Back in the summer, I predicted that The Weekly Standard crowd would head back over to the Democrats if Trump won the nomination. Privately Bill Kristol has been sounding out party big shots about how best to stop Trump. He has hinted at his own plan to bolt the party if Trump won the nomination. Now the Hari Seldon of neo-conservatism has made it official.
On Monday, Weekly Standard editor-in-chief Bill Kristol tweeted out what the rest of the Republican establishment is thinking: better Hillary than Donald. Here’s the tweet:
Crowd-sourcing: Name of the new party we’ll have to start if Trump wins the GOP nomination? Suggestions welcome at editor@weeklystandard.com
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 20, 2015
Kristol isn’t alone. As I wrote at Daily Wire today, Politico’s Jeff Greenfield says, “If the operatives I talked with are right, Trump running as a Republican could well face a third-party run – from the Republicans themselves.” That follows last Thursday’s Politico column from former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, who compared Trump to Hitler and called him “evil,” and last Wednesday’s Politico column reporting that Jeb Bush’s aides “began looking into the possibility of making a clear break with Trump – potentially with the candidate stating that, if Trump were the nominee, Bush would not support him.”
Last week, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said that former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour “and a lot of the Republican leaders would much rather Hillary Clinton be President of the United States than have Donald Trump represent them as a Republican.” And in November, The Hill reported that “GOP establishment donors have confided to The Hill that for the first time in recent memory, they find themselves contemplating not supporting a Republican nominee for president.”
I’m old enough to remember when it was scandalous for Trump not to pledge his allegiance to the eventual Republican nominee. Now, day after day, reports from party leaders leak, stating that should Trump gain control over the party apparatus, they will simply smash the machinery.
Four months ago the same characters now planning to bolt the party made Thanks Dad and The Tart hold a loyalty oath on TV, allegedly to show that Trump was an unreliable splitter and deviationist. For months National Review On-Line has been running daily columns claiming that Trump was not a real Republican because he could bolt the party at anytime. I’m looking forward to Rich Lowry lecturing Bill Kristol about his lack of loyalty.
Despite all the cheerleading for Team GOP and conservatism, these guys were never on our side. Neo-conservatism was always a Progressive heresy, not a conservative one. That’s where the paleocons got it wrong. They saw guys like Bill Kristol as newly minted converts trying to get control of the movement. The reality is the neo-cons were trying to kill the conservative movement and they largely succeeded.
The trouble is, reality has always been on the side of conservatism. A sober (somber?) acceptance of the human condition is the the core of conservatism. The crackpot theories of the invade the word/invite the word crowd we call neocons were always going to break on the wheel of reality. The public will only tolerate so many Farouks shooting up their offices and they will only volunteer so many sons to foreign wars. We’ve reached the limit of both.
I was at a luncheon today with some old school lefties and what struck me was their weariness with their cult. They are sick of the weirdos and grievance mongers. They want to get back to bread and butter issues like defending the working classes against the predatory class and fixing up the country for Americans. They still think government is great, but I could tell they are edging close to ditching the Democrats and the social justice warriors.
This growing schism gets no airing as the cult controls the media, but liberals gotta eat too. You can be the most doctrinaire lefty in town, but when your health insurance jumps 30%, you get pissed at the people who caused it. The on-going crisis of national sovereignty and neo-feudal economics is eroding the old order. Old lefties and old righties have more in common with each other than they have with their so-called leaders.
There’s a long road between now and the time when we lock shelds against the cloud people. When the Hari Seldon of neo-conservatism is threatening to destroy one of the parties, it means the great realignment is not going to happen without a fight. Given that he and the Encyclopedists are the guys in charge, betting against them is probably foolish. But, that’s the fun part of realignments. You never know how they will turn out.
Z
Parting thought …. Trump would be like the Mule, an unforeseen wild card, and only the Remnant can deal with him and save any new civilization
and BTW, fuck neocons, and RepublicratDemican parasites
That is some machinery that needs smashing. Isn’t that the whole point of Trump?
