Trump won Virginia’s primary on the wave of a boiling rage. Blind rage. The anger is against The Establishment. The anger is against the Republican Establishment as much as it’s against the Democrat/Progressive/Socialist/Commie/Nom de Jour establishment Establishment.
I expected it – and called it a wildfire – a decade ago. I was wrong then, not on substance, but on timing. And, as we know, from comedy to war, timing is everything.
I thought when Republicans brought us the largest tax increase in Virginia history in 2004, there would be a revolt at the polls. Then, Republicans passed HB 3202 – the spectacularly, unconstitutional, regional government transportation scam – the worst legislation since Massive Resistance. A few fat cats were killed in primaries and Republicans lost the long hard won majority in the General Assembly, but the whole fetid alley of feral Virginia Republicans wasn’t cleaned out. When our Republicans won the majority again, they passed a new largest tax increase in Virginia history in 2013.
The Establishment got their money man, Fast Eddie Gillespie to run as the stand out failure in the epochal, earth quake anti-Obama side of the Establishment election in 2014. There were no consequences, just excuses. In 2015, the few challenges to The Establishment in Virginia were swatted aside. When the Virginia Attorney General violated his oath of office, only one Republican, Bob Marshall, tried to impeach him. His courage to do his duty was summarily dismissed.
Last year, 2015, and this year Virginia’s Republican congressional delegation did nothing to stand up to abusive, unconstitutional Supreme Court rulings. Nothing. A few fellows got to vote against the Speaker of the House’s unconditional surrender to Obama, when their votes weren’t going to matter. No profiles in courage here.
So, is it any surprise that Trump took Virginia?
Other writers weave Trump’s triumphs as a tale of demographic voting blocs being squeezed as a class, losing privileges of race, hurting from challenges and mockery of their religion and culture, displaced by immigrants, and ignored by the very people and Party they voted to fix things. I see it in simple terms of inevitable, foreseeable corruption. Nothing a revolution can’t fix.
Our Republic is ruled – across all three branches of the Federal government – by an Establishment corrupted by politics as usual because politics is just a corrupt business. Not public service. It’s the business of power and money because of the status of the USA as a Super-Power – whether it’s in decline or not. Career politicians are the problem. Replacing them for a ‘revolutionary season’ of 12 to 20 years with people who don’t need the job and money, can’t be bought, and are passionate to restore the Constitution and Rule of Law is the best fix. Finding and electing such patriots is a lot of hard work.
Only a handful of incumbent Republicans can be trusted to do what is right instead of what they are told. Nationally, Ted Cruz is one such leader.
So, what I expected in 2005 and thought I saw in the Tea Party in 2009, may finally be happening in 2015-16 across Virginia. The wildfire, the storm, the tidal wave, the earthquake, the blind rage, whatever it is, is here.
But, Trump isn’t the answer.
He is riding a bubble that he is going to pop himself. Furthermore, no one, currently, is leading a fight to clean out and replace the Republican Establishment in Virginia.
Most of Trump’s success is the national failure and betrayal by Republicans. Yet, some of the Trump and Cruz vote in Virginia is the responsibility of Virginia Republicans – the majority of those elected to party and public office.
Russ Moulton’s allies work to influence Republican Party of Virginia elections – to exceed and consolidate the successes of 2012. Cynthia Dunbar is running for National Committeewoman. Yet, there isn’t a vision for what to do, when and how, about the whole R Establishment across the Commonwealth. Additionally, along with the absence of an achievable plan, there’s no champion. No Patrick Henry to give voice. No George Washington to lead.
Yet.
