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Every time Donald Trump wins a caucus or a primary, a Hell-bat gets its wings, and responsible Republicans lose their hair. At the beginning of the 2016 nomination race, I joined with many Republicans who rejoiced at our crowded field of diverse and substantive candidates. When Donald Trump descended the escalator to a puny gaggle of paid supporters, cropped by cameras to hide their pitiful numbers, I didn’t worry. His candidacy reassured me that the race was ours to lose–the road to the White House ran through the GOP. Moreover, I didn’t think Trump was serious. He notoriously trolls for profit. He trolled people about running for president many times before. He trolled people about Barack Obama’s birth certificate. Trump speaks in large, empty gesticulations–it’s his native language.

Then, he filed FEC paperwork.

Then, he started appearing (mostly via telephone) on mainstream news and politic shows.

Then, coworkers, who I had considered reasonably sane, openly voiced support for Trump, and not ironically.

Boasting strong showings in multiple polls, and having won primaries and caucuses, Trump has proven that he really can do anything without losing one iota of support.

While I do not believe that Trump will ultimately win the Republican nomination, I can’t ignore the fact that I’ve been wrong about him throughout this entire campaign.

What if I’m wrong now? What if Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination? How should a responsible Republican vote, if at all?

Alas! I offer the following solution should we have to break the glass and grab the fire extinguisher: we vote. We don’t vote for Trump–he’s not a conservative or a Republican. For the same reason, we don’t vote for the Democrat candidate either. We don’t vote third party.

We vote in every other race but the presidency. We vote for Republican congressmen, senators, comptrollers, and governors. We support every Republican who, like us, care about the party and about advancing conservative ideas and conservative principles.

Among other things, a Trump nomination threatens every Republican running for office. If we stay home because Trump sits atop the ticket, we may undo the very important gains we won in 2010 and 2014. The country would again suffer under a Democrat president with a complicit legislature–and, again, a Hell-bat gets its wings.

A Donald Trump nomination frightens me, but not as much as the nightmare scenario that would occur if we shirk our responsibility.
Remember, in 2016 the Democrats host a coronation–not us. Trump hasn’t won the nomination yet, and I truly do not believe that he will. If he does, however, remember the many innocent Republicans further down the ballot before dusting off your passport.

Democrats’ current apoplexy stems from Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, refusing to confirm any of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominees to replace the late Associate Justice, Antonin Scalia. Ruth Marcus, at The Washington Post, calls the Senate (in)action a “sit-down strike,” in a piece titled “The GOP’s dangerously dogmatic Supreme Court Obstructionism [emphasis added].” Kathleen Parker, of the same paper, fancied that Scalia would regard the Senate’s move as “childish.” Governor Andrew Cuomo weighed in on the controversy calling the Senate’s recalcitrance a “disservice.” Truthfully, however, none of the Democrats’ lachrymose complaints or apocalyptic warnings can obscure their nakedly political origins. Moreover, their feeble appeals to principle and institutional respect attempt to mask a more powerful critique of modern liberalism–namely, its authoritarian impulse.

Finding evidence that Democrats care less about institutional integrity than they do about their own political ends proves a simple task. Consider the absence of liberal outrage when Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in 2007 (under a Republican president), “I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm any [George W.] Bush nominee to the Supreme Court except in extraordinary circumstances.” He went on to say that Senate Democrats should “reverse the presumption of confirmation.” Nine years later, Schumer argues that his words are no longer relevant.

In 1992, Vice President Joe Biden (then a U.S. Senator) advised the same course of action against George H.W. Bush.

“It is my view,” Biden said, “that if a Supreme Court Justice retires…President Bush should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors, and not–and not–name a nominee until after the November election is completed.” He goes on, “It is my view that if the President…presses an election year nomination, the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination.”

