Questions Deserving Intelligent Answers

Do Conservatives And Liberals Have Enough in Common to Keep A Country Together Anymore?

11/18/2017 - John Hawkins Townhall.com

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” – The Declaration of Independence

Remember the woman who was fired for flipping off Trump’s motorcade? Well, she has been deluged with job offers from liberals and a Gofundme set up in her name has raised 117k dollars and counting. This seems like a small thing, but it’s indicative of where we are as a society.

There was a time when doing something trashy like flipping off a presidential motorcade would be frowned upon -- not because everyone loves the President, but because no one with class would do anything like that. Those days are gone and they’ve been replaced by non-stop trolling, outright hatred of people with differing opinions and grotesque tribalism. Gridlock has become the rule of the day in Congress for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest is that the Right and Left simply don’t agree on much anymore.

Just as an example, ask yourself this question:  how many of the fundamental questions about American life do you agree with Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi on? Think about the basic questions of American life.

The Constitution? Conservatives believe in it. Liberals believe in a “living Constitution” which is fundamentally no different than having no Constitution at all.

Religion? Conservatives tend to believe in Judeo-Christian values. Even atheists who are conservative tend to at least be friendly to those values. Liberals mock Judeo-Christian values.

What about patriotism? Conservatives tend to love their country. Liberals love this country like a wife-beater loves his spouse.

Conservatives tend to be capitalists. Liberals tend to be socialists. Conservatives believe people should be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Liberals believe your race defines you. Conservatives believe in equality of opportunity. Liberals believe in equality of results. Conservatives believe in freedom of speech. Liberals are fine with silencing people that disagree with them. Conservatives believe in small government. Liberals believe in a frighteningly powerful central government dictating your every move.

That last one is perhaps the most significant because if liberals could live the way they want in California, New York and Connecticut while conservatives could live as they please in Texas, South Carolina and Utah, we could shrug off our differences. As the government in Washington becomes ever more powerful, that is no longer allowed.

Getting back to that central question, what do you agree with Nancy Pelosi or Barack Obama on? There are certainly some things. For example, Nancy Pelosi represents San Francisco and presumably likes the city. I’ve visited and certainly liked it as well. Barack Obama likes golf and basketball. Certainly there are plenty of conservatives who feel the same way. If we got right down to it, there are probably plenty of conservatives who like the same clothes, restaurants and TV shows that Obama and Pelosi do…but, is that enough to hold together a nation over the long haul?

America is going to be testing that proposition over the next few decades.

Recently, a Republican group in North Carolina asked me to come out and speak. After my speech, there was a Q&A session and someone there asked me, “Is it time for people who love their country to get their guns, head to D.C. and do something about what’s happening in our country?”

Just to be clear, he wasn’t advocating a terrorist attack or a random shooting; he was asking if it is time for patriots who love this country to attempt to overthrow the government to help bring our nation back to Constitutional governance.

What DIDN’T happen is worth noting. Nobody laughed. Nobody shouted, “Oh, come on!” Nobody said, “Oh, that’s just crazy, Dave. You’ll have to excuse him and his wild questions.” Instead, people sat quietly and listened for my response.

The short version of what I told him was “no.” It is not time to split the country apart and have a revolution. That’s a very extreme step and it should only be taken in the direst of circumstances

The longer version of what I told him is that he’s right to be concerned about the country and that, yes, it is entirely possible we won’t hold together long term. What happens when we – almost inevitably at this point – have a debt-driven economic crash which causes Social Security and Medicare to be gutted? Other than wanting to get those checks, what do we have holding us together anymore? Eating lunch at McDonald’s? Watching The Walking Dead? NFL games….oh wait, sorry. We don’t even have that anymore.

We have broken bonds as a nation before:  first, with the British, then during the Civil War. Regrettably, we may be headed toward another break down the road. That’s not something anyone should welcome, but when large percentages of the population are forced to live under grating rules they disagree with in the strongest of terms, paid for with increasingly large amounts of tax money they didn’t want to give up and implemented by people they don’t like, respect or feel bound to as a people, no wise person should assume that will continue indefinitely.

