Voters 'tasting betrayal' by swamp-dwelling Republicans
Republican voters are "tasting betrayal" at the hands of swamp-dwelling Republicans who are failing to act on the Trump agenda – and their own promises.
In a scathing column at breitbart.com, Brent Bozell contends that the Republican party is "systematically committing suicide":
They were given everything.
In January of this year, they formally controlled both houses of Congress and the executive branch. Every single thing they'd ever promised was now possible. ...
Repeal Obamacare? Check. End illegal immigration? Check. Build the wall? Check.
Crush the Deep State? Done, by God, done!
There was not a damn thing the Democrats could do to stop them from draining the swamp.
Except the Republican leadership didn't mean it. With the exception of the Freedom Caucus in the House, and literally a handful in the Senate, the rank-and-file didn't either. Not one word of it.
In fairness to Republicans, it takes only a handful of McCains and Murkowskis in the Senate, siding with obstructionist Democrats, to betray the party's promises, but Republicans were elected to get results, not to find excuses.
Citing the Obamacare repeal fiasco and the false starts on tax reform, Bozell contends that the Republicans have accomplished "absolutely nothing" on either front:
There is no difference between Republicans and Democrats. Put them together. They are the swamp.
Bozell adds that, just as the Republicans were given the "power to enact the agenda" they have promised for eight years, they also "now own the federal government, in toto." Obamacare, spending, taxes, "all the graft, all the waste" – it's all theirs.
Whether through political weakness or their own never-Trump inclinations, the swamp-dwelling Republicans are aiding and abetting the Democrat resistance to President Trump and his agenda.
And by defying the president's voters, Republicans are turning their backs on the movement that elected Trump as their messenger.
David Limbaugh, writing at townhall.com, argues that Trump is the messenger for voters looking "to fight back against this leftist juggernaut that represents an existential threat to all we hold sacred":
But I think the Trump movement transcends Trump. It preceded him but coalesced in him and will survive him. You won't eradicate the Trump movement by removing Trump – assuming that's your endgame.
While Limbaugh self-identifies as a "Reagan and Ted Cruz conservative," he also thinks a "willing and determined" fighter like Trump – "as opposed to some well mannered, leftist-appeasing centrist" – gives us a "far better chance of thwarting the leftist agenda."
Limbaugh maintains that candidate Trump "was every bit as brash, unfiltered and unorthodox" as President Trump and that the American people "knowingly elected him as just that guy."
Most Trump voters, says Limbaugh, "view Trump less as someone who is perfect and more as one who is in the foxhole with them trying to fight the forces determined to dismantle America as founded, piece by piece." The Republican swamp-dwellers don't seem to be up to the fight.
Limbaugh's message to what he calls the "equal-opportunity Trump-haters" is to spend less time "salivating over your next Trump dump" and more time "registering outrage over the stuff regularly spewing from the left – including the mainstream media":
Until our side recognizes the gravity of our situation and unifies to fight against the left with the same commitment the left brings to this fight, you can be sure that at least a strong plurality of the political right will continue to rally around unorthodox figures who at least have the brass to fight back.
The fate of the Republican party and the success of the Trump agenda are inextricably linked, whether the swamp-dwelling never-Trump Republicans like it or not.
Unless those establishment Republicans begin to follow through on the Trump agenda – and their own promises – the movement that elected President Trump will have more incentive to turn out for primary opponents than for do-nothing incumbents, as Brent Bozell concludes:
Come the Congressional elections next year, and the presidential election in 2020, the Grand Old Party will once again bellow its hallowed promises. But this time it won't work. This time there will be no straw men to blame. This time their voters will know those hallowed promises are not even hollow promises. They are lies.
These voters are tasting betrayal.
Time is running short for swamp-dwelling Republicans to keep their promises.