Leslie Gore and the Establishment Republicans
Most Americans alive today do not know who Leslie Gore (1946-2015) was, but in 1963, hers was a household name. The song she recorded on March 30, 1963, which climbed to the top of the Billboard charts two months later as the nation’s number one hit, has much in common with establishment Republicans who still refuse to acknowledge and support their presumptive nominee, Donald J. Trump.
The song was entitled “It’s My Party (and I’ll cry if I want to),” and it could easily become the theme song for recalcitrant Republicans who would rather see the election of Democrat Hillary Clinton than support the presumptive presidential nominee of their own party. Included in this group are former Presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, former New York Governor George Pataki, former New Jersey Governor Christie Todd Whitman, former Massachusetts Governor and 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, former Texas Senator Ron Paul, a half dozen sitting Republican Congressmen and a host of political pundits including Rich Lowry, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Katie Pavlich and George Will. Add to this the real possibility that House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) will join this group on a permanent basis, and it becomes obvious who is trying to destroy what remains of the Republican Party- and it is most certainly not Donald Trump.
Interestingly enough, at least three of these Republican rattlesnakes, Jeb Bush, George Pataki and Lindsey Graham, actually signed pledges that they would support the eventual Republican nominee, regardless of who that nominee happens to be. So much for pledges signed by politicians whose word is worth about as much as the money in a Monopoly game set.
Lessons learned the hard way are never without associated pain, as when children learn that playing with matches can cause burned fingers, or worse. The lesson that has yet to be learned by these politicos is the lesson of who actually “owns” the Republican Party, at the end of the day.
Is the Republican Party “owned” by its voters, who clearly decided that Donald Trump would be their party’s nominee, or is the G.O.P. owned by those obstructive and obstinate operatives who think so highly of themselves, that they would risk the destruction of their own party, and deny the will of their own constituents?
True enough, Donald Trump often says stupid things which these elitists find bothersome, but such an ailment is shared by each and every one of these recalcitrant Republicans, as well as their Democrat counterparts. Given the fact that the last four GOP nominees (Mitt Romney, John McCain, George W. Bush, and Bob Dole) were hardly “true conservatives,” it has nothing to do with political purview, either. Hence the issue of their disdain for Trump most certainly is not related to what he has said, nor the degree of his conservativism, as they would have us believe.
The reason for their disdain is that Donald Trump’s success in eliminating all sixteen of his opponents in the Republican race, lays bare for all to see, the fact that their vision of what it means to be a Republican has proven to be a false narrative, and thereby threatens the lofty position that they have come to believe they hold within the Republican Party. Rather than admit that their vision was imperfect, rather than change and amend to the will of their voters, these reprobates would turn their coats inside out and see the election of Hillary Clinton, instead. Trump’s potential for loss in the general election can be directly and proportionally tied to these traitors within his own party, and such prospects are the song to which Hillary Clinton dances with glee.
This leads to the central question of who is really destroying the Republican Party.
Here’s a clue: It’s not the candidate who has brought millions and millions of new voters to the ranks of the Republican rolls, but rather the “holier than thou” attitude of those elitists who are losing their grip on the party that they have controlled for far too long, and who refuse to learn the hard lessons of 2016.
Cry as they want to, it’s no longer their party. The sooner they come to realize this, the better for all concerned.
-Drew Nickell, 8 May 2016
© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.