California a Medieval Manor of Knights & Peasants

Is California Cracking Up?

8/10/2017 - Victor Davis Hanson Townhall.com

Corporate profits at California-based transnational corporations such as Apple, Facebook and Google are hitting record highs.

California housing prices from La Jolla to Berkeley along the Pacific Coast can top $1,000 a square foot.

It seems as if all of China is willing to pay premium prices to get their children degreed at Caltech, Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA or USC.

Yet California -- after raising its top income tax rate to 13.3 percent and receiving record revenues -- is still facing a budget deficit of more than $1 billion. There is a much more foreboding state crisis of unfunded liabilities and pension obligations of nearly $1 trillion.

Soon, new gas tax hikes, on top of green mandates, might make California gas the most expensive in the nation, despite the state's huge reserves of untapped oil.

Where does the money go, given that the state's schools and infrastructure rank among America's worst in national surveys?

Illegal immigration over the last 30 years, the exodus of millions of middle-class Californians, and huge wealth concentrated in the L.A. basin and Silicon Valley have turned the state into a medieval manor of knights and peasants, with ever fewer in between.

The strapped middle class continues to flee bad schools, high taxes, rampant crime and poor state services. About one-third of the nation's welfare recipients reside in California. Approximately one-fifth of the state lives below the poverty line. More than a quarter of Californians were not born in the United States.

Many of the state's wealthiest residents support high taxes, no-growth green policies and subsidies for the poor. They do so because they reside in apartheid neighborhoods and have the material and political wherewithal to become exempt from the consequences of their own utopian bromides.

Blue California has no two-party politics anymore. Its campuses, from Berkeley to Claremont, have proven among the most hostile to free speech in the nation.

A few things keep California going. Its natural bounty, beauty and weather draw in people eager to play California roulette. The state is naturally rich in minerals, oil and natural gas, timber and farmland. The world pays dearly for whatever techies based in California's universities can dream up.

That said, the status quo is failing.

The skeletons of half-built bridges and overpasses for a $100 billion high-speed-rail dinosaur remind residents of the ongoing boondoggle. Meantime, outdated roads and highways -- mostly unchanged from the 1960s -- make driving for 40 million both slow and dangerous. Each mile of track for high-speed rail represents millions of dollars that were not spent on repairing and expanding stretches of the state's decrepit freeways -- and hundreds of lives needlessly lost each year.

The future of state transportation is not updated versions of 19th-century ideas of railways and locomotives, but instead will include electric-powered and automatically piloted cars -- all impossible without good roads.

Less than 40 percent of California residents identify themselves as conservative. But red-county California represents some 75 percent of California's geographical area. It's as if large, rural Mississippi and tiny urban Massachusetts were one combined state -- all ruled by liberal Boston.

Now, a third of the state thinks it can pull off a "Calexit" and leave the United States. Calexit's unhinged proponents have no idea that they are mimicking the right-wing arguments of the Confederate states that prompted the Civil War. Like South Carolina residents in 1861, Calexit advocates seem to assume that federal law should apply everywhere else except in California. Many of these California residents also believe that the federal Environmental Protection Agency should always override local ordinances, but not so with another federal bureau, Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

South Carolina started the Civil War by shelling and capturing federal property at Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay. Calexit wannabe secessionists similarly assume that thousands of square miles of federal property -- from California federal courtrooms and post offices to national parks such as Yosemite to huge military bases such as Camp Pendleton -- belong to the state and could simply be confiscated from the federal government.

Calexit proponents assume California can leave the union without an authorizing amendment to the Constitution, ratified by three-fourths of all the states. And they fail to see that should California ever secede, it would immediately split in two. The coastal strip would go the way of secessionist Virginia. The other three-quarters of the state's geography would remain loyal to the union and become a new version of loyalist West Virginia.