 

Despite the evidence that McConnell’s move simply constitutes run-of-the-mill obstruction, Ruth Marcus argues that “[shutting] down the confirmation process would be bad for the court, [and] bad for the country.” After all, she says, in regards to important cases, an 8-person Court cannot offer a majority opinion. Furthermore, “Citizens deserve conclusive answers on issues important enough to reach the high court…”

Of course, the Republic will not disintegrate because Obama doesn’t get his judge. Our legal system addresses her concerns, remanding 4-4 split decisions to the lower court. Citizens, therefore, will receive the conclusive answers to the pressing political issues that they deserve. Crisis averted.

So if McConnell’s move does not threaten the nation, the Court, or Senate integrity, why are liberals so enraged? Because liberals are by nature authoritarian, and the balance of powers threatens that disposition.

Wail as they will about elections having consequences, and how that means that the twice elected President holds a mandate to appoint Supreme Court justices unimpeded. If elections really are mandates, the will of the people to staunch the Democrats’ agenda occurred more recently and definitively. Contesting that low voter turnout for midterm Congressional elections favors Republicans, Democrats unwittingly acknowledge that their voters prefer to enact their will through the Executive Branch, which explains why they stay home for midterm elections.

Consider, for example, that President Obama’s greatest critics express vexation on account of his unilateral disregard for the other branches of government: We regret that Obama circumvented governmental checks and balances to implement a non-treaty treaty with Iran. We abhor Obama’s executive order granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrant children. We criticized his public reproach of the Court in his 2010 State of the Union address–signalling contempt for a Court because it delivered a decision with which he disagrees. Even the President’s signature achievement–The Affordable Care Act (ACA)–passed undemocratically: The bill skated through the Democrat-controlled Senate which had changed the legislative procedural rules ad hoc after Scott Brown, a Republican who promised to be the deciding vote against the ACA, won Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat. Democrats, have always cheered the imposition of their agenda–especially when they can use authoritative means to enact it.  
Mitch McConnell has a perfectly legitimate right not to confirm any Obama nominees–and the Democrats know it. Falling for the Left’s newfound respect for august federal institutions means falling for deceit. Their expressed concerns about the Court and the Senate as institutions provide scant cover for their open lust for unaccountable liberal power. In the meantime, both parties stare down a fateful 2016 election with an eye on Scalia’s seat, and on a few others as well.

Republicans concluded another presidential nomination debate before tens of millions of American viewers. Pundits routinely, and rightly, note that the wide field of candidates represent the best the party has ever presented. Amidst the conversations about tactics, temperaments, and policy, lies another debate about insiders and outsiders–The Establishment and the grassroots–populists and elitists. While elements of this latter debate exist in nearly every primary election, the Tea Party movement intensified the rift. The beneficial aspect of the populist focus is an engaged and empowered electorate: conservatives pay closer attention to their elected officials, and those officials pay attention to their constituents. The worst aspect of this focus has been an irrational disdain for powerless politicians, and a ravenous appetite for the immediate gratification gained from futile grandstanding gestures. While liberals enjoy lampooning our process, the Republican nomination race will serve to strike the right balance between these two passions.

Compare the reality on the right, with that on the left.

Governor Martin O’Malley leads an angry throng of liberals against DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to encourage the party to add more debates. The current schedule, in his view, rigs the nomination so that it favors Hillary Clinton–The Queen of the Democrat Establishment.

“This sort of rigged process has never been attempted before,” O’Malley said in a fiery speech to the DNC. “Whose decree is it exactly? Where did it come from? To what end? For what purpose?”

Most Americans have no idea that Martin O’Malley is a Democrat candidate for president, and know even less about Jim Webb’s campaign.

Looming in the background is Bernie Sanders, one of the most populist Democrats to run for the nomination in decades. Drawing record crowds, attention, and donations, the 74 year old’s unapologetic liberalism emboldens supporters frustrated that conservatism precluded Barack Obama’s presidency from ushering in the liberal reawakening pundits promised in 2008 and 2009. Sanders is honest, consistent and is a true man of the people (in their view). But, the Democrat establishment detests him.

“The politicians, plutocrats and pundits of the Democratic Party establishment have no answer to Bernie Sanders’ blistering critique of their failure to defend the interests of the voters who have kept them in power,” writes Jeff Faux. “Neither have they a substantive case against his policy agenda…They have one argument: he can’t win.”

