The Trumpian Dilemma

If a President Trump really hopes to engage in the gigantic battle to break the Deep State, to curb the dominant power of leftist bureaucrats and judges, his greatest obstacle will be the Republican party. This should have been obvious all along, but the euphoria of an election victory and first-time hope has caused his enthusiasts to overlook this plainly evident fact.


The Republicans have been willing collaborators of the Deep State’s creation and maintenance for the last half century. “Mainstream” Republicans are not inclined to any revolutionary action against the status quo. They have never been a genuine party of opposition to the leftward distortion of American government and society. They are heavily infused with the Midwestern desire for respectability and conformity. They have no ideas except those created by advertising men. Their only firm principle is “moderation.”


Remember how quickly they abandoned the defense of traditional marriage. Remember how they preferred the Bushes, Dole, Romney and such for presidential candidates. When Trump defeated a half dozen of their groomed celebrities in the 2016 primaries they were shocked. When he took office many of them engaged in sabotage of their own President, so anxious were they not to disturb the Deep State.
The Party may be populist at the grassroots, but in Congress it is what it always has been. Even while Trump was riding to victory, the Republican House chose as Speaker a museum-quality specimen of weak Establishment empty suit. In total regard of his incoming President, he fostered Biden’s destructive initiatives. The Speaker will be essential to any Trump legislative victories. Republicans have slight majorities in the House and Senate for the first time in a long time. It only takes some of them to join the Democrats to kill any Trump legislation. And that defection has been normal practice for decades.


Trump enthusiasts, like most Americans, are very short-sighted and ignorant of history. The entire history of the last half century is marked by Republican participation in the Deep State and evil deceitfulness to their conservative voters. Nixon and Reagan were elected by large majorities as reformers. Instead the consolidated state only grew bigger and more intrusive. These presidents and a majority of Republicans in Congress supported civil rights laws, ever-increasing immigration, and some of the worst Supreme Court appointments in history.


Republicans are now balking at two of the most seriously reformist of Trump’s nominees—Kennedy and Gabbard. “Mainstream” Republican leaders recognize that these are genuine threats to business as usual, and they have no interest in harming the Establishment that provides them prestige and pelf. They have been this way for a long time.


A young man I know - talented, articulate, and determined - recently entered a Republican primary against a House incumbent. Our young man raised the immigration issue. His establishment opponent could only answer that we needed to bring in talented people. This is pure boilerplate from Republican headquarters, and it is obvious that this dunce never had even thought about a real issue. See a typical Republican congressperson.


The Republicanisation of the South has been a grievous defeat for conservatism. In the second half of the 20th century, Southern Democrats were the firmest and most skillful conservative force in America. Now the South is sending to Congress mostly Republican empty suits with no interest except in themselves and crony capitalism.
The Republican legislature in my beloved South Carolina is one of the most big-spending and corrupt of all state lawmaking bodies.


And now we have the great spokesman against immigration endorsing bringing in more Indian technicians to replace American workers. Liberals love immigration through assumed benevolence to the suffering. It is not benevolent to hire away their most talented people from struggling countries. And what kind of citizens do such people make who left their own needy countries for profit and comfort? In this case Trump and Musk motives are crass---profit-oriented. What an insult to the American people and their wish to become great again---that we need talented immigrants for important jobs. What a lie.


Trump’s recent grandiose pronouncements about acquiring new territory seem absurdly counter to our wish for domestic reform. Let us hope that this bad idea is only a publicity ploy.


We can have some hope that Trump might have learned something from his previous term and knows more about picking the right people and wielding the big stick. He will have to defy the federal courts that will throw out nets to hamper him and make ruthless use of executive power against the bureaucracy while opposed by a large part of his own party.


​Let’s have a modest hope that in this interesting and changing time, Trump may be able to avoid war with Russia and other international calamities, although his role as peacemaker is compromised by his zealous Zionism. And maybe he will be able to eliminate some of the spending and bureaucracy that now burden the American people. Whether it is too late for real recovery of that imagined Good America remains to be seen.