Cannibalism on the Right- National Review’s Hit Piece on Trump
If ever there was a year for Republicans to win a presidential election, surely 2016 is the year. With Barack Obama’s popularity at an all-time low, and the chances, however small, that front-runner Hillary Clinton might be indicted for a ponderous list of felonies related to her handling of classified e-mails and influence peddling vis-à-vis the Clinton Foundation, one would think that this is the year for a Republican resurgence like no other.
However, thanks to a group of conservative malcontents including Glenn Beck, David Boaz, Brent Bozell, Mona Charon, Ben Domenech, Erick Erickson, Steven Hayward, Mark Helprin, William Kristol, Yuval Levin, Dana Loesch, Andrew McCarthy, David McIntosh, Michael Medved, Edwin Meese, Russell Moore, Michael Mukasey, Katie Pavlich, John Podhoretz, RR Reno, Thomas Sowell and Cal Thomas, the happiest politician in the United States is…Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Why? Because it is this very group of conservative pundits who are effectively doing the dirty work for Democrats, who should otherwise be worried- very worried, about their chances to retain the White House in 2017. Look again at this list of writers, many of whom are well-recognized, long-time stalwarts of the conservative movement, going back decades- and yet…
It seems that they would rather eat their own, than concede the Republican nomination to anyone who is outside the mainstream of establishment Republicans, the same establishment Republicans who allow President Obama to rule via fiat, the same establishment Republicans who concede budgetary discretion to the most spendthrift president in U.S. history, the same establishment Republicans who have oft-promised, yet never delivered, on campaign promises to promote a conservative agenda and who, once elected, blur the very lines that separate themselves from the Democrats, who always end up getting their way on the issues that matter most to the Republican electorate.
These same sanctimonious and self-serving elitists, who never gave a second thought to Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, six months ago, who were all-but-convinced that Jeb Bush would become the inevitable Republican standard-bearer, a year ago, suddenly woke up from their collective New Year’s Eve hangover, and realized that it is highly probable that either Trump or Cruz will ultimately become the Republican presidential nominee for 2016- and they cannot stand either one of these two- albeit for very different reasons, except one- both of them can win a nomination and, perhaps even win an election, without having to genuflect to the Republican kingmakers and power brokers of yesteryear- and this irritates the excrement out of them. This is precisely why, a fortnight away from the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, they decided to get together in a last-ditch effort to place a hit on the GOP front-runner.
While a Marco Rubio, a Jeb Bush, a John Kasich can take solace in the National Review’s condemnation of Donald Trump, it is none other than Hillary Rodham Clinton who dances the happy dance, that Republicans seem to be eating their own and, by publishing such hit pieces excoriating their own front-runner, are paving the way towards her own election, next fall- an election that she should otherwise stand not a chance in hell of winning, in any event.
-Drew Nickell, 26 January 2016
© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved