his manservant Cato “my little yellow friend”, etc.

  36. Daniel Freeman
    December 10th, 2015 @ 2:18 am

    Well shoot, it’s hard for me to argue against something that I agree with. There’s probably a case to be made for Trump only using ordinary eminent domain or something like that, but I really hated Kelo. So now I just like Cruz even more.

  37. Daniel Freeman
    December 10th, 2015 @ 2:29 am

    Of course there were reasons for it. Just like there were reasons for every other thing that violated the values of American citizens, yet was done in our name anyway.

    If we quantified the significance that our government has put on our moral values, it would come to the single most wrong answer: zero.

  38. Daniel Freeman
    December 10th, 2015 @ 2:34 am

    Hey, that’s fine with me. Hillary will accelerate the decline. Might as well get that bandage torn off fast, right?

    I don’t care whether Trump does what he says. If not, then we’re no worse off than with someone who didn’t even say it, and also we can replace the Republican party with something worthwhile.

  39. Daniel Freeman
    December 10th, 2015 @ 2:51 am

    Better they say that they’ll try (Don) than say that they won’t (Jeb). One might betray in the future, the other already has. It’s an easy choice.

  40. Daniel Freeman
    December 10th, 2015 @ 2:58 am

    I’m neither dread nor vile & faceless, but I must confess to it being a daily read.

  41. storno.com.ua
    December 10th, 2015 @ 3:06 am

    storno.com.ua

    Ace of Spades Goes Full-On Populist? : The Other McCain

  42. Quartermaster
    December 10th, 2015 @ 6:12 am

    It was VDare that started the $PLC meme. $PLC cherry picks stuff for fund raising purposes. Practically everyone to the right of them is listed as a hate organization. When you consider they list solid Christian organizations, such as Family Research Council, as hate orgs, then you realize that $PLC can’t be trusted for anything.

    If you want to take the word of an organization that was founded as a fund raising scam, that’s up to you.

  43. Quartermaster
    December 10th, 2015 @ 6:13 am

    And that’s about the best that can said in your favor.

  44. Quartermaster
    December 10th, 2015 @ 6:14 am

    The GOPe hated Reagan. Since then, they have done their best to prevent anyone else remotely like him from getting through the primaries.

  45. Quartermaster
    December 10th, 2015 @ 6:17 am

    Not Trump supporter, but he at least talks a good game. The Jeb and other assorted GOPe idiots tell us they just want to be better DimoKKKraps.

  46. Quartermaster
    December 10th, 2015 @ 6:33 am

    The IRBMs were removed as part of the deal over Cuba.

  47. Quartermaster
    December 10th, 2015 @ 6:42 am

    Open borders will never work as long as you have a militant ideology, such as Islam, looking to destroy you.

  48. Bob Belvedere
    December 10th, 2015 @ 7:04 am

    Thank you for the kind words.

  49. NeoWayland
    December 10th, 2015 @ 7:26 am

    My point is that honoring your promises is more important than politicos fear mongering.

  50. Squid Hunt
    December 10th, 2015 @ 7:32 am

    Why should government get to say where I go or who I associate with?