Buying a home on the California coast is nearly impossible. The state budget can only be balanced through constant tax hikes. Finding a good, safe public school is difficult. Building a single new dam during the California drought to capture record runoff water in subsequent wet years proved politically impossible.

No matter. Many Californians consider those existential problems to be a premodern drag, while they dream of postmodern trains, the legalization of pot-growing -- and seceding from the United States of America.

Ann Hits The Nail On The Head!

New Democratic Spin Cycle: Launders Money, Gets Out The Toughest Sleaze!

11/8/2017 - Ann Coulter Townhall.com

The Democrats have two very different profiles. One is their public face of absolute moral purity. They're just better people than Republicans.

That's what you're buying when you walk into the Democratic store: pure virtue. They've got nothing else on the shelves. No beef jerky, no wiper fluid, no Gatorade.

The other profile is reality: In the backroom, where the employees eat lunch, the Democrats and their fat-cat donors are committing unspeakably sleazy and immoral acts.

Everyone on the left knows this. That's why, the moment Harvey Weinstein was exposed as a sexual predator, his reflexive response was not to apologize. Accused of the kind of rapes you'd usually need a gang to commit, he put up a virtue shield by attacking the National Rifle Association.

As we recently discovered, first with Weinstein and then with the Hillary campaign paying for the Russian dossier, the left has an all-new trick that exponentially multiplies the Democrats' sleaze factor.

It used to be that Democrats like Bill Clinton would deploy FOBs -- Friends of Bill -- like James Carville and Sidney Blumenthal to smear his victims. Now, they run their Watergate-style "ratf---ing" through law firms.

Ronan Farrow writes in this week's New Yorker that Weinstein deployed a raft of spies to befriend and deceive his accusers in order to collect information that could be used against them.

A spy with the Israeli private investigations firm Black Cube used a fake name and fake foundation to meet actress Rose McGowan. Then, pretending to be a deeply sympathetic women's rights advocate, the agent secretly tape-recorded the actress, hoping to get incriminating evidence against her.

At a minimum, this is unspeakably repellent and possibly illegal.

And who hired the spies? Not Weinstein! The law firm of David Boies, prominent Democratic attorney.

Using a law firm as a cut-out between the client -- an alleged sexual predator -- and the people stealthily recording his accusers has one very useful purpose: It places the spy agency's work behind the protection of attorney-client privilege.

Boies pretends to be steeped in the ethics of his profession, flying to California to argue against the "hate" of Proposition 8 and rushing to Florida after the 2000 election to defend Al Gore's rightful claim to the presidency.

But now we find out he's been harassing and intimidating a rape victim on behalf of his client (the rapist) with private eyes who lie about their identity and motives, wasting hours of the victim's time with false promises of support for her cause -- a cause she has taken up precisely because of her alleged rape by the lawyer's client.

Whether or not this violates any bar association ethical canons, it's certainly despicable.

Two weeks ago, we found out that the law firm cut-out maneuver was the exact same technique used by Hillary's campaign to obtain damaging information on Donald Trump from the Kremlin -- the infamous Russian dossier. The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee shelled out $12 million seeking incriminating information on Trump from Russian government officials.

Just like Weinstein, the Democrats funneled money for a nefarious purpose through a law firm. To wit: The Democrats paid a law firm (Perkins Coie), which paid a private investigations firm (Fusion GPS), which in turn paid a spy (Christopher Steele), and Steele paid Russian government officials for dirt on Trump.

When the media found out that Donald Trump Jr. had taken a meeting with a friend of a friend, because she claimed to have incriminating information from Russia on Hillary, the word "treason" filled the airwaves. Hillary's vice presidential nominee, Sen. Tim Kaine (D- Va.), called Don Jr.'s pointless meeting "potentially treason."

MSNBC's favorite former Bush official, lunatic Richard Painter, said anyone who "wanted to help the Russians (disrupt our election process) engaged in treasonous conduct." Al Sharpton said that the willingness to accept "information to discredit your potential opponent in an American election from Russia -- from what is supposed to be an enemy state" -- raised the prospect of treason.

