What Trump Reveals About Republicans and Why It Means The Left Will Eventually Win

It’s still early in the Republican nominating process.

But after significant victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina, very favorable polling in Nevada and several states afterward, the unthinkable has now become the “Holy crap! This might actually happen!”

Save for an immediate coalescence around Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, Donald freaking Trump might actually be the next Republican nominee for president of these United States.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump smiles during a campaign stop, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016, in Bluffton, S.C. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

This possibility has huge ramifications within politics and America in general. It will mean one of the most painful spectacles of a presidential race in history as well as one of the most negative and divisive. But before we get there, can we stop for a second and examine what this means for the Republican Party?

Republicans Are Not Firm Believers in Principle

This is by far the biggest reveal and toughest to swallow. The Republican Party right now is not a party of principle. There’s no way you can talk about adherence to the Constitution and support Trump, especially while there are other options on the ballot. There’s really no way you can talk about adherence to any principle and support Trump, whose positions are about as firm as Kanye West’s finances.

There’s no way you can criticize President Barack Obama for being thin-skinned and support Trump. There’s no way you can rail against Obamacare and simply shrug when Trump wants to pay for people’s health care through the government. The list goes on and on and on. The biggest thing that Trump has revealed about a good portion of the Republican Party is that their principles are just as malleable and capricious as his.

Republicans Fall Victim to The Cult of Personality

Recall the election of 2008 when then Obama ran on a campaign of “Hope and Change.” What did we all say? It’s hollow! There’s no meaning behind it! Over and over we decried the cult of personality with Obama and how the Democrats had turned into robotic supporters of him and not necessarily his policies, many of which none of them could explain

Fast forward to 2016 and “Hope and Change” has simply gained a word and evolved into “Make America Great Again.” It’s vacuous. As Trump said himself, he could “shoot somebody and not lose voters.”

Does that sound like a devotion to the policies of a candidate and firm stance on principles? Or does that sound like allegiance to a man and his personality? Can he or his followers actually explain in detail how Trump will achieve all his bombastic promises? Or will they purely rely on his word that he will simply get it done through the force of his will and power?

We talked about how we were a party of principles and if the debate was a debate of ideas, then we would win. We have the more effective arguments and positions. Well, some of us still do. The rest are supporting Trump.

Republicans Are Bitter Clingers

Do we all remember how insulting it was when Obama called us the bitter clingers? In essence, he said that because certain communities were disappearing, that people get bitter and cling to antipathy and other things they found familiar.

We keep hearing how Donald Trump has tapped into the average American’s anger and is channeling that to victory. Why is that a good thing? How is it noble to validate anger and push it to spite and revenge?

As I have written before, the left and the right have no reason to live in antipathy toward each other. If we lived with a constitutionally-bound federal government, then national elections would no longer be a matter of life or death. The loss of one Supreme Court justice wouldn’t be such a monumental moment. State elections would be just as important and consequential as national ones.

But because the federal government has grown so far beyond the limits of the Constitution, when one side gets elected, they force the other to live by their beliefs. This is what creates the animosity, not a difference in views. So rather than head toward the constitutional side, which could possibly start to remove this incredible divide, Trump and his supporters want to simply make it deeper. It’s their turn to tell the other side to shut up and sit down.

The Constitution is Truly Dead

Outside of the Republican Party, at least some of it, who is even talking about or making an attempt to restore the Constitution? No one. The left abandoned it long ago and is guided by an ever moving concept of collective morality. That leaves us, the Republicans, as the last vestige of hope for limited federal government and empowered states. No one else has taken up this cause.

Now look, I understand that the weak and tin-eared establishment is the reason behind much of Trump’s rise. He is the overreaction to their fecklessness. He speaks plainly, directly and without any fear of political correctness or contradiction.

But does Trump’s compass point toward the Constitution? A bedrock belief in restrained federal government and power to the states and individuals? Or does it point who the hell knows where?

We’re worried about Obama replacing Justice Antonin Scalia, but to be honest, Trump nominating Scalia’s replacement gives me as much comfort as being on the ship of a blind captain.

Trump today is like Obama was in 2008 - the projection of who his supporters want to be themselves. In 2008, the Obama supporters wanted something different, something to satisfy their well of naive optimism for a better world filled with rainbows and unicorns. Never mind that this desire and youthful optimism never reached the question of “how”. That is who they saw themselves as and who they wanted to be. They found that self identification in Obama.

So who do Republicans see themselves as? Who do they ultimately want to be? Trump. The man who is supremely confident, says whatever the hell he wants, is always right (with a healthy dose of delusion) and will basically be the enforcer parent after the benevolent one in Obama.

This is what it reveals. To sum it up, it reveals that a lot of what Republicans said over the past eight years was, well, fake.

It hurts to write that. It hurts to see something I believed in and truly thought that so many others believed in be pulled out from under me. Sure, there are still millions of Republicans who hold the Constitution in the regard it deserves and requires, but that number is a lot less now than I originally thought.

So what does all this mean outside of the party?

It means the left wins...eventually.

Why? This guy. Watch the video. Seriously, watch it.

If you’re like me, you were laughing and shaking your head and saying “Wow, these people really exist. This is ludicrous.” It is, but it’s the exact reason why the left wins.

If you truly believe in something, then you’re willing to endure humiliation and public mockery for those beliefs. Actions don’t exist without a reason. That reason for the left is a steadfast, though often misguided, belief in something; something bigger and more important than themselves.

Sadly, that’s what Trump reveals about the Republicans - they don’t truly believe in what they’ve said, and if you don’t truly believe it, then you won’t fight for it with everything in you. The left has so radicalized that it will take a while until the rest of the country considers their craziness as reasonable. But it’s happening more and more and will not stop. Why? Because they truly believe in their cause.

Us? Apparently we simply want to “Make America Great Again.” Yay!

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