Jeblary 2016

Hunter Wallace
Occidental Dissent
May 7, 2016

There’s a lot to digest here.

1.) By nominating Donald Trump for president, the Republican Party has FINALLY repudiated nearly 30 years of Bushism including everything from the New World Order in economics to the Iraq War and bellicose neocon foreign policy. All three Bushes are now on record in refusing to support Trump in the general election:

“Jeb Bush has joined his brother and father in declaring that he will not support Donald Trump, the presumptive nominee, in the presidential election in November.

On Friday, a day after House speaker Paul Ryan said he could not support Trump just yet, Bush posted to Facebook a declaration that, like his fellow former candidate Lindsey Graham, he will abstain from voting for either Trump or the likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Trump “has not demonstrated that temperament or strength of character” required to serve as president, Bush wrote. …”

2.) Now that Trump has won the Republican primary, he is pivoting to the general election by moderating his position on taxes and the minimum wage. A typical Republican presidential nominee moderates his rhetoric on social issues while doubling down on Ayn Rand economics. Trump is doing exactly the opposite here:

“Two days into his general election campaign, Donald Trump has already signaled he may abandon his positions on two major policy issues: a minimum wage increase and tax cuts for the rich.

Trump has never been known for his consistency: He took multiple positions on abortion in several days last month, and more recently shifted from promising to erase America’s $19 trillion debt in eight years to arguing it was actually a good time to borrow. Even on his signature issue of immigration, he’s flipped back and forth – sometimes in the same day – on whether he supports certain visas for legal workers. …”

Remember how much I hated the Trump plan because it was conservative, not populist? I even told reporters from Buzzfeed and Politico that my enthusiasm for Trump had cooled because of the tax plan.

I thought the Jack Kemp-Larry Kudlow tax plan would be a liability in the general election and that Hillary would use it to portray Trump as another Mitt Romney with White working class voters – well, that’s been thrown out the window now, and thankfully it is not going to distract from the free-trade message in the fall.

3.) It gets even better.

Now that the Republican Party has cast off the albatross of neocon warmongers, the free-trading globalists, and the Wall Street bankers who want large tax cuts, they are all being invited by Hillary Clinton to regroup in the Democratic Party:

“NEW YORK, May 6 (UPI) — Top fundraisers for Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton have begun targeting one-time donors to former Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, in a bid to woo those who are opposed to GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump.

Politico reported Thursday the race to win over some of Wall Street’s top big money donors has taken an unsocial turn since Trump all but locked up the nomination this week. Many of Bush’s former donors have not lined up behind Trump and Clinton’s team is courting several high-profile individuals, including Bush’s former finance chairman, Woody Johnson, who owns the NFL’s New York Jets. …”

4.) Bernie Sanders and his supporters were already upset about Hillary Clinton’s close ties to Wall Street, warmongering, and support for free-trade agreements. Needless to say, Hillary’s rolling out the red carpet for ¡Jeb! & Co. wasn’t well received:

“Bernie Sanders chastised Hillary Clinton for soliciting Republican donors for her presidential campaign, saying those tactics would turn off his supporters.

“Those are the kinds of things that make not only my supporters, but millions of Americans, nervous,” Sanders said Friday on PBS “NewsHour.”

Sanders was referring to a Thursday Politico report that claimed Clinton’s supporters have targeted Bush family donors for funding, trying to convince them she represents their values better than presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.

“By the way, as I understand it, [Clinton] is now reaching out to Jeb Bush’s fundraisers in order to raise money from them, and that really casts a doubt on the parts of millions of Americans,” said Sanders, who currently trails Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“Are you really going to stand up for the middle and working class when you’re collecting millions from Jeb Bush supporters?” …”

The old liberal vs. conservative ideological divide is breaking down. It is being replaced by a new politics that is populist vs. globalist.