If that's "treason," then what is it when the Democrats reach out to the Russians and pass them money for dirt on Hillary's opponent in a presidential election? Wasn't that dossier an attempt to discredit her opponent and disrupt the election?

Remember: Don Jr. didn't seek a meeting with any Russians to get compromising information on Hillary, nor did he receive any. The Russian woman was using the pretense of having dirt on Hillary as a ruse to get a meeting, so that she could lobby Don Jr. on the Magnitsky Act.

Unlike Don Jr., the Democrats didn't wait to be asked! They paid $12 million, funneled through a law firm, seeking information on Trump from Russian government officials.

But we're not allowed to mention it because the Clinton campaign and DNC used Weinstein's money laundering technique.

The attorney-client privilege is intended to ensure that people are completely truthful with their attorneys. It is not supposed to be a shelter for any sordid, and possibly illegal, behavior by liberals. 

Awaken! To Our Awful Situation

Has America Passed the Point of No Return?

7/4/2017 - Michael Brown Townhall.com

Is it too late for America? Are the nation’s best days behind us? Can our sickly country be saved?

On July 1, 2016, conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza sent out an email titled, “On The Brink Of Losing America Forever,” and it certainly feels that we are that close. But have we passed the point of no return?

We could all point to a virtual mountain of sins and crimes that are rampant in our country, including the killing of more than 55 million babies in the womb. We could all indict America on many fronts. That is easy to do. But has Almighty God written us off forever?

As we celebrate the 241st anniversary of our nation this July 4th, this is the most important question we can ask. Everything else is secondary. Can America be saved?

In my first book on revival, written in 1989, I asked, “Is God through with America? Is He ready to spew us out of His mouth? Is it too late for revival? Is our country ready to die?”

Now, almost 30 years later, these questions are much more urgent. Do we realize how much farther we have fallen?

I have asked these questions again in my newest book, Saving a Sick America: A Prescription for Moral and Cultural Reformation, due out in September. It is a book filled with great hope for our future. But it is a hope based in realism, since we will never get healthy unless we realize just how sick we are.

To use a physical analogy, America has cancer, and without radical treatment, that cancer will soon be terminal. But with major medical intervention and a total change of lifestyle, the prognosis is promising. How will we respond? Taking a pill and taking a nap will not cure our condition. Trying to eat a little better won’t reverse a mortal disease.

In the same way, a nice church service won’t turn the tide, a lovely sermon won’t awaken us, and a casual prayer meeting won’t stir us from our stupor. We need a sense of desperation and urgency. Do we have it? Are we praying and crying out and making changes in our own lives as if America hung in the balance?

We need another great awakening – a massive, spiritual revival – but a national awakening will not come up without national desperation. How hungry are we? How urgent are our prayers? How intense is our desire for God to visit our nation? Do we realize how sick we are?

In the introductory chapter to Saving a Sick America, I wanted to paint a picture of just how far we had fallen, and do so in just a few pages. How could I drive this home? While giving this prayerful consideration one day, everything became clear. I would tell the story of an all-American dad who fell asleep while watching Leave It to Beaver with his family in 1961, only to wake up in 2017. The changes are stark and shocking and disturbing. How did we get from there to here?

But my goal in that chapter (and in the book as a whole) was not to depress us or discourage us. Instead, my goal was to awaken us to the urgency of the hour so that we will turn to God with urgency and make urgent changes in our lives.

It is not too late for America unless we make it too late by our complacency and carnality and indifference. But if we will turn to God with all our heart and soul, our best days could be ahead, as preposterous as that may sound.

That’s why the last chapter of the book is called, “The Church’s Great Opportunity.”  There I tell the story of an American shoe company that decided to expand overseas, sending their best salesman to start a new branch in Africa. Before he arrived, the company spent years in strategic planning, targeting this particular region as ideal for their global expansion and shipping thousands of boxes of shoes to their huge new warehouse. But within hours of the salesman’s arrival, he called the company headquarters in a panic. “Get me out of here!” he exclaimed. “No one here wears shoes!”

