Even the backhanded compliments from Steven Brodie Tucker over at The Bull Elephant fall flat in the cavalcade of see-I-told-you-so that is so richly deserved in the collapse of the RINOcare vote.
One will have to pardon the obsession and outright hatred for the daring presence of Jews in public life among the nationalist set — though Jeffrey Tucker over at the libertarian think tank FEE has a great explanation for why such latent anti-Semitism against people like Eric Cantor exists.
Moreover, this weekend’s Richmond Times-Dispatch delivers a withering critique of the anti-conservative movement, which is going to find itself impossibly and inextricably wedded to the alt-right’s identitarian weltanschauung.
Where others are desperately attempting a mining operation to create a chasm between the populist-driven candidacy of Dave Brat vs. the populist driven candidacies of Donald Trump and Corey Stewart, let’s give Stewart at least this — he has an intellectual consistency that is absent among those floundering on populist right these days (i.e. Dave Brat), as noted obliquely by the RTD’s Bart Hinkle:
Trump’s presidential victory and Dave Brat’s upset over Eric Cantor offer two reminders about the peril of political predictions. But were Stewart to win the primary, he likely would get slaughtered in the general election. Unlike Brat’s district, the whole of Virginia is not gerrymandered. And Trump, who started out with far better name recognition than Stewart could ever dream of, still lost Virginia by more than 200,000 votes.
The problem, of course, is that there is no way to salvage anything in this impending divorce between populists and nationalists. It’s going to burn.
In the surge to victory against conservatives such as Rubio and Cantor, supporters of Trump and Brat were perfectly willing to accept the blended assistance of the nationalist right.
Thus the existential crisis in the populist camp as Trump is coming with guns blazing seeking members of the House Freedom Caucus to destroy — Brat being the top of the list as HFC members gladly let him become the sacrificial lamb in 2018.
Meanwhile, conservatives and liberty movement types can lean back and laugh — but only to a point. We warned folks that Trump would break their heart. We warned others that Brat was playing for advantage rather than principle.
Personally, I have a very mixed (mostly negative) view of the RINOcare effort.
Senator Rand Paul has the right bill — stem to stern. House Freedom Caucus members should have been up front and stated very clearly that they would neither negotiate nor bend on a House version of S.222 and let Trump and Ryan go cut a deal elsewhere, or announce a willingness to bend and see what they can get.
Instead, what Brat and other weenie members of the House Freedom Caucus did was negotiate — i.e. rather than hold firm, they tried to see how much government they could squeeze out of any deal that would be forthcoming. That’s disingenuous to the extreme, and when the White House chooses to drop hammers (as they rightly should), it’s going to fall hardest on those who have a bad habit of talking out of both sides of their mouth.
…guys like Dave Brat.
Politics is the art of the possible, not the ideal. Principles are like tools… if you want to keep them pristine? Keep them on the shelf. If you want to put your principles to work, you have to get them dirty… and even then, principles are worthless unless there are values informing their direction. This is why these clowns don’t last long. Patience and time bear all things to light.
Here’s the tough equation most folks don’t get. The House Freedom Caucus has two choices: stand firm and get nothing, or bend and get a bit of something out of the deal.
If the House Freedom Caucus chooses the latter, they own the bill. In which case, take the easy win of repealing Obamacare, defunding Planned Parenthood, and attempt to create a parallel institution of a market based health care solution when RINOcare fails (which it inevitably will because health care is a service, not a market).
If the former, then you drive the majority (Trump and Ryan) into the arms of Labor Democrats who are more than happy to cut deals that frankly, play into much of what conservatives warned the populist right that Trump would want — a $15 minimum wage, single payer health care, and protectionist spending projects that only further the morass.
The real question the HFC has to ask itself as a caucus is whether they want to be a part of a solution — even if that solution is RINOcare — or are the divisions so visceral and real that there is no compromise with the House Republican Caucus as a whole (and in which case, is a third party or “third force” warranted)?
Here’s the real problem with the House Freedom Caucus at the moment: the liberty movement such as Paul and Massie are clear about their path forward, but they have nothing to lose — they were Paul supporters from the get-go. The populists who hitched their wagon to Trump are now in a clear and distinct crisis because they did not follow the direction of the political masters that elected them.
Amazingly enough, conservatives and liberty-minded Republicans can’t help but laugh at the backstabbers that defined themselves based on populist anger. They got the title; but they have no idea how to leverage it to work for the causes they purport to defend.
Populists are only now learning that anger makes a great accelerant when you want to burn things down… but it makes terrible fuel. When that anger is borrowed from a nationalist right utterly preoccupied with men like Cantor?
That’s going to carry consequences. Consequences Stewart and Brat (and others) are about to learn in spades.