Donald Trump: Finally, How a RINO Can Win the Presidency

Donald Trump has demonstrated finally for Republicans how a RINO can win the presidency. When out-of-the-closet RINOs have run for president in the past (you know, Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney), the American people have always chosen the genuine article over the cheap knockoff.  In other words, why buy a knockoff Democrat when you can buy the brand-name Democrat for the same price?

But that trend of fallen RINO presidential candidates has finally come to an end with Donald Trump.

Since this will no doubt embolden the RINO establishment to double down on pushing RINO candidates in the future, it behooves us all to understand how the trend of losers was broken and how a RINO presidential candidate can succeed in a presidential race.

There are a few important reasons:

1. The desperation of the American people drove them to mindless rage, where they were wiling to abandon facts, logic, principle, propriety, self-respect and common sense to vote for a crass, obtuse, unintelligent, corrupt, amoral liberal who can’t maintain the same position on a given issue for more than 24 hours (often less)…all because “he fights” and “he can win.”

2. Low information voters in the GOP.  Throughout both the primary and general elections, I heard uncountable people (ostensibly most of them Republicans and even “conservatives”) claim that Trump was a conservative (when his record proves he’s anything but), that Trump loves America (even though he doesn’t understand what makes America unique and sometimes sounds like an America-bashing Leftist), that Trump isn’t a globalist (even though he has many of his products manufactured overseas, hires foreign workers, and runs companies around the globe), that Trump will fix the illegal immigration problem (even though he has hired illegal aliens, funded supporters of sanctuary cities, has flip-flopped into saying “the good illegals can stay,” and has vacillated many times on his immigration plans), Trump will protect the unborn (even though he said his pro-abortion sister would make a good Supreme Court judge, put a judge who called abortion a “right” on his SCOTUS short list, called for the pro-life plank of the GOP platform to be watered-down, and probably paid for an abortion), and on down the line of idiotic pro-Trump statements that wither in the light of the facts. You know, it’s not like this is the 1980s and there’s no internet or form of media other than the liberal “mainstream” media; if someone didn’t know this stuff by the time the primaries began, they didn’t want to know. Low information voters.

3. Trump’s unparalleled name recognition. Anyone who has ever run a campaign knows name recognition is vital; if people don’t know who you are, they aren’t likely to vote for you. Trump has been in the news since the 1980s, and has been a “reality” TV star for over a decade. It’s hard for most human beings to match that kind of name recognition and star power, especially in the current day and age of the aforementioned low information voter.

4. Some $2 billion in earned media during the primary which, if it wasn’t already from being in the news for 30 years and on reality TV for over a decade, ensured Donald Trump’s name would be a household word.  Not only was it $2 billion in earned media to advertise his name, it was carefully presented by the “mainstream” Leftist media to highlight the behaviors that raging Americans could latch onto in hope, without exposing what a lying, corrupt, duplicitous liberal Donald Trump has been for years.

5. A Democrat opponent who epitomizes corruption and contempt for the citizenry on an astronomical scale.  You know, Hillary Clinton–the worst candidate Democrats could possibly have fielded.

6. A Democrat opponent with serious health problems, who then brazenly lies and attempts to deceive people about those health problems. The American people just aren’t big on electing a chief executive to the most stressful office in the world…who may keel over dead at any time.

7. A Democrat opponent with a list of scandals surrounding her that’s longer than the Baja Peninsula, some of them going back 20 years or more.  Who could forget about Benghazi, Whitewater, Hillarycare, stories of her rage, her email scandal, and so many others?  Perhaps most critical of all was the revelation about two weeks before the election that a bunch of Hillary’s missing emails were found on sexting pedophile Anthony Weiner’s cell phone.  What an incredible last-minute gift for the worst GOP presidential candidate in history!

8. Republicans couldn’t have asked for a better “October surprise” gift except maybe Hillary’s Weiner problem) than the 25% ObamaCare premiums increase that hit the news about two weeks before the election.  ObamaCare has been loathed by the American people since before it was passed back in  early 2010, and it’s been even more derided since it has been going into implementation. And  now we see that even after the other rate hikes ObamaCare has brought us (you know,  the thing that  was supposed to save us $2,500 a year in premiums?), we get ANOTHER 25% increase  in our costs?  This turd getting back into the news at the last minute was a RINO’s best friend.

9. You have to be blunt, primarily in verbal defense of the things of which you intend to pander appease appeal to your base about,  and be blunt in verbal opposition to the bad things of which you intend to pander appease appeal to your base about. It doesn’t really matter if you’ve actually behaved in the opposite manner for most of your life; as long as you make it sound like you’re as angry as your prospective base, and as long as you have a worse boogeyman than yourself to which to point.  Oh, and thrown in plenty of crass insults and a healthy smattering of gratuitous profanity for good measure. This will really impress the low information voters on the Right.  Remember, with the low information crowd on either side of the political aisle, it’s all about symbolism and show over substance.

10.Finally, it really helps to get a RINO elected when Christians abandon their standards about principles and morality. As we learned recently, white evangelicals have warmed to politicians who commit immoral  acts. Isn’t that wonderful? In 2011, 30% of white evangelicals said that “an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life.” Just five short years ago, less than 1/3 of white evangelicals were cool with morally reprehensible candidates. Now, five  short years later, nearly 3/4 of white evangelicals are okay with supporting a morally reprehensible candidate. You’ve come a long way, Baby! I bet Bill Clinton is wishing he’d had today’s Christians during his presidency, rather than the ones back then who believed character matters.

So to recap, here’s the formula necessary for a RINO to win a presidential election:

• A desperate, raging American people, so angry at being betrayed in Washington that they’ll abandon all sense to vote for a RINO that can pass himself off as conservative.
• Low information voters.
• Unparalleled name recognition
• $2 billion in earned media
• An astonishingly corrupt Democrat opponent
• A Democrat opponent with disturbing health problems (and some deception about those health problems thrown in for good measure)
• A Democrat opponent with the baggage of multiple scandals both fresh and going back over 20 years
• Another gouge of the American people by big-government Democrats which hits them squarely in the wallet right before the election.
• Be blunt, insulting and profane to impress low information voters on the Right with your “anger”
• Get Christians to abandon their standards on principle and morality

There you have it.  Of course, future RINOs will have great difficulty replicating a number of these factors, but now that the bulk of the Republican electorate have proven that they’ll completely abandon principle to support a liberal Democrat who has an “R” after his name (as long as said RINO can manage to portray himself as a conservative and stoke up that anger), the RINO establishment is sure to keep sending plenty of RINOs our way at the state and national level.

If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption. – President James Garfield

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Bob Ellis has been the owner of media company Dakota Voice, LLC since 2005. He is a 10-year U.S. Air Force veteran, a political reporter and commentator for the past decade, and has been involved in numerous election and public policy campaigns for over 20 years. He was a founding member and board member of the Tea Party groups Citizens for Liberty and the South Dakota Tea Party Alliance. He lives in Rapid City, South Dakota with his wife and two children.

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