They flew him home immediately, temporarily halting their plans, then met as leaders to reevaluate their strategy. After lengthy discussion, they decided that their plan was sound, sending their second-best salesman.

Once again, within hours of his arrival, the salesman called headquarters with an urgent message, but this time his tone was very different. “We need thousands more boxes of shoes!” he exclaimed. “Nobody here has any shoes!” That is the mentality we must embrace here in the USA today in the midst of massive societal decline. Everyone needs what we have to offer.

As I wrote in Saving a Sick America, “Without a doubt, our nation is desperately sick, on the edge of spiraling into moral and cultural chaos. And without a doubt, much of the church is backslidden, having been seduced into apathy, lethargy, and carnality by a compromised, watered down ‘gospel’ and by the endless temptations of the age. In many ways, these are dark days for our country spiritually and morally, and we must not minimize the urgency of the hour. But rather than throw our hands up in despair, we should recognize that this is the perfect opportunity for the church of Jesus to rise up in the truth and power of the Spirit, bringing the message of life and transformation to our very sick country. This is the church’s great opportunity. This is our time to stand.”

By God’s grace, I’m determined to stand strong, to speak the truth and live the truth, regardless of cost or consequence, and to turn to God will all my heart. Can we stand together? Do we really have a choice?

I truly believe that America can still be saved, but only if we do not minimize the urgency of the hour.

National Culture = Secure Border + Unique Language

The Best Way Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month: Build the Wall!

10/8/2017 - Arthur Schaper Townhall.com

Honestly, I have no problem with our President and government recognizing different cultures, as long as they have contributed to the American mosaic. Remember the sage words of Hector Saint John de Crevecoeur, the French-born American farmer who outlined the new American nationality to the world: “What is this American? This new man? He has become an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. Here individuals of all races are melted into a new race of man, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. Americans are the western pilgrims.”

There is the beauty of this wonderful country. Our backgrounds do not predetermine our future, nor undermine our potential. We can celebrate our ethnic heritage while rejoicing in our shared, new identity as Americans. Among those “western pilgrims” include men and women of Hispanic descent. Admiral David Farragut commanded the Union Navy during the Civil War, helped implement the Anaconda Plan to squeeze Southern ports and commerce into submission: “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”

Some of the most ardent Hispanic-American patriots have lived in the United States for generations, if not centuries. They include Governor Susana Martinez, who can trace her heritage back to the early 1800s, before the New Mexican territory joined the United States. Today, Latinos for Trump have shaped the political and cultural discussion in my home state of California, as well as other border states like Texas, Arizona, and Florida. Here in Los Angeles, Latinos for Trump, starting with Marco Gutierrez from Discovery Bay, and also including Harim Uzziel (Sephardic Jew as well as Hispanic), Elsa Aldeguer, and many others throughout the Los Angeles region are outspoken in their support for the president. Political correctness did not slow them down or silence their enthusiasm for the President.

Trump’s demand for a wall actually bolstered voters’ respect for him. Peggy Noonan, columnist for the Wall Street Journal and former speech writer for Ronald Reagan, marveled at the staggering number of Latinos who had pledged their support for Trump. No doubt, President Trump reached out very capably to Hispanic communities throughout his campaign. Who can forget Myriam Witcher at the Las Vegas, Nevada event? “I’m Hispanic, and I vote for Donald Trump!”

So, Trump celebrated his first annual Hispanic Heritage Month, and the media gave it scant attention. Wayne Dupree went off on them for their cursory glance at the event, especially following his incredible, industrious efforts in Puerto Rico along with the teams of first responders in the region. (How about the fact that 30% + voted for Trump in 2016).

