The Jefferson-Hamilton Handshake, Can the GOP be Saved

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Alexander Hamilton, Conservatism, Constitution, Democratic Party, Elitism and Class, founding-fathers, GOP, GOP establishment, Jefferson-Hamiliton handshake, Republican Party, Republican Party establishment, Thomas Jefferson

Unified Patriots by Vassar Bushmills

(Updated from 2010, when Obama-the-idea was still new.)

The Hook

The GOP establishment has always kept one foot in the water bucket during a thunderstorm; never fixing that hole in the roof, because, when it’s raining, it too wet to go outside, and when it’s sunny, hell, there ain’t no leak. For a century this view of politics has held sway in state capitals and in Washington alike, but today, it doesn’t take into account that Democrats still have every state into little more than administrative accounting unit, or that the only real defense against this takeover will be a bridging of that divide between the Red and Blue GOP.

Only instead of a united front, we are throwing a three-tiered front; Blue Establishment Republicans, Red Conservatives, and in the last year, (but brewing for a decade or more) an amalgam of American detritus, often referred to by me as the Common Man and Woman, offering a return to an older definition, or hue, of Red.

We know infinitely more about each today than we did in 2009. And it all seems to reside in the absence of a single handshake.

The Class Struggle, the Usual Suspect

Long before I ever got into my book debate with Moses Sands (1998) about the Constitution and common man, he and I spoke many times about the role of class in American society and politics. We agreed it was worse then (1990s- Clinton era) than it had been in the 1890s, at the time of the robber barons, or the 1950s with the rise of the new capitalists after the Depression and WWII. The difference was a simple matter of demographics, a Blue diaspora, and hard math, with far more Americans becoming better educated in a higher percentage of shirt and tie professions…and many, many more in government-related work, where it’s simply harder to be continue to be a conservative and draw a state paycheck. Or. even a Republican, as election results prove in both Virginia and Maryland, when federal employment has turned both states blue. (Certain laws apply here about loyalty to the hand that feeds you which are immutable, and go back to the time of the pharaohs[…]

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Transgenders in the Military – Who Decides: Congress, the President, or Federal Judges?

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Alexander Hamilton, Article I courts, Article III Courts, checks and balances, Commander in Chief, federal courts, Federalist Paper No. 78, Federalist Paper No. 80, Federalist Paper No. 81, Transgenders in the military, Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)

Publius-Huldah's Blog

By Publius Huldah

In a case now pending before the US District Court for the District of Columbia,¹ the trial judge recently granted a preliminary injunction which purports to temporarily stop the Trump Administration from banning so-called “transgender” persons from serving in the Military.

But we will look at the real issue: Does the Judicial Branch of the federal government have constitutional authority to require the Legislative and Executive Branches of the federal government to permit transgender persons to serve in the Military?

Instead of going along with what everybody says – or expounding on one’s personal views on the topic –let us consult and obey the US Constitution:

· Article I, Section 8, clauses 11 – 13, delegate to Congress the powers to declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, make rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; raise and support Armies; and to provide and maintain…

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The Jefferson-Hamilton Handshake, the 2 x 4 Version

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Alexander Hamilton, GOP establishment, Thomas Jefferson

Another insightful essay from Unified Patriots by Vassarbushmills:

The bulk of this essay was first written in 2010 when serious conservatives saw the GOP Establishment merely as shameless cravens, part- Stockholm Syndrome to their Democrat betters, across the aisle, and part what I’ve referred to elsewhere as “Rice Bowl Tories”.

2010 was when the GOP Establishment saw us as Hobbits, per John McCain, and had handshakes a’plenty for those across the aisle, but extended no hand for the voting masses who, as this letter requests, we asked them to extend..

But much has changed since May, 2010. First the people gave the GOP the House to undo Obamacare later that year, and then when nothing changed, the people the gave the GOP the Senate in 2014 to augment their firepower. And then when still nothing changed except possibly even more knowing smiles, the people  changed course and gave themselves Donald Trump.

Then everything changed, especially those Cheshire countenances among the Establishment. Having no choice but to choose between the Crown and these awful Hobbits, the grins have disappeared.

Today, the Republicans, including a number of conservatives, are none too happy for having been put into this situation, especially by seemingly being unable to do anything about it.

For them, this really is the Devil and the deep blue sea…choices many Republicans really don’t like to have to make, a president they really don’t like, even when he shows flashes of genius, or squishes the media with his thumb as one would a cockroach, or exhibits a leadership they’d always boasted about themselves but never really had to perform.

He is not one of them, and that is reason enough not to like Donald Trump. And then there’s that rambunctious voter base, Hobbits, recently renamed “Deplorables”, who has absolutely no respect for the Establishment’s rank and title, instead judging them entirely on their performance as enemies of the Left, which, if this were 1952 and Adlai Stevenson were the face of American liberalism, might be passable. But not now, while our nation teeters at the brink..

So, if they choose wrong one way, their reserved deckchair on the Swamp’s beachside resort may be lost. But a wrong choice the other way, a rope may await them. Existential choices both, only who wants to have to make them?

Let me take you back to 2010 when first I tried to explain the essential handshake between the Republican Party and the people. And once again, I’m standing here, with my right hand extended, only now I’m holding a 2 x 4 in my left, just to get your attention.

The Hook

In 2010, just after Obamacare, but before the midterms, I took note of political conditions in Virginia. I had a friend who was a long time Virginia GOP insider. A conservative only when the party is out of power, he was down-the-line all-politics  when his party was in, as it was then with Bob McDonnell & Co. He believed they were in for at least eight years, with Bill Bolling the heir apparent, the deal already cut[…]

 

Cross-posted on Grumpy Opinions.