Conservative Derangement Syndrome

Seeing the unhappiness with a Trump candidacy and his ascension to being the Republican nominee does not take an in-depth analysis. As previously defined in this column, Trump is neither a conservative nor a traditional Republican. Some of the positions he has taken are highly questionable. But the time has come to confront the fact that he is the Republican nominee and he will be running against Hillary Clinton who is considerably more dangerous in the presidency.

Brilliant minds like George Will, Bret Stephens and Jonah Goldberg continue to rail against the very existence of Trump. They delineate positions he has taken and statements he has made as proof that Trump is unfit to be president. They are willing to turn this country over to the Democrats for four more years -- a party that has lurched to the left even more than Obama for the past eight years with the strongest voices of the party being a declared Socialist, Bernie Sanders, and an undeclared Socialist, Elizabeth Warren.

Then there is Bill Kristol, son of one of the greatest Republican minds of the 20^th century and a brilliant man in his own right, flailing away attempting to start a run by a third party candidate. In some bizarre scenario that he has created in his own mind, he envisions the third-party candidate winning enough electoral votes to throw the election into the House of Representatives where sanity will prevail and Kristol’s anointed candidate will claim the White House.

Thus, when I read the daily newspapers and analysis from across the country, Trump is being attacked from the traditional sources – The New York Times and all their lapdogs, and the few beacons of freedom that dare to publish Republican or conservative thought -- and Clinton gets barely a whisper of acknowledgement of her existence while she loses her way into the party nomination salvaged by party hacks.

While conservatives twist in their self-made house-of-Trump disdain, Clinton continues to propose policies that are anathema to Republicans and destructive to our economy/freedom.

Take just one policy – gun control. Clinton has proposed a dangerous policy that gun manufacturers be held liable for the unlawful use of their product. Thus, if someone were to break into a person’s house, steal a properly-protected gun and then use it in a crime, the manufacturer would be held liable for the act. This is akin to someone stealing a person’s lawnmower and running over and maiming a person and then suing the lawnmower manufacturer. It is a line of thought developed in a leftist think tank to destroy our Second Amendment rights that Clinton has embraced and continues to purport as sensible.

Yet these conservatives would rather write about Trump’s failings than batter Clinton on the backdoor destruction of our ability to acquire guns. If this policy were put in place, which is the left’s dream, guns would go the way of the swimming pool diving board -- hasta la vista, baby.

I have spoken to people suffering from Trump hatred who discount that Clinton will ever push this scenario once president. They are in complete denial. Do you really believe that Clinton would divert from Obama’s contemptuous use of executive orders? Her stance will soon be the Obama stance tested for eight years – if you don’t like it then sue me and I will be using your money to defend my lawless position. Think Obama’s EPA, National Labor Relations Board, Obamacare, and immigration policy.

Then there is the contumacious hyper-political Justice Department. Do you really think matters will change there? Speculation swirls that Clinton may pick Thomas Perez, currently Secretary of Labor and previously one of the principal gangsters at Justice, as her vice president. If he is not chosen, he could easily become attorney general and then watch the lawless enforcement of left-wing policy go into overdrive.

That is just one policy. We could go on for pages. The fact that America has the highest corporate tax rate in the world is a sin. Yes, a sin. The pillar of free enterprise and capitalism is setting an example of choking its own businesses. The Obama and Clinton solution is not to become competitive, but to punish businesses who want to move off shore to avoid the onerous tax. That is Clinton’s answer always – punish, punish, punish.

Then there is the peculiar George Will proposal that we are better off having Clinton as president for four years and putting a stop to her through a Republican Congress. I am a believer that Mitch McConnell, Republican majority leader, does not get enough credit for his work having stopped Obama’s policies and engineering the expenditure cuts because they are not as visible as the horrid things Obama has gotten through.

But as much as I revere Mr. Will, he is delusional about getting Clinton out office in 2020. Will sees elections from 5,000 feet. I see them on the ground having worked on every presidential election since 1980. If he were out in the husking, walking precincts and phone banking, like I have been with a team of people, Mr. Will would know that in the modern presidency it is virtually impossible to defeat an incumbent president.

There is a reason the last three presidents have won reelection. Clinton will begin running for reelection on January 21, 2017. She will have a three-and-a-half-year lead on the Republicans in money and organization. If Republicans could not beat Obama in 2012, the only chance they have of getting rid of Clinton in 2020 would be if her questionable health falters.

It is due time for the conservatives who are suffering from Trump hatred to begin to draw focus on Clinton and target their ample talents on a very dangerous alternative to Trump. We certainly cannot wait for the NYT and the mainstream media to illuminate her foibles.

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Bruce Bialosky is the founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition of California and a former Presidential appointee.