Instead of reporting on the whole event at the White House, AOL and the Business Insider fixated on someone else: Fredy Burgos, a conservative Republican and active member of the Virginia Republican Party Central Committee, showed up to the White House Hispanic Heritage Month event sporting the trade red baseball cap. The mainstream media went crazy, not just because of the cap, but for what it read: “Build the Wall!”

I could not agree more. This hat was a brilliant trope, a perfect signal for the event, and a ground-breaking moment to advance Trump cause. Since when did the construction of a wall amount to racism? The most contentious moment of the Trump campaign followed from his Phoenix, Arizona speech. “When Mexico sends her people, they’re not sending their best ...” And the rest is political history, and astounding history because in spite of the sage wisdom of consultants, Beltway bureaucrats, and K Street lobbyists, Trump’s stark, critical remarks about illegal immigration and its damaging impact on Americans resonated with voters. He won the election, after all, and many Hispanics for Trump told me that he was spot-on with his remarks.

Like Fredy Burgos, they want the wall! In city council meeting after city council meeting, Latinos for Trump have been outspoken in their demands for border security. One organizer in our movement, Faris Ibrik of Texas, now living in West Hollywood, told me about his life in Mexico. Not only did he not receive fair special treatment while going to school, he faced discrimination of his own, since he was born in the United States, and also of Middle Eastern background.

When Trump sounded the alarm about immigration from Mexico, not only was he not offended, but he decided right then “I’m voting for Trump!” That brings us back to Fredy Burgos. “Build the Wall” his hat declared to the audience and to the world. Defend one’s country is not racist, but an expression of sovereignty

For Burgos, the wall is more than a concrete barrier for public safety. Cultural Marxism, the disdain for America’s egalitarian Judeo-Christian republic, is undermining us, and Virginia’s polititcal Establishment wants Burgos removed from the Central Committee. But Latino for Trump Burgos won’t be stopped. He wants that wall. A secure border means a secure American identity committed to the E Pluribus Unum vision outlined by Crevecoeur in one of his letters.

Leaders in different Hispanic communities have declared their support for border security and deportation of illegal aliens. It’s time for the political class in Washington, Republican as well as Democrat, to listen and follow through. If Trump wants to put a perfect finish on Hispanic Heritage Month, then he needs to build that wall! Mexico has a wall. Colombia has secure borders, too. Border walls are not only acceptable, but they are as Hispanic as anything else. The United States needs the wall. Prototypes are lining up in San Diego. The House of Representatives has appropriated $1.6 billion, with another $10 billion to follow. There’s no stopping us now.

President Trump’s outstanding defense of the United States, our flag, and our culture is precisely what we need, American values which President Trump vowed to uphold, defend, and promote. There is no better way for him to do so than to “Build the Wall!”

Successful Recipe: Remain Conservative, Dynamic & Determined

There Is No GOP Civil War

10/27/2017 - David Limbaugh Townhall.com

Despite the unrequited longings of the left and certain vocal Republicans, there is no civil war in the Republican Party, and there is not even widespread disaffection with President Donald Trump among rank-and-file GOP voters.

But this is not what you would assume listening to Democrats and the mainstream media or frequenting the Twitter accounts of a number of high-profile Trump-disdaining conservatives.

Sen. John McCain has been in a public feud with President Trump, as have Sens. Bob Corker and Jeff Flake, who both have announced that they will retire, lamenting the decline in dignity and manners that Trump has allegedly ushered in. And no less a Republican well-wisher than Hillary Clinton has declared that the GOP is imploding.

President Trump, for his part, obviously perceives matters differently, tweeting, "The meeting with Republican Senators yesterday, outside of Flake and Corker, was a love fest." Even sometime Trump critic Lindsey Graham praised the luncheon, saying that Trump was "upbeat," "lighthearted" and "funny as hell."

With the liberal media gleefully showcasing these intramural squabbles and obsessing over Trump's every tweet and phone call, it's no wonder some might infer that Republicans are in hopeless disarray and headed for extinction. But outside their echo chamber and that of the denizens of NeverTrumpistan, I think we'll be fine.