Writing in The Upshot, Nate Cohn echoes the argument about Sanders’ electability and assures Democrats that Clinton will easily secure the nomination. This assurance spawns anxiety.

Dogged by scandal and secrecy, Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers frighten supporters. A group of party activists and Obama campaign bundlers (major donors) penned a letter urging a different establishment candidate to enter the race–Vice President Joe Biden. Though Biden appeals better to populist Democrats than Hillary Clinton, his establishment ties prove strong enough to allay fears among party leaders about his electability. Still, though, this leaves the Democrat grassroots on the sidelines.

Denied an Elizabeth Warren run, barred by the DNC from choosing a candidate after a vigorous debate cycle, and shamed for supporting Bernie Sanders, what is a liberal activist to do?

Of course, the Democrat party desperately needs a populist uprising–a Tea Party. Insofar as Ralph Nader took votes from Al Gore in the 2000 election, Nader did so by appealing to grassroots liberals. Groups like Code Pink only focused on a single issue–war. Occupy Wall Street lacked the focus to successfully transform into a political vehicle for liberal change. When the varied messages were pinned down long enough to be distilled into something intelligible, what occupiers wanted was what Bernie Sanders offers–a dream that will not be delivered (at least in 2016).

As it stands, liberals may always be politically frustrated because liberalism (and the Democrat Party) functions on a top-down model. Therefore, the establishment candidates will always be wealthy elites, even the populist ones, because liberalism believes in remanding political power to the elites.

As the left mocks conservatives for our crowded stages of candidates, our bickering over ideas and tactics, we should rest assured that our problem is a good one to have. Our process will produce the most polished candidate that the elites and the grassroots can accept.
The left will be stuck with Hillary Clinton.

The second Republican Presidential Nomination Debate featured 11 candidates instead of 10, a fair amount of policy discussion, and the usual dose of bickering and argumentation. In the end, though, each candidate needed to fare well in this debate by highlighting his or her strengths and addressing deficiencies. Each candidate faces different challenges, so with that in mind, I have scored the debate’s winners and losers in the following order:

Second Place: Senator Marco Rubio

Senator Marco Rubio, again, delivered a command debate performance. As usual, he dominated on foreign affairs, fleshing out the dangers of Russian intervention in the Middle East, for example. He also related the substance of his ideas to the people they will help. One of his most powerful moments tied his upbringing in a Spanish-speaking household to his defense of speaking Spanish when conveying conservative ideas to other Spanish-speaking Americans. Despite Rubio’s fluid delivery and routinely substantive remarks, he suffers in polling. Part of his problem is that he speaks so remarkably well that he can convey a robotic, over-rehearsed quality. To this end, Rubio released a charming ad meant to show off his more human side. As far as his debate performance, though, Rubio’s challenge was to highlight his humanity and remain as substantive as ever.

In an attempt at self-deprecation, Rubio opened with an awkward joke about staying hydrated in drought-plagued California. The reference to his reach for a bottle of water in the midst of his State of the Union response in 2013 fell flat on an audience that hardly remembers the referenced event at all. Worse, it came off as the kind of “scripted spontaneity” that dooms candidates like Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney. When naturally making jokes–referring to himself as the first, not the third, senator; he comes across as more sincere.

As for remaining sharp on the issues, Rubio plays this role better than the rest.

The general consensus names Rubio the winner of the first debate and the near winner in the second. Whether this will translate to votes has yet to be seen. Still, Rubio continues to stand head and shoulders above his competitors on the debate stage.

The second Republican Presidential Nomination Debate featured 11 candidates instead of 10, a fair amount of policy discussion, and the usual dose of bickering and argumentation. In the end, though, each candidate needed to fare well in this debate by highlighting his or her strengths and addressing deficiencies. Each candidate faces different challenges, so with that in mind, I have scored the debate’s winners and losers in the following order:

First Place: CEO Carly Fiorina

Fiorina left the undercard debates to join her rivals on the main stage, and prove herself substantive enough for serious consideration. Her performance was simply stellar.

