I’m generally a fan of columnist George Will, but in his
December 23rd Washington Post opinion piece and attack on Donald
Trump he misses his mark by a wide margin, which is unusual for this skilled
writer.
His first point was Trump’s “unpleasantness” which has
not been displayed at all in my opinion. I believe Trump’s humor and his
willingness to oppose the standard, liberal, enlightened Washington line, and
tell the truth about what’s disrupting America, is refreshing and is a big plus
in his favor. But while I see Trump as telling the long overdue truth, Mr. Will
sees his expressions as being embarrassing. But that’s Mr. Will’s problem as
well as his protection, because as long as he has identified Trump as being
crass and unacceptable to the silk-slippered upper crust of Washington and New York,
he will still be invited to the correct crowd’s cocktail parties, so with this
article he is home safe with these fashionable wastrels.
Mr. Will then consumes three paragraphs with remarks
about Vladimir Putin and his recent, seemingly favorable remarks about Trump,
but I believe Mr. Will has fallen into the trap of the crafty Putin: our Vlad
assumes that if he speaks well of an American politician the American public, especially
but not exclusively the cushy left, will oppose that politician. But many American conservatives are favorably
disposed to Trump for the opposite reason: Putin could only be speaking
favorably of Trump to scare Americans and generate opinion against the Donald, and
most of us can see through this veil and are not fooled. I think Putin fears a
Trump presidency following the absolute incompetence and anti-American behavior
of the Obama administration, just as the Iranian Mullahs feared a Reagan
presidency following the foolish Jimmy Carter era.
But the subject of Will’s article, “If trump wins the
nomination, prepare for the end of the conservative party” was never really
engaged head-on by him, and was absolutely not proven to be the case in his article.
The main thing Mr. Will missed (and I know he knows better) is that there is no
“conservative party” in American politics. Conservatives have traditionally
been part of the Republican Party. But conservatives have been, at the very least,
ignored and taken for granted, if not undermined and mistreated by the
Republican Party, for at least the last 20 years. Republican establishment
leaders know the right words to use to satisfy conservatives, but they never
follow up on those words with conservative policy. Republican establishment
leaders care more about maintaining their lofty positions than they care for
the welfare of America, or the furthering of real conservative values and traditions.
As Ronald Reagan often said when he explained why he became
a Republican after being a member of the Democrat Party for several years: he told
us that he didn’t leave the Democrat Party, the Democrat Party left him. Similarly, Establishment Republicans have
left American conservatives, and it’s refreshing to have leaders like Donald Trump
and Ted Cruz speaking like real conservatives for a change. Maybe the
Republican Party can be salvaged and resurrected to its former, powerful and
independent-thinking self, instead of being a yes-man to liberal policy just to
keep the money guys happy and dealing out the dough.