Victor Davis Hanson, in a piece for National Review Online, cited data showing that despite perceptions to the contrary, Trump received roughly the same percentage of Republican votes as other previous GOP presidential candidates. Additionally, my own experience tells me that the overwhelming majority of fellow Republicans and conservatives are supportive of Trump, even if they don't wholeheartedly embrace everything he may tweet or say.

Indeed, very few conservatives I've run into are that concerned about Trump's tweets -- even those who would prefer he dial them down a notch -- because they appreciate that he is speaking their language instead of the guarded language of the typical politician. Columnist Salena Zito offered a fascinating insight on this, saying, "The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally." Though certain conservative Trump critics cringe at this, I dare say the rank-and-file Republican voter understands the difference and isn't sweating the small stuff -- provided we can move forward on policy and dismantle the Obama agenda.

Trump supporters don't dispute that Trump's bombastic style provides fodder for his critics, but they also understand that the political left has mercilessly savaged every other Republican president for decades. They believe that Trump is the first one, at least since Ronald Reagan, who gives the left a taste of its own medicine. This may be cringe-worthy to the Emily Posts of the conservative chattering class, but many of the rest of us are willing to overlook some of the distasteful in exchange for someone in our corner fighting back.

This is not to say that the Republican Party enjoys the greatest reputation these days, but that's more the fault of the recalcitrant moderates and the establishment wing than it is of Trump. Trump's most ardent conservative critics are the very ones who contributed to his rise in the first place -- partly because they didn't perceive Obama's agenda as urgently destructive or they weren't willing to oppose him vigorously enough. And let's never underestimate the level of angst generated by the open-border advocates on the right who besmirched good-faith immigration hawks as nativists and racists. It's also hard to take seriously some (and I truly mean some, not all) never-Trumpers' insistence that they are the true conservatives when you often see them obsessing over Trump, and you rarely see them criticizing the left; in fact, they frequently retweet liberals with approval.

What these critics don't grasp is that the Trump movement transcends Trump. It preceded him and will survive him. This does not necessarily mean in my view that populism will replace constitutional conservatism. But it does mean that rank-and-file conservatives are tired of their politicians talking a good game during their campaigns and losing their nerve in office and will now hold their candidates accountable.

As most recognize, Trump is not primarily ideological, though he does have a set of strong ideas on certain policies. I disagree with his protectionist bent, and I don't believe he should cater to the class warriors in promoting his otherwise attractive tax proposal. I also believe he could have been much more successful on Obamacare reform if he'd have tried to placate the bleeding hearts less via pre-existing conditions and mandated coverage and implement truly constructive market solutions.

But I am not fretting those differences. I am trying to speak up about them and hoping in my small way to influence the movement in a conservative direction.

Precisely because Trump is not a rigid ideologue, the policies of the so-called Trump movement -- with certain exceptions, such as immigration -- are not set in stone. Even on foreign policy, Trump has not shown himself to be a pure isolationist as some feared. He's a strong nationalist and patriot, but so are most constitutional conservatives. In many areas, Trump is governing as a mainstream conservative.

So no, the GOP is not imploding; it is experiencing a realignment whose parameters have yet to be fully drawn, so let's quit panicking and be constructive forces to shape this movement into one that's conservative, dynamic and determined to fight the left with the same amount of energy it uses to fight us. If we do that, we have every reason to expect to hold on to our governing majority.

New Barbarianism Has Come to America

America's Second Civil War

8/18/2017 - Pat Buchanan Townhall.com

"They had found a leader, Robert E. Lee -- and what a leader! ... No military leader since Napoleon has aroused such enthusiastic devotion among troops as did Lee when he reviewed them on his horse Traveller."

So wrote Samuel Eliot Morison in his magisterial "The Oxford History of the American People" in 1965.

First in his class at West Point, hero of the Mexican War, Lee was the man to whom President Lincoln turned to lead his army. But when Virginia seceded, Lee would not lift up his sword against his own people, and chose to defend his home state rather than wage war upon her.

