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I remember way back when the TEA Party first started.
TEA was an acronym. "Taxed Enough Already."
It got lots of support.
It was genuine grass-roots stuff.
I even went to a couple of the rallies to listen to the speakers and cheer the good points they were making.
But once it hit a critical mass of popularity...
The media equated it with being a division of the KKK on one side and it attracted some RINO components on the other.
With the RINOs came funding and an abrupt change of message and a serious toning down on topics which we'd call "draining the swamp" today.
So the Tea Party faded away.
But the dissatisfied people didn't.
The early rallies had created an information cascade.
A lot of people realized that they weren't alone in their feelings about how things were running and started going to the primaries.
You know, where the nominees for the offices are selected?
Trump did not lead this parade. He was simply not one of the pre-annointed Republicans on that dias during the debates and people rejected the business as usual Republican pablum.
Do not misunderstand me. I love how he shook things up. The Left still has not cancelled the good that he did, and they are trying oh so hard.
But Don missed something important.
He got the nomination because he matched us better than the other choices. In many ways he still does.
But he is not the leader. He is not the founder. It's not HIS show.
But he doesn't seem to know that.
And that makes me reluctant to vote for him again.
He's going to have to convince me that he's in it for me, not him, this time.
I don't think he even wants to, assuming he even can.
I have said often that Trump himself did not understand the forces that propelled him into office. Once he was there, he spent a lot of time trying to placate people who wouldn't have voted for him if the alternative was Satan. He also didn't know how to control the permanent government, which was in a state of near-open mutiny.
ReplyDeletei don't see any other candidate that might set in motion the change we need...i don't think it will matter anyway in 24, the left is going to make sure they win...the country is gone...panzer guy
DeleteIf I may, kind of a racing analogy.
ReplyDeleteWhat got Trump into office was energy concentration - horsepower; there was - and still is - a tremendous amount of energy sloshing around, looking for someplace it could have a positive effect. Trump looked like, and could have been, THE tool to harness that energy and apply it.
What stymied Trump was not enough traction to harness all that horsepower. Trump was able to put some of that horsepower on the ground but for multiple reasons, not enough, because he lacked skills in the "political horsepower" department. While he was doing that various players were oiling the surface to reduce traction and not only did he not see that coming his map didn't show alternate paths around the freshly slickened pavement. While he was spinning his wheels alternative forces - which had a great deal less horsepower on tap - were driving around him because they knew the back roads.
All that "energy horsepower" has not gone away, in fact, I'd wager it has increased exponentially and is STILL looking for someplace to be applied. It ain't just the skilled wheel man with his foot on the throttle, it's the suspension guy and the tire guy who work together to get that horsepower to do something productive, the fuel guy to manage the fuel energy consumption well enough to make it through the last lap, the technical strategist to figure the best time to pass, the best time to refuel, etc. Trump didn't have those guys because he had never needed any of them before.
Does anyone today? DeSantis gets talked about a lot but we're over a year from the drop dead date on declaring for Prez and a lot can happen in a year. Trump's declaration yesterday was, probably, almost as much about roadblocking the current adminstration's efforts to destroy him as it was pre-positioning himself for another run at the prize.
Bartholomew
In a year we might not even have a country for someone to be Prez in.
His behavior on January 6th should count as a negative. Trump getting back into into office? He'll be a lame duck with a grudge. Not an effective formula for governance. -jking
ReplyDelete