Thread: President of the US of A

I meant that right now there are two power centers, let's call them 'the faction of Paul Ryan' and 'the faction of Donald Trump' with different agendas and both claim legitimacy - Ryan from the history and traditions of the party, Trump from his popular support.

If they can't come to an agreement they can each pursue their own agendas, but they'll be the same party only nominally, and may not even have enough strength to win the elections. But if they both win we will likely have the executive controlled by the party of Trump and the legislature controlled by the party of Ryan in coalition with the party of Trump.

It seems that the biggest unifying factor between them right now is Hillary Clinton. I'm not all that versed in politics to appreciate how strong that may be, but time will tell. It certainly isn't strong enough for the former ideological core of conservatism as represented by National Review.

Originally Posted by gugi

It certainly isn't strong enough for the former ideological core of conservatism

Since you include this in your post, and since you insisted in post #439 on defining terms, how do you define the terms "ideology" and "conservatism" since there seem to be many differing definitions for both. Just so we can, as you mentioned in the referenced post, "speak the same language."

i·de·ol·o·gy
noun
1.
a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.


As far as conservatism exactly what I posted - as it was developed in the 60s around William F Buckley and his magazine. Things like limited government in economic matters, dominance of free market, hawkish foreign policy, religious and social conservatism. I suspect that you are more familiar with this than I am.

What is about to happen. The BUBBLE will burst once again. We saw it with dotcoms. we saw it with housing. Next it will be big banks that fail.
Welcome to the President of nothing.
Once you wrap your mind around that, ask yourself "Why would anyone want to be the figurehead for that?"
When conventional wisdom and past models blow up. The course charted in unchartered waters is a crap shoot at best.
Carry on Gentlemen.
Happy Mothers day to all you Mothers.

Originally Posted by gugi

I suspect that you are more familiar with this than I am.

I don't know about that Gugi, you seem to be a very well informed individual. in fact you would certainly appear to have a much better grasp of what is conservatism than Mr. Trump.

More food for thought....

Trump is winning with the popular vote. That means an awful lot of voters are tired of the same ole same ole. Imagine if you will the wripple down effect if Trump wins. All of the future elections on any government position wether it be on a national, state or local level could be a major crap shoot too. Especially if they are an outsider (Trump like non establishment representative) or even a nonpartisan affiliate.

This could get real interesting as a test for democracy.

If Trump should win and not get party support, it could further push voters to go with a third party that's not influenced by the current establishment. Things could really get turned on its ear.

Originally Posted by honedright

better grasp of what is conservatism than Mr. Trump.

I am pretty sure Donald Trump understands what the modern conservatism is about; he just didn't run on that platform and he won against the rest of his opponents many of whom had conservative credentials and ran on it.

You can see that people who vote for him know this and don't really care about his conservative bona fides - they like his message just the way it is.
That's his stated claim why he is the true representative of the republican party at this time and why all factions ought to fall in line behind him instead of asking him to accommodate them by changing what has been working.

It certainly seems a reasonable argument to me; after all that's the whole point of the primary process of a party - to determine the candidate and platform that everybody will support in the election.

He is determined to keep the populist campaign - he is treating those who voice their opposition as just individuals rather than representatives of particular factions and is going after them on personal grounds in the process extinguishing by obscurity any of the substantiative matters that are being brought up. In other words he isn't engaging in the arguments that his opponents are trying to engage him.

As you can tell, I find all this rather fascinating

Gugi
Trump is basically refusing to play thier games on thier playing field. It's a brilliant strategy. They don't know how to take him on since he won't play by thier rules. As you put it, it is very fascinating to watch.

Indeed, he can't win the usual game, so he's been redefining the rules. So far so good, he got the republican party nomination, although in the process also exposed the weaknesses of that strategy and his persona. Now, with proven vulnerabilities that can be exploited he has a fairly challenging general election coming ahead.

If he pulls it off I bet his memoir will be titled 'The Art of the Win'
Or may be even if he doesn't