The History of Trumpism

This is a good article:

“The Republican party, its leaders like to say, is a party of ideas. Debates over budgets and government programmes are important, but they must be conducted with an eye on the bigger questions – questions about the character of the state, the future of freedom and the meaning of virtue. These beliefs provide the foundation for a conservative intellectual establishment – thinktanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, magazines such as National Review, pundits such as George Will and Bill Kristol – dedicated to advancing the right’s agenda. …”

Read the whole article.

My own journey started in the wake of Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaigns in 2001 when I stumbled across his book The Death of the West. Buchanan wrote a series of great books including The Great Betrayal and A Republic, Not An Empire that laid out everything we now see happening in the world around us today.

Back then, Sam Francis was writing for VDARE. Stormfront was launching as a vBulletin forum. Dr. William Pierce was shaking his fist at the Jews on his radio show. The neocons were committing their world-historical blunder in Iraq which set the entire Middle East on fire. George W. Bush was making his first moves to throw the conservative base under the bus by pushing “comprehensive immigration reform.”

The Ron Paul movement was another important factor in the rise of Trump. The same is true of the Tea Party. Lots of people who started out as Ron Paul libertarians or Tea Party supporters eventually found their way into the Alt-Right. The talk radio crowd – Hannity, Ingraham, Limbaugh – is following the shift going on among their audience.

When I started out in 2001, Free Republic was the standard bearer of George W. Bush-era movement conservatism. I must have gotten banned there a dozen times for my “radical” views. Now, the site has completely changed its tune, and what used to be “radical” among movement conservatives is now the conventional wisdom.

I’m not even really an “extremist” anymore. Virtually everything I used to write about – except maybe the negative impact of Jewish influence, which still isn’t kosher – is now covered by Breitbart or World Net Daily or The Drudge Report. Seriously, by what standard am I an “extremist,” but what Breitbart writes about is “mainstream”?

Regardless of the outcome in November, Trump’s wake is going to dwarf anything we have seen with Pat Buchanan or Ron Paul. So many people have started their own journey with this campaign like I did in 2001. It is not going to stop there. If Trump goes down in November, they are going to going to become even angrier, more alienated, and more radicalized than they are now, which is saying something.

Just a few years ago the #LyingPress and the Republican establishment thought the Tea Party was bad! They defanged, coopted, neutered and milked the Tea Party and what they got was Trump’s national populism. If they stop Trump, what do these people think they are going to get in 2020 or 2024? Marco Rubio?

15 years ago, I was the radical fringe. I haven’t changed a bit and I am slowly becoming “mainstream.” In a few years, I will be perceived as a “moderate.” In a few decades, I will probably go to my grave as a “liberal”!