This column begins a new series on tR, “The Election”. The series will run through November. We welcome contributions from other writers, including people associated with one or another campaign.
Why have we launched this column series? Because 2016 is shaping up to be the most important election since 1952. In 1952, the east coast Establishment engineered the nomination of General Dwight D. Eisenhower in place of the man who should have gotten it, Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft.
Taft was a real conservative. He opposed America playing the great power game, because he knew that game would endanger liberties here at home and also in time lead to national bankruptcy. By depriving him of the nomination, the Establishment set us on the course of world empire, a trillion-dollar-a-year military (that usually loses) and a vast federal deficit and debt. Taft was right, and his book, A Foreign Policy for Americans, is still worth reading.
2016 promises to be as important as 1952 because the course of the campaign thus far, with Donald Trump leading in the fight for the Republican nomination and Bernie Sanders repeatedly embarrassing the Wicked Witch of the North, reveals the real political fault line. That fault line is not Republicans vs. Democrats or conservatives vs. liberals but anti-establishment vs. establishment. In both parties, people are rebelling against failed policies that are repeated over and over regardless of which wing of the Establishment party, Republican or Democrat, is in power. The Establishment represents more stupid wars that kill our kids, more giving Wall Street whatever it wants at the expense of Main Street, and more stinking political correctness, which is really cultural Marxism. The public has had it with all three, and it is supporting presidential candidates who represent rejecting it. (As a socialist, Sanders accepts cultural Marxism, but he may be the best candidate on foreign policy and defense.)
Trump and Sanders represent a political earthquake, an earthquake that is also shaking Europe where anti-Establishment parties and movements are also surging. This is democracy, real democracy, and the Establishment is terrified by it. Its definition of democracy is elections where the only choice is between them and them. God forbid the people can actually vote for someone who believes what they do.
In the end, I do not expect either Trump or Sanders get nominated, much as I would like to see both head their respective parties (giving us a choice, not an echo). The Republican Establishment will manipulate the convention rules to deny Trump the nomination; I predict they will nominate Paul Ryan, a fresh, telegenic face who is wholly Establishment. The blacks will give Hillary the Democratic nomination, which is appropriate since the Democrats have become the party by, of, and for blacks. White Democrats appear to be voting heavily for Sanders, but in most states the blacks will overwhelm them.
My hope is that Trump and Sanders will then join on an independent Trump/Sanders ticket. If Bernie could get over his cultural Marxism, that would not be so unlikely as it first sounds. They appear close on foreign policy, both rejecting more involvement in Fourth Generation wars overseas. Both question what we get for our trillion dollar annual spending on the Pentagon, which is now 0-4 against Fourth Generation opponents. (Hillary, in contrast, was the main architect of our disastrous intervention in Libya.) Trump sometimes sounds as if he shares some of Sanders’ belief that the rest of the country should not be sacrificed to Wall Street. Politically, any time you can sandwich the Establishment between left and right, you can win big.
A Trump-Sanders ticket might win a plurality of votes. In the Electoral College, one of the two Establishment winners might withdraw and instruct his electors to vote for the other. If that did not happen, the election would be decided by the House of Representatives, which would of course give the presidency to a representative of the Establishment.
But when that happened, the curtain would be rent and every voter would see that American democracy is a fraud. All that matters to the Establishment is that it remains the Establishment, the public be damned. With that revelation the legitimacy of the whole American political system would collapse.
What comes after that? Read Thomas Hobbes’ Victoria. 
well freaking said. I just shared it with everyone I know.
well I am here, found this at Zero Hedge. It fits with your comments exactly:
Trump Video From 25 Years Ago Will Shock You: “I’m Tired of Seeing This Country Ripped Off”
Submitted by Mac Slavo of SHTFplan
The Donald has completely taken over the news cycle.
His path of victory after victory in GOP primary states has the establishment freaking out, and every major media outlet scrambling for a way to stop Trump, or at least to damage his reputation.
But why is he being compared to Hitler and inducing aneurysms among the political elite?
