(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Like many Republicans, my loyalty to former President Donald Trump has sometimes been tested.
His first term often rose to meet—and surpass—what was, admittedly, a low bar going in.
Nonetheless, he was hobbled considerably by his own rhetoric, making himself needlessly into a target, to such great extent that his political rivals have felt validated in casting aside all democratic norms to take him down.
Their brinksmanship—as evident in the weaponization of bureaucratic institutions like the FBI, collusion with private organizations to censor and harass conservatives, and the deployment of nearly every Stalinist tactic in the book (short of mass genocide)—has undoubtedly put the country in unsteady territory.
At the same time, if one were truly to believe that an authoritarian dictator was in control, it would be foolhardy to rely only on the democratic process to attempt to keep him in check.
Who can blame them, thus, for fighting back against an existential threat to all that they hold dear—even if that happens to be the deep-seated corruption of the administrative state and globalist politburo?
THE INGRAHAM 180°
While the Left’s hyperbolic propaganda may be largely to blame for the vilification of Trump, he has certainly leaned into the attack—and gotten broadsided as a result.
Faced with the prospect of going all-in for a leader whose legal entanglements are likely to continue creating a sideshow, versus an alternative like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who offers the same upsides with less of the drama, primetime Fox News host Laura Ingraham echoed the interior monologues playing out in the minds of many conservatives during an interview with podcaster Lisa Boothe.
Ingraham, a longtime Trump ally, floated the possibility of cutting bait, politically speaking, on the embattled ex-president, according to Citizen Free Press.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham, a vocal Trump ally, suggests voters might reject a 2024 comeback from Donald Trump:
“The country … may believe that, ‘Well, maybe it’s time to turn the page if we can get someone who has all of Trump’s policies who’s not Trump.’” pic.twitter.com/vceDd7DVtc
— The Recount (@therecount) August 15, 2022
“People conflate Trump with people’s overall sense of happiness in the country,” Ingraham told Boothe. “Donald Trump’s been a friend of mine for 25 years, and I’m always very open about this on my show. But, you know, we’ll see whether that’s what the country wants.”
Given Trump’s failure while in power to prevent a historically weak opponent from stealing the election, his prospects of fighting an uphill battle against an emboldened adversary seem tenuous at best, even as the stakes may be higher than ever.
“The country, I think, is so exhausted,” Ingraham said. “They’re exhausted by the battle, the constant battle, that they may believe that, ‘Well, maybe it’s time to turn the page if we can get someone who has all Trump’s policies, who’s not Trump.’”
The pseudo-Republican Lincoln Project, which has long claimed to be the GOP’s anchor to classical conservatism even while engaging in reprehensible political tactics, gleefully celebrated Ingraham’s apparent surrender.
“Even Laura is done with Donald,” it wrote on its YouTube page. “Tucker [Carlson] and [Sean] Hannity are probably next.”
MISCONSTRUED MOTIVES
As appealing as it sounds, Ingraham’s line of reasoning suffers from the fallacy of projection—by ascribing to leftists the good-faith motive that it is Trump’s character (or lack thereof) causing them to comport themselves with such disgrace.
If we can just dispatch with the Trump Derangement Syndrome, perhaps civility will ensue and we can begin the healing process—or so one might think.
The reality is that no such thing is ever likely to happen, short of total capitulation to the agenda of the “liberal world order” that leftists are determined to effect through a series of Cloward–Piven crises.
Trump’s abrasive demeanor is not his worst political liability but his best political asset for the work that must be done—and that is precisely why the corrupt global elites must use every trick and tool at their disposal against him.
The Left’s dubious history of doing the same to every Republican leader of the modern era who dared challenge its authoritarian hegemony underscores that point. Some, like Richard Nixon, crumpled under the pressure. Others, like the George Bushes, kowtowed to it.
Only one other Republican president, since the modern progressive movement was born in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution, has dared to face it down.
A POLITICAL COLD WAR
Like President Ronald Reagan understood when confronting a similar challenge against the forces behind the Iron Curtain, the current threat requires both fortitude and strategy.
The Left, having organized around a coalition of aggrieved, marginalized cultural minorities, no longer sees liberty as the greatest virtue America has to offer.
It is liberty, after all, that has allowed the Left’s adherents to languish under the very institutions that made America great.
Instead, it sees democracy as the means to subvert those institutions, exploiting America’s vulnerabilities like a Trojan horse to gain control of them.
Replacing one strong conservative on the front lines with another is not likely to yield a different outcome.
Rather than cut and run, conservatives should be using the enemy’s fixation with Trump to prepare multiple flank attacks that will help reinforce his victory.
UNDER A SINGLE BANNER
Ingraham aptly notes that the process of weeding out the defectors—those whose inherent disloyalty to conservative values lay long dormant beneath the surface of the Swamp—is an important step.
“The other problem is that it’s really not about Trump, right—this is about the views that Trump now brought to the floor for the Republican Party,” she told Boothe.
“They don’t like his views,” she continued. “They don’t like the fact that he called out the military for their failures, that he wanted us to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, that he wanted to treat China and our trade relationship with China in a much—it was a smarter, but much different way than the globalists preferred. And they certainly didn’t like the fact that he sent all those illegal immigrants back to Mexico with that Remain in Mexico.”
Though the contentious primary season may feel like it is weakening the GOP, it is, in fact, establishing a much needed cohesion and ideological alignment under a single banner, with Trump as its bannerman.
There is no other way to strike at the heart of this demon, which has corrupted America’s very soul, than to stay the course—and then to turn Trump’s former failures into our greatest advantage.
“When we get power back, it’s time to hold everyone accountable,” Ingraham noted. “The military leadership, the civilian leadership, the civil service, those in Congress who have abused their power—all of them have to be held accountable.”
Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at truthsocial.com/@bensellers.
