{"id":464,"date":"2014-06-14T09:45:53","date_gmt":"2014-06-14T14:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/?p=464"},"modified":"2014-06-14T09:45:53","modified_gmt":"2014-06-14T14:45:53","slug":"a-populist-path-to-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/2014\/06\/a-populist-path-to-power.html","title":{"rendered":"A Populist Path To Power?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #999999;\">If Jeb and Hillary are both in the lists in 2016, it will be God&#8217;s gift to pitchfork populists.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-466 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/tea-party-2-sc.png\" alt=\"tea-party-2-sc\" width=\"599\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/tea-party-2-sc.png 599w, https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/tea-party-2-sc-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, 599px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and<br \/>\nas necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-top: 2px; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-right: 5px;\"><\/div>\n<p>If Thomas Jefferson\u2019s benign reflection on Shays\u2019 Rebellion, that<br \/>\nuprising of farmers in 1786 and 1787, is not the first thought that<br \/>\ncomes to mind today for his fellow Virginian Eric Cantor, surely it is<br \/>\nunderstandable.<\/p>\n<p>For the rebellious subjects of the 7th Congressional District just voted to end Cantor\u2019s career as House majority leader.<\/p>\n<p>Many lessons are being read into and taken away from Cantor\u2019s defeat.<br \/>\nBut that election has also revealed a populist path, both to the<br \/>\nRepublican nomination in 2016 and perhaps to the presidency.<\/p>\n<p>For what were the elements of Randolph-Macon College professor Dave Brat\u2019s victory and of Cantor\u2019s defeat?<\/p>\n<p>First, the perception that Cantor was willing to do a deal with<br \/>\nBarack Obama to provide a partial amnesty to illegal immigrants \u2014 while<br \/>\nthe media provided wall-to-wall coverage of the latest invasion across<br \/>\nour southern border \u2014 proved devastating.<\/p>\n<p>Talk radio, led by Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin, pounded Cantor on<br \/>\nthe issue of illegal immigration, the emotive power of which our Beltway<br \/>\nelites will never understand.<\/p>\n<p>For like Eurocrats, the leaders of our Beltway parties call to mind<br \/>\nthe \u201csophisters\u201d and \u201ccalculators\u201d of Edmund Burke\u2019s depiction.<\/p>\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-top: 2px; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-right: 5px;\"><\/div>\n<p>They do not understand people of the heart to whom illegal and mass<br \/>\nimmigration means the disappearance of the country they grew up in and<br \/>\nthe dispossession of their children of what is most precious to them.<\/p>\n<p>Then there is populism. Cantor spent $5 million, an astonishing sum<br \/>\nin a congressional primary, 50 times what Brat spent. Yet he only<br \/>\nreinforced his image as a poodle of Wall Street and K Street.<\/p>\n<p>Of the bank bailout that Cantor supported, Brat was brutally effective.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll the investment banks up in New York and D.C. \u2026 those guys should<br \/>\nhave gone to jail. But instead of going to jail \u2026 they went onto Eric\u2019s<br \/>\nRolodex. \u2026 And they\u2019re sending him big checks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brat also had going for him that he is an outsider, when those in the<br \/>\ncapital are widely disliked, distrusted, or even detested by Middle<br \/>\nAmerica.<\/p>\n<p>Anti-establishment, outsider, defender of national borders \u2014 these<br \/>\nwere the cards Brat was holding, even if he had little money or<br \/>\norganized support.<\/p>\n<p>Yet were these not the same issues and stances of the candidates and<br \/>\nparties that jolted Europe in May by running first in the EU elections?<\/p>\n<p>In the endless struggle between populism and the establishment, and<br \/>\nbetween nationalists and internationalists, populists and nationalists<br \/>\nappear, at least temporarily, to be in the ascendancy worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>Vladimir Putin\u2019s approval is over 80 percent. Why? He stands for<br \/>\nnational sovereignty and the rights of Russians, wherever they may be.<br \/>\nAnd in hearing his claim that Crimea is Russia\u2019s, are there not echoes<br \/>\nof Reaganite nationalism in the Panama Canal debate:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe bought it. We paid for it. It\u2019s ours. And we\u2019re gonna keep it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The nationalist card is also being played by Beijing with its claim,<br \/>\nwildly popular in China, to all of the islands in the East China and<br \/>\nSouth China seas. And nationalism is being invoked by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in<br \/>\ncalling for rearmament and amending Japan\u2019s pacifist constitution.<\/p>\n<p>Cantor\u2019s defeat seems certain to halt any Republican move to<br \/>\naccommodate Obama on amnesty. Should House Speaker John Boehner try to<br \/>\nmove ahead on even partial amnesty, says Rep. Steve King of Iowa, it<br \/>\n\u201cwould blow up the caucus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Consider, then, the political terrain six months before the preseason of 2016 begins.<\/p>\n<p>According to every national poll, Americans believe that our country<br \/>\nis on the wrong course, that it is less respected than it has ever been<br \/>\nabroad, and that our children and their children will most likely not<br \/>\nknow the good life that we have had.<\/p>\n<p>Americans disapprove of the president and have little confidence in<br \/>\neither party or in Congress. Few believe that the government is as<br \/>\nwell-run as it was in World War II, or when Ike was creating the federal<br \/>\nhighway system, or America was sending astronauts to the moon.<\/p>\n<p>The landscape looks inhospitable for establishment candidates, such<br \/>\nas Jeb Bush, who says illegal aliens crossing our border are engaging in<br \/>\nan \u201cact of love\u201d\u2013and who is a proud and principal promoter of the<br \/>\nCommon Core curriculum being imposed on the nation\u2019s schools.<\/p>\n<p>Nor does the terrain seem favorable for former first lady Hillary<br \/>\nClinton. Though she may have had to scratch and claw her way out of debt<br \/>\nand destitution when she and her husband were \u201cdead broke,\u201d she is seen<br \/>\nnationally, and not incorrectly, as the queen of the establishment,<br \/>\nsomeone who banks six-figure fees for half-hour lectures.<\/p>\n<p>No two people ever milked a political office for more than these two<br \/>\nhave milked the presidency of the United States. And no two people are<br \/>\nmore wired in to the Hollywood, Wall Street, and Washington elites.<\/p>\n<p>If Jeb and Hillary are both in the lists in 2016, it will be God\u2019s gift to pitchfork populists.<\/p>\n<p>COPYRIGHT 2014 CREATORS.COM<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.westernjournalism.com\/populist-path-power\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.westernjournalism.com\/populist-path-power\/<\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"float: right; margin-left: 10px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-count=\"vertical\" data-url=\"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/2014\/06\/a-populist-path-to-power.html\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If Jeb and Hillary are both in the lists in 2016, it will be God&#8217;s gift to pitchfork populists. \u201cI hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.\u201d If Thomas Jefferson\u2019s benign reflection on Shays\u2019 Rebellion, that uprising [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2oOxx-7u","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":468,"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions\/468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/independentconservativevoters.com\/icv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}