What Now?

After winning the Indiana Republican presidential primary
two days ago, Donald Trump supposedly now has at least
the required number of delegates amassed to clinch the
GOP nomination and thus head up their ticket in November.
Directly following the results of the Hoosier State's primary
Sen. Ted Cruz announced he was suspending his campaign
(this is the modern term for a candidate's packing it in).
Cruz was Trump's closest rival in delegates gathered, so
his gambits of choosing Carly Fiorina to be his running mate
well ahead of the Republican Convention in July and a pact
of cooperation with the other remaining GOP candidate,
Gov. John Kasich, have failed.

And so have my warnings to people about voting for Trump,
as he is an opportunistic player who is a newcomer to the
conservative/republican choir yet wanted to be the choirmaster;
damned if he didn't get what he was after! And now we
conservatives have to face some frightening possible
consequences of having the bellicose billionaire as the
standard bearer to face the likely Democrat nominee,
Hillary Clinton, in November.

Your mystified Peasant has given warnings about Trump on
this blog, in conversations with conservative friends both
in the Republican Party and not, and also voted for Ted Cruz
in my state's primary last month. When Cruz won Wisconsin's
GOP primary in a landslide, I was joyful and ecstatic because
it looked like the tide was turning for stopping Trump's march
to the GOP laurels, as Cruz also won a few other primaries
in smaller states but looked like he was catching fire; now his
campaign has crashed and burned, and Trump will quite likely
strut to Cleveland for the GOP confab, and what might have
been a brokered convention will become a mere formality.

Two golden opportunities has not just been blown, but blown up.
We not only passed on nominating a candidate who could
have beaten Clinton, winning over more women as well as
voters from various ethnic and racial groups to thwart the
Democrats and their candidate, we have also declined a
fantastic opportunity to build a conservative coalition, one
even bigger and more cohesive than the Reagan coalition
was, to ensure conservative victories in future presidential
races as well as maintaining control of both houses of Congress
guaranteeing mutual cooperation between the executive and
legislative branches of government, which would share the
goals of limiting government and restoring constitutional rule
of law. We could have, in other words, made it difficult, if
not impossible for another Barack Obama to be elected
president and given a Democrat-controlled Congress which
would give him carte blanche in how he would govern.
We could have had a government which would finally act
on halting the growth of both the national debt and the
budget deficit, and put us on the path to solvency, thus
ceasing to enslave our coming generations of fellow Americans
in debt, necessitating their paying ever-increasing taxes
to a government which would continue to spend revenue
faster than it could collect it, which we currently suffer.

But most of the Trump voters never thought this through; oh, no,
they voted their anger instead of our possibilities for true
change (not the crapioca pudding for change that Obama
has been feeding us for nearly eight years!) which would result
in repairing our government, our nation's finances, and our
nation. With Trump at the top of the GOP ticket, the party
stands a realistic chance of not only losing to Clinton,
thus giving the Democrats their Phase 2 in their plans to
convert our country into a statist nightmare; one (or both)
chambers of Congress could revert to the Dems as well.
Moreover, there could also be considerable losses down
the ticket as well, with governorships and state legislatures
being lost. Trump has not built any working relationships
with any GOP officeholders in Washington, let alone at the
state levels; he has been too busy promoting himself and
his candidacy with his braggadoccio, his boasting, and his
bellicosity. And of course Trump never gave any specifics
as to his programs and plans for the economy, health care,
and national defense, only talk of building a wall between
Mexico and the United States to keep out illegal aliens,
making Mexico pay for its construction (how would Trump
make that happen?). Trump is for Trump, period. That is
not a good way to forge alliances and mutual cooperation
with people. But the Trump crowd was attracted to the verbal
roundhouse swinging on these issues (especially on illegal
immigration and immigrants) by their hero, and that's all that
they cared about. They could not, would not see past their
emotions and be guided by logic rather than rage. And we
may all be made the worse for it.

I'm angry too; I have become increasingly frustrated by the
steadily encroaching growth of the power and scope of the
government despite the promises of actual and supposed
conservatives to do something about it if we would but only
elect them. Some have been magnificent; others not. Some
have been faithful to their constituents by walking the walk;
others merely talked the talk, then threw in with the estab-
lishment after settling in following being elected. And the
Democrats have grown more arrogant, more cocky, more
self-righteous, more full of themselves, listening less and
less to the objections of the We the People to their escalating
taxing, spending, regulating, mandating, and running roughshod
over us and the Constitution. Some days I am so angry that I
can barely manage to be sociable with people. On days like
this I am not a lot of fun to be around. But I will never, ever,
sacrifice my thought and reason in choosing a course of
action to turn this situation around. And as you, my wonderful
readers know, I read and study most diligently the political
and economic news each and every day. I endeavor to inform
myself as to the events and the people behind them. All I am
doing is what any good, responsible citizen would do in order
to be an informed voter, to ensure that our representative form
of government, our republic will continue to operate with
efficiency, for our government in order to so work requires a
citizenry that takes the time to educate itself about these things.
This, too, is helpful in keeping one's emotions in check while
exercising one's reasoning abilities. While I share the Trump
supporters' anger, frustration, and outrage, I do not share their
enthusiasm for their chosen candidate.

What now must happen is to make Donald Trump realize that
if he is to win over the support of those of us who have been
at best skeptical, and at worst mistrusting of him, that he must
take more solid positions on the crucial issues which we face,
and to formulate specific courses of action, stating each step
in their implementation. And we must make it known that,
although he has been politically liberal in his past (recent past
included), if he is to be the Republican candidate for the highest
elected office in the land he must take a copy of our songbook,
learn the words therein, and sing in harmony with us. For we
are not joining with him; he is joining with us. After all, Trump
came over to the Republican Party and said "Me too!" to being
a Republican, following up with making conservative-ish
noises. We didn't seek Trump; he sought us. The aforementioned
is what he should do if he is serious about earning the support
of Republicans and conservatives, those in the party and those
who are not.

Will this transpire? Time will tell. But we haven't much time to
wait to find out.


MEM