This veneration of Lee, wrote Richard Weaver, "appears in the saying attributed to a Confederate soldier, 'The rest of us may have ... descended from monkeys, but it took a God to make Marse Robert.'"

Growing up after World War II, this was accepted history.

Yet, on the militant left today, the name Lee evokes raw hatred and howls of "racist and traitor." A clamor has arisen to have all statues of him and all Confederate soldiers and statesmen pulled down from their pedestals and put in museums or tossed onto trash piles.

What has changed since 1965?

It is not history. There have been no great new discoveries about Lee.

What has changed is America herself. She is not the same country. We have passed through a great social, cultural and moral revolution that has left us irretrievably divided on separate shores.

And the politicians are in panic.

Two years ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe called the giant statues of Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson on Richmond's Monument Avenue "parts of our heritage." After Charlottesville, New York-born-and-bred McAuliffe, entertaining higher ambitions, went full scalawag, demanding the statues be pulled down as "flashpoints for hatred, division, and violence."

Who hates the statues, Terry? Who's going to cause the violence? Answer: The Democratic left whom Terry must now appease.

McAuliffe is echoed by Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, the Democratic candidate in November to succeed McAuliffe. GOP nominee Ed Gillespie wants Monument Avenue left alone.

The election is the place to decide this, but the left will not wait.

In Durham, North Carolina, our Taliban smashed the statue of a Confederate soldier. Near the entrance of Duke University Chapel, a statue of Lee has been defaced, the nose broken off.

Wednesday at dawn, Baltimore carried out a cultural cleansing by taking down statues of Lee and Maryland Chief Justice Roger Taney who wrote the Dred Scott decision and opposed Lincoln's suspension of the right of habeas corpus.

Like ISIS, which smashed the storied ruins of Palmyra, and the al-Qaida rebels who ravaged the fabled Saharan city of Timbuktu, the new barbarism has come to America. This is going to become a blazing issue, not only between but within the parties.

There are 10 Confederates in Statuary Hall in the Capitol, among them Lee, Georgia's Alexander Stephens, vice president to Jefferson Davis, and Davis himself. The Black Caucus wants them gone.

Mount Rushmore-sized carvings of Lee, Jackson and Davis are on Stone Mountain, Georgia. Are they to be blasted off?

There are countless universities, colleges and high schools like Washington & Lee named for Confederate statesmen and soldiers. Across the Potomac from D.C. are Jefferson Davis Highway and Leesburg Pike to Leesburg itself, 25 miles north. Are all highways, streets, towns and counties named for Confederates to be renamed? What about Fort Bragg?

On every Civil War battlefield, there are monuments to the Southern fallen. Gettysburg has hundreds of memorials, statues and markers. But if, as the left insists we accept, the Confederates were traitors trying to tear America apart to preserve an evil system, upon what ground do Democrats stand to resist the radical left's demands?

What do we do with those battlefields where Confederates were victorious: Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville?

"Where does this all end?" President Trump asked.

It doesn't. Not until America's histories and biographies are burned and new texts written to Nazify Lee, Jackson, Davis and all the rest, will a newly indoctrinated generation of Americans accede to this demand to tear down and destroy what their fathers cherished.

And once all the Confederates are gone, one must begin with the explorers, and then the slave owners like Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Madison, who seceded from slave-free Britain. White supremacists all.

Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay of Kentucky and John Calhoun must swiftly follow.

Then there are all those segregationists. From 1865 to 1965, virtually all of the great Southern senators were white supremacists.

In the first half of the 20th century, Woodrow Wilson and FDR carried all 11 states of a rigidly segregationist South all six times they ran, and FDR rewarded Dixie by putting a Klansman on the Supreme Court.

While easy for Republicans to wash their hands of such odious elements as Nazis in Charlottesville, will they take up the defense of the monuments and statues that have defined our history, or capitulate to the icon-smashers?

In this Second American Civil War, whose side are you on?