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Blog No. 101. Trump: The Endorser, The Pretenders and The Opponent.

The Endorser.

Last week, Paul Ryan dropped the other shoe by issuing his expected endorsement of Donald Trump. It had been clear since Ryan and Trump met on Capitol Hill last month that an endorsement of some sort would be forthcoming, and the only real questions were how long it would take and how tepid it would be. As it turned out, the endorsement arrived in the form of a tweet and an Op-ed column in Ryan’s hometown newspaper. Short of writing the endorsement on the back of an envelope, stuffing it in a bottle, and casting the bottle into the Potomac, it could hardly have been more low key.

PIC Message in a bottle to the sea.

Read More »Blog No. 101. Trump: The Endorser, The Pretenders and The Opponent.

Blog No 100. Robert Kagan on Donald Trump and Fascism in America

Occasionally we believe that  a column or editorial in the media is so cogent and compelling that it deserves reprinting in full for the benefit of readers who may not have seen it. The column below by Robert Kagan from The Washington Post is such a writing.

Robert Kagan is a historian, author and foreign policy expert of broad experience who has served several administrations in varying capacities. Although Kagan is best known for neoconservative views of foreign policy, the column below does not deal with foreign policy. Rather it concerns the candidacy of Donald Trump and its implications for not only the Republican Party but the country. According to Wikipedia, Kagan was a Republican until this year and is now an Independent.

Read More »Blog No 100. Robert Kagan on Donald Trump and Fascism in America

Blog No. 99. Donald Trump as Aaron Burr: Where Is Alexander Hamilton When We Need Him?

The meeting last week between Donald Trump and Paul Ryan was something of a milestone in Donald Trump’s march to the nomination and perhaps the White House. While the meeting did not yield an endorsement by the Speaker, it produced a widespread expectation that one would be forthcoming in due course. Despite the media attention the meeting drew, the indication of a detente between Trump and Ryan was a relatively minor development, disappointing but not surprising. There are, of course, abundant grounds on which Ryan could withhold his support from Trump. Apart from issues of character and temperament, Trump’s expressed positions are at odds with Ryan’s on a variety of issues—immigration, free trade, banning of Muslims, entitlement reform, to name a few. But while we would have applauded a Ryan rejection of Trump and his candidacy, any hope for  Ryan’s doing so was unrealistic. Such an action would have seriously jeopardized Ryan’s own position as Speaker with little or no likelihood of its having a serious impact on the Trump bandwagon.Read More »Blog No. 99. Donald Trump as Aaron Burr: Where Is Alexander Hamilton When We Need Him?

Special Bulletin. After the Fat Lady Sang: What Now For Responsible Republicans?

With apologies for invoking that rather shopworn cliche, the fat lady sang this week and the curtain came down on the tragi-comic opera of the Republican presidential primaries. The fat lady’s aria was a sad one indeed. To Donald Trump it doubtless sounded triumphal, but to many of us it conveyed the mournful tones of a funeral dirge. The dirge reflected not merely the prospect of a Republican defeat in November, but the painful fact that such a loss, distasteful as it might be, would be preferable to a victory for Trump.  If Trump suffers the devastating defeat in November that he deserves, the vital task of cleaning up and rebuilding the Republican Party can begin immediately. If he should somehow win, however, that task will be deferred indefinitely, perhaps forever.Pic Donald Trump as Fat Lady PICRead More »Special Bulletin. After the Fat Lady Sang: What Now For Responsible Republicans?

Special Bulletin. Is It Over?

Is the contest for the Republican nomination over? Well, not quite, but it’s on a very thin edge. If the results of the New York primary were depressing, the results of this week’s primaries were devastating. Trump won every one of five states amassing a vote of more than fifty per cent in each. Senator Cruz was shut out, winning no delegates and finishing behind Governor Kasich in all but one. For his part, Kasich won a handful of delegates and had the distinction of finishing second in four states. Unfortunately, however, finishing second at this point is something like being given the Miss Congeniality title in a beauty pageant—it may provide a passing boost of morale but it gets you no closer to a tiara. The margin of Trump’s victories showed that, for reasons we still find baffling, his support within the Republican Party seems to be broader than many of us had assumed and hoped.Read More »Special Bulletin. Is It Over?

Special Bulletin: Donald Trump: Helpful Reminders from The Washington Post

We suspect that there are not a great many supporters of Donald Trump among readers of RINOcracy.com, but we all have friends, neighbors or relatives who may be. If you should engage them in the kind of quiet and civil conversation that RINOs favor, we thought it might be handy to have in your pocket a brief catalog of Trumpian statements that have convinced us that Donald is unfit for the presidency. As it happens, The Washington Post provided just such a catalog, and we reproduce it here in its entirety.Read More »Special Bulletin: Donald Trump: Helpful Reminders from The Washington Post

Special Bulletin. After New York: What To Do About the Weevils?

Although the result of Republican primary in New York was unsurprising, that made it no less unpalatable. Donald Trump was widely predicted to do well and he did indeed. At last count he had captured at least  89 of New York’s 95 delegates. That does not guarantee that he will command a majority of delegates before the convention but that goal is certainly in sight. The Trump ego was sufficiently assuaged that in his Tuesday evening remarks he seemed determined to focus on attempting to “sound Presidential” and hence he passed up the ritual insulting of rivals that has been his regular practice. For our part, we were quite unmoved by the newly applied patina of civility.Read More »Special Bulletin. After New York: What To Do About the Weevils?

Special Bulletin. Slouching Toward Cleveland

                                    Turning and turning in the widening gyre                                     The falcon cannot hear the falconer;                                     Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;                                     Mere… Read More »Special Bulletin. Slouching Toward Cleveland

Blog No. 97. #NeverCruz (and why John Kasich MUST stay in)

Ted Cruz’s decisive victory in Wisconsin is a key building block in the Trump Wall—the wall to prevent Donald Trump from becoming the Republican nominee. It must not, however, be taken as evidence that Cruz himself is someone around whom the party should now rally. That, we believe would be a disastrous mistake. Thus, while a good deal of ink has been spilled in assessing the #NeverTump movement, it is now past time for a #NeverCruz movement to rise and take hold.Read More »Blog No. 97. #NeverCruz (and why John Kasich MUST stay in)