Live from La Farine: The Goldwater-Nixon-Gingrich Curse Strikes Back!: I think that it was during the Goldwater campaign that the worthies of the Republican Party decided that their presidential nominee ought to be a celebrity to rally the base rather than a statesman to govern the country.
Thanks to Jeet Heer, we have in the front of our minds right now William F. Buckey's opinion back in 1964 of the man he was working hard to promote, Barry Goldwater as recounted by John Judis:
"In 1964, [Buckley] met Richard Clurman, the chief of correspondents at Time...
...Clurman have just been through an editors' lunch at Time with Barry Goldwater... appalled at Goldwater's inability to answer even routine questions. He asked Buckley, "How does someone with your obvious intellectual gifts become a prime supporter of a very pleasant, but obviously such limited, man?" According to Clurman, Buckley replied, "Barry Goldwater is a man of tremendously decent instincts, and with a basic banal but important understanding of the Constitution and what it means in American life." "but would happen if you were elected President of the United States?" Calrmen asked. "that might be a serious problem," Buckley quipped. "At that moment," Clurman later explained, "we became friends..."
We could remark on several things. We could remark on the large gap between the exoteric teaching the conservative Republican worthies speak to their base and the esoteric teaching that the speak in private to the well-informed. We could remark on the fact that their ability to run this particular con game is breaking down--and people like Ted Cruz are trying to accelerate that breakdown. But most worth remarking on is that while the Republican worthies want celebrities who will hit their marks and say the lines drafted by the Governing Institution, the celebrities they have trained the base to respond to do not agree:
: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Trump-Mania?: "David Frum... proposing yet another plan for how ‘the establishment’ can bring down Donald Trump...
...call[ing] out Trump for hiring undocumented workers and flip-flopping on the issue. I personally don’t think that will work.... But in the course of setting that up, Frum buried the kicker:
Now the same party leaders who insisted that Sarah Palin could do the job of president, if need be, want to persuade the rank-and-file that Trump can’t? Good luck with that.
Boom!... What Martin said.... They took this genie out of the bottle and now they can’t figure out how to get it back in.... John McCain in 2008... flipped the conventional wisdom and ran as a centrist during the primary and then had to make up some ground with the far right to prepare for the general election. Hence, he brought us Sarah Palin. When Republicans lost that race to Barack Obama, they tapped into all the energy Palin had stirred up... the same flames Donald Trump is exploiting today. Greg Sargent expressed his skepticism that any of the attacks... against Trump will have an effect on his supporters. To demonstrate how right he is about that, take a look at this post one... [Trump supporter] wrote....
You truly Mr. GOP whatever, underestimated the voter here. In voter, I am speaking of the TRUMP VOTER. The one who knows the games, the drills, and will never vote for any other GOP candidate no matter what you do. I, myself will vote for Micky Mouse before I vote for any other than Trump! You have just ruined the club you call a party.... So puppet controllers for the puppet masters.... I am done with you and America wants Trump and we will vote for Donald Trump either third party or on your lousy ticket. You, however, are done. Broken, and over. You have had your last party, enjoy it!
Her commenters obviously agree. Here’s just the first....
I knew the GOP wasn’t to be trusted, they hate Trump, they can’t control him because he is his own man. I know I am not the only one that will vote for him and no one else, whether he runs GOP or 3rd Party. He has the vision, the intelligence and the guts to do what is right for America and its people, he owes no one and he will make the tough decisions. He’s not interested in being PC he’s interested in saving this Nation. The GOP should be ashamed, they should be backing Trump all the way, but that would be against everything they believe in… their own self interests. Go Trump will be heard loud and clear across the land and this will backfire on you establishment GOP’rs!!!!!
Nothing anyone says about Trump is going to change these people’s mind. Attacks on him only reinforce what they already believe--which is that the Republican Party has abandoned them and is terminally broken. The Grand Old Party created an insurgency that is now turning on them. That’s what Trump-mania is coming down to.
