The Shape of Conservative Strategy Against Trump

Several dozen conservatives met in Washington D.C. today to discuss what could be done to prevent RINO Donald Trump from being elected president. I was invited, as I was at the similar Conservatives of Faith meeting four years ago, but was not able to attend the meeting today.

As Trump’s record on things like abortion to the homosexual agenda to working with the corrupt establishment to his fondness for Leftist talking points on foreign policy to his hypocrisy on illegal immigration, and much much more reveals, he is not even remotely a conservative. His record indicates he is as faithless to Republican values and principles as RINOs like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.

The Republican establishment has rammed liberal RINOs down the throats of the Right for the past two presidential election cycles, and people have had enough. The American people have rightly come to the conclusion that the liberal GOP establishment is selling them out, down the rough river of Leftist poison. What many Americans aren’t stopping to realize is that Trump is the same kind of RINO that has been selling them out; the only difference is that he comes from outside the political sphere.

What’s more, a sizable chunk of Trump’s support comes from Democrats and liberal “independents” who have given him great momentum in the many open/nonpartisan primaries in various states.

Conservative columnist and talk show host Erick Erickson, one of the chief organizers of today’s meeting of conservatives in Washington D.C., spoke to Fox News about the meeting (video below). Though Erickson was an organizer, he could not attend in person due to a sudden illness, but participated via conference call.

The interview featured the results of a poll which showed that 60% of non-Trump voters would consider voting for a third party candidate if Trump secures the GOP nomination.

Erickson said there was definitely consensus at the meeting that attenders found both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton unacceptable.

While the group decided not to pursue a third party alternative at this time, they decided to do what they can to promote an alternative to Trump in the remaining primaries, and if Trump fails to secure enough delegates before the convention, fight for a conservative nominee at the GOP convention. As Erickson pointed out, it took Abraham Lincoln three ballot votes at the GOP convention to secure the Republican nomination; certainly conservatives can fight for a real Republican within the established rules of the party.

I have seen various members of the “mainstream” media claiming that this was a meeting of “establishment” Republicans. As Erickson indicated, that claim is completely false. The people who attended this meeting were the farthest thing possible from establishment cronies. These were the people who have been trying to get the GOP establishment to stand up for Republican principles and fight liberalism for years.

This evening I talked with Quin Hillyer, the spokesman for the group today. Hillyer told me that, as indicated in the statement released by Erickson earlier today, right now the group intends to concentrate on seeing a conservative secure the delegates necessary for the nomination instead of Donald Trump.  A unity ticket could help defeat Trump, and the group believes that is doable. If no one has secured enough delegates to win the nomination before the GOP convention, the group would like to see a conservative ticket take shape at the convention that could defeat Trump on the second or subsequent ballot. Hillyer pointed out that in a republic like ours, the majority, not a plurality, rules.  If a conservative ticket is unable to secure the nomination at the convention, as the statement indicates, they will be keeping their options open.

Hillyer made it clear that the group supports a fair and open process to obtaining a conservative GOP nominee, with no tricks.  The group consists not of GOP establishment figures, but “movement conservatives who believe in the cause of freedom and traditional values, and have individually come to conclusion that Donald Trump does not believe in those things the way we do.”

According to Hillyer, no future meetings of the group of conservatives have been scheduled, but he is sure there will be as the campaign season progresses.

This election has been extremely unusual, with the American people, especially on the Right, largely rejecting establishment candidates.  In the GOP, most of the RINOs were among the first to go, and even tens of millions of dollars wasn’t enough to keep Jeb Bush in the race.  Even in the Democrat Party, open socialist Bernie Sanders has bloodied the nose of Hillary Clinton, and she would be in dire trouble were it not for the shady delegate allocation going on in the Democrat Party.

But for the GOP, not only the “mainstream” media but the Republican establishment and conservatives have had great difficulty understanding what is fueling Donald Trump’s strange rise.  As I have pointed out, it definitely helps Trump in pop culture that Trump has been in the news and on entertainment television for several decades.

Also, the American people have finally had a belly-full of being betrayed not only by the Democrats, but by the Republican establishment as well.  This is proven beyond a doubt by the fact that realistically, the last two candidates standing are both non-establishment outsiders: Donald Trump and conservative Ted Cruz.  Cruz is the more reasoned and thoughtful of the two, and among a people who are fed up by the GOP leadership’s fecklessness, outspoken (often inconsistent) anger may sell better to those who just want to shake their fist at the establishment.

Today, Dana Loesch on The Blaze interviewed Dr. Yaron Brook, CEO of the Ayn Rand Institute (video below).

Dr. Brook said that because we have failed to pass on the legacy of freedom in America, to explain to each subsequent generation what America is about and stands for, there is nothing left in pop culture of America’s rebellion against tyranny except anger.

“As a consequence, the American people, all that’s left is hatred of the Left–not a bad thing, but you need to understand why you hate. And what you’re seeing with Donald Trump is hatred for the sake of hatred, not with any positive agenda, not with ideas, not with values, not with something you can really stand by,” said Brook.

He said it was time that the members of the Republican Party who still understand those founding principles and believe in them to articulate them and teach others (something I’ve been positively screaming for over a decade).

Dana Loesch highlighted that the majority of Trump voters said in a recent poll that what they liked about him was that he “says it like it is,” rather than “he shares my values.”

Brooks said that this failure to “tell it like it is” is one of the major failings of the modern, feckless, castrated GOP (my description, not his)–again, something I’ve been screaming for them to do for years.

Continuing on that theme of American values, another interesting interview Loesch did today was with former Texas Governor Rick Perry, who said that even when there were 17 people in the GOP race earlier this election season, “no one was intellectually superior to Ted Cruz, particularly when it comes to the two checklists…the Bible, and the United States Constitution are Ted Cruz’s checklist. He uses them daily. They will protect him, his family and this country.”

If we truly want to “make America great again,” we need a leader at the helm who understands what made America great in the first place. The record convinces me beyond a doubt that the only person in the race who does understand what made America great is Ted Cruz.

Erickson: Conservative activists committed to stop Trump

Dr. Yaron Brook

“Cruz is the only conservative left in the race”

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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.

Bob Ellis

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