Obviously it isn’t the name-calling or fiery rhetoric that has the system’s minions losing sleep and openly-plotting his demise.
No. It is for one basic reason: his rhetoric and campaign promises have centered around restoring American sovereignty.
Economically, he has talked about undoing globalism and free trade, bringing back good American jobs, protecting the border (and yes, building the 10+ foot high wall) and saying no to a culture of exploiting illegal immigrant
workers at the expense of American employment.
Never mind if he can keep any of those promises, because just hyping them up has been enough to cause mass panic and hysteria in the corporate halls of Washington, Wall Street and the lapdog media.
But what might surprise you, even shock you, is that he has been talking this way for decades.
Just listen to what he told Oprah and her audience more than 25 years ago (circa 1987):
“I’d make our allies pay their fair share” “I’m tired of seeing what’s happening with this country.” “I’m tired of seeing this country ripped off.”
Promising to balance trade and fight for American workers is NOT what the prevailing elite – who are losing control of the political establishment – want to happen.
Their plan, as voiced at exclusive think tanks and confabs like Davos, Bilderberg, the Council on Foreign Relations and many others, has been to level the prosperous American middle class and force workers in the United States to whittle their way down to complete serfdom – and absolute dependence upon government handouts and a meager place in the grand pecking order of world domination.
Trump won’t be a savior, but things now are looking like they might bump him off just for even reminding the American people of how far things have fallen and little anyone else on the political stage has done to stop the free fall of the American Dream.
To the contrary, most of the political tools on stage have been only too willing to play a hand in the destruction of this once strong and vibrant country in exchange for favors and kickbacks.
2016 is about one thing: how fed up and angry people are at the system which has operated on behalf of the interests of a handful of insiders and the expense of everyone else.
I appreciate optimism, but I share none of it. The supposed media “freaking out” about Trump is likely staged. It all reminds me of professional wrestling. A very clever tactic would be to set up a false opposition to the establishment. I still remember when I used to watch wrestling. Hulk Hogan, the True American, versus Sgt Slaughter, who betrayed America. The hate Slaughter received from real people is astounding. And that is from something we know is fake.
A similar scenario played out with Vince McMahon, representing the establishment, versus Stone Cold Steve Austin. Trump has a very Austin-like character. But underneath, Austin was still working for McMahon in real life.
This is how I view American politics. I am not certain of the purpose behind everything, but my inclination is to believe that if Trump is elected, he will use the power the American people give him (which is to be initially used for good), to bring in an ultimate end of all our liberties.
Of course, I hope I am wrong and y’all are right, but I don’t have that much faith. My new YouTube video I have coming out this weekend will highlight these views.
I live in the Northwest. I hope to god it does not turn out like Victoria. That particular part scared my socks off.
I think there would be real hell to pay if he betrayed his supporters at this point. I think he’d be assassinated. My fear is that he’s a pressure valve and everyone goes back to liberal decadent modernity the second he takes office because they think everything is okay now.
Nearly a century ago, Oswald Spengler pointed out that democracies always self-destruct in the end because they get hijacked by wealthy special interest groups and thus democracy gets perverted into plutocracy. Real democracy only lasts until the wealthy discover they can use money and organized political factions to manipulate the system to their advantage.
American democracy has been a farce and a rigged game for some time now, its just becoming more and more apparent. Spengler also points out that as democracy self-destructs, it succumbs to increasingly brutal, bitter and overt power struggles that pave the way for rise of what he called “Caesarism”, in which democracy is replaced by charismatic and populist strongmen like Julius Caesar, Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez.
I think that the Donald Trump phenomenon, with its cult of personality, populist message and the willingness of Trump’s supporters and opponents alike to use violence is a sign of things to come. Trump himself may not end up playing the role of Caesar, but the events that are unfolding as we speak are setting the stage for the emergence of Caesarism in America and the rest of Western civilization.
“My hope is that Trump and Sanders will then join on an independent Trump/Sanders ticket.”
NC has the worst election laws. It’s already too late for an independent candidate to file in NC.