In the weeks leading up to the debate, Fiorina argued persuasively that the metric CNN used to decide who would participate in the debate contained serious flaws–mainly, that the polls CNN relied upon to book candidates were so old that they did not take recent polling fluctuations into account. Therefore, Fiorina was originally barred from the debate because her poll numbers before the first debate were low. Fiorina won the undercard debate and earned serious consideration and support from Republicans looking to replace less impressive candidates who happened to poll better than their debate performances. In effect, Fiorina entered the debate as an underdog needing to prove herself worthy of leaving the stage with candidates like Senator Lindsey Graham and Governor George Pataki to compete with candidates more widely predicted to actually capture the nomination. She not only proved herself worthy of the debate, she launched herself into the small ring of candidates that Republicans could feel completely comfortable supporting in the General Election.

Fiorina spoke competently on foreign relations, bested only by Marco Rubio and only by a small margin. She spoke movingly on human life–her voice cracking as if she were holding back tears for the millions of unborn butchered and sold for scrap. She revealed a human aspect of her life that many Americans hadn’t known about her–that she and her husband lost a child to drug addiction. She effectively turned her painful story into a warning about liberalizing drug policy and the lies claiming that marijuana is a harmless drug. As usual, too, she effectively attacked the Democrat frontrunner, Hillary Clinton.

As if this weren’t enough, Fiorina masterfully dismantled Donald Trump, the bully who in days previous made scathing remarks about Fiorina’s physical appearance as a critique of her competency to be president. In one of her many electrifying debate moments, Fiorina answered Trump’s sexist remark simply and effectively:

“I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.”

Trump tried to smooth over the moment by complimenting Fiorina’s looks–a tone deaf move–and met Fiorina’s steely gaze. That steely gaze sent daggers through the screen. It would dice Hillary Clinton to shreds in a debate. It would sober world leaders unwilling to respect an American president because of her sex. It would haunt America’s enemies.
Carly Fiorina proved herself as “The Real Deal.” She may be America’s own “Iron Lady.” Her strong debate performance brings her closer to carrying the GOP banner.

For the first GOP presidential nomination debate, I tweeted my assessment of the candidates’ performance from strongest to weakest. I came to this conclusion by judging which candidates best helped themselves. Because each candidate faces different challenges, what each must do to raise his profile varies. My assessment of the best performers and my rationale follows:

Last Place: Senator Rand Paul

Offering the absolute worst performance in the first nomination debate was Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. From my vantage point, Paul’s challenge was to broaden his support among Republicans beyond the mythical throng of libertarians awaiting a fellow traveler to rise up for their support. Libertarianism does not play well with religion, so Evangelical Christians will not flock to a Paul campaign. Libertarianism has also shown itself weak in dealing with foreign threats, so foreign policy hawks are unlikely to consider Paul. Compound his views on domestic spying, and Paul comes across as a quirky candidate, needing to cobble most of his support from unlikely sources. Paul did nothing in the first debate to endear himself to any of these unlikely sources.

“You’re having a hard time tonight.”

These words, from Donald Trump summed up Paul’s experience perfectly.

From the outset, interrupting the proceedings to attack Donald Trump, Paul came across as a small, yipping, dog: eager to start fights he can’t win. When the general idea among the candidates was to avoid getting into scuffles with Trump, Paul went headlong into foolish territory and paid dearly by losing stature.

Then, came the infamous fight with Governor Chris Christie, in which Christie annihilated Paul as a grandstanding senator who doesn’t face the consequences of his votes and speeches as directly as Christie faces the results of his decisions. Paul resorted to a cheap shot about Christie hugging President Barack Obama weeks ahead of the 2012 election, but Christie turned that barb around by talking about hugging the 9-11 victims’ families who suffered because domestic spying resources weren’t employed before the attacks. Paul looked sullenly at the floor and shrank away until tepidly delivering his closing remarks.

“I am a different kind of Republican…”

Indeed he is. On the fringe. Finishing last in the first GOP Presidential nomination debate.