“Given that he and the Encyclopedists are the guys in charge, betting against them is probably foolish.”
The Neocons might have all the Money and MSM on their side but Americans have become more aware in how the things really work thanks to the internet and alternative media.
Your use of Hari Seldon and the Encyclopedists is interesting. You are casting the GOP establishment as the Encyclopedists and (I assume) Trump as the Mule. Yes? Now the question becomes–is there a secret Second Foundation (GOP Establishment) around to nudge things back on track?
Z
Your use of Hari Seldon is perfect. A psychohistorian who predicts the downfall of a decaying empire, and places the kernel of a new foundation in place.
Yea, the trajectory of al-Amerikwa is clear; my only comment in the adverse is that Kristol is a mealy-mouthed insider, who’d be better portrayed as one of the court ass-sniffers in Trantor
Thanks for your blog, Merry Christmas
Huh — old Left and old Right meeting in the middle to save their country from globalist weirdos. I seem to recall this happening before. Well, not me personally — I wasn’t alive in 1920s Germany — but I did go to a high school history class once.
Fun times.
[…] the Z Man, here’s The Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol openly declaring his intention to go 3rd […]
Re Kristol and Murdoch: Murdoch’s money established the Weekly Standard and kept it alive for almost twenty years through regular subsidies. But, Murdoch then sold the magazine to Phil Anschutz who has carried it since. And he undoubtedly is essential to keeping the publication alive.
Given his wealth (high up on the Forbes list), I have always been surprised how little public attention Anschutz has attracted.
He is an Evangelical Christian of Volga German descent. Born in Kansas, he owns a great deal of ranch land in the WEst.
May Bill Kristol and the rest of the duplicitous neo-con cowards be first to the lampposts.
I was thinking the other night of a third party, and how difficult It would be to create one. Having one person run for President as a third party candidate is not the same as building an entire party structure. The goal for an effective third party would include a percent captain in every percent in the country, A county ‘board’ a state ‘board’ and a national committee. Along with that good candidates in every partisan elected office at the municipal county state and federal level, and that includes such things as natural resource boards and school boards. Is this… Read more »
The trouble with creating a third party is both the other (main, they argue) parties hate them with a passion. Technically, the UK has a three party set-up though hell would have to be made into skating rink before the LimpDumbs (or LibDems as they prefer) gain power, other than as we saw recently here, through a coalition in which they can whine away and imagine they are relevant. Pseudo commies like the Greens, the Welsh and the Scots Nats don’t count. So along came a true third party, the knee-jerk reaction UKIP lot but who rapidly drew withering fire… Read more »
Universal suffrage does not permit public political discussion to cross the shrunken boundary which it creates. That is why the political parties are what they are. No one, for example, advocates voluntary social security, the abolition of the income tax, or anything of more recent provenance still ripe for discussion. This is a one way trip to Utopia. But even that is not enough, so many of our states have crossover primaries. The lefty, his candidates securely in place, votes in the Republican primary instead. A taste of what happened in France recently. Churchill was wrong. Democracy is not the… Read more »
Z, is Kristol any more than a Rupert Murdoch sock puppet?
Murdoch is an open borders romantic, so Fox News, The Standard, the NY Post
all toe Rupert’s party line.
Before Kristol, it was Megan Kelly and the other dweebs going after The Donald.
Haley Barbour, also mentioned in the Brietbart story is surprising to me.
I would have figured him for a genuine Southern conservative.
I think the American Traitor Party is still available for a name if Bill’s still looking.
I wonder if Kristol is just in a panic over the growing realization by voters that his gang is the problem, not the solution. I’ve been looking at polling lately and the numbers say the majority of people who vote GOP are ready to walk if they have to accept another Liberal Republican. In my reading, guys like Cruz and even Rubio to some degree, are cutting in Trumps total. Rubio’s vote are the Tea Party types who have yet to figure out he is a fink. In other words, Kristol sees what’s coming and is in a panic. If… Read more »