As the left and the RINO Republicans -- that means you, Congressman Adam Kinzinger and Lincoln Project frauds, among others -- continue to melt down over the removal of Liz Cheney from her leadership position, they keep on demonstrating that they simply don't understand the amount of frustration American conservatives have with the political process.
"Party of Trump" and "Trump cult" are two phrases that are being thrown around by the same loud leftist social media voices that can always be counted on to get it wrong. And unsurprisingly, they're getting this wrong as well.
What they don't realize is that conservatives have years of pent-up anger and dissatisfaction with the establishment leaders of the Republican Party who haven't yet had a principle they wouldn't toss aside in order to try to get along with the Democrats, who are never going to approve of the GOP or its policies.
John McCain tried it, and all it got him was some bipartisan praise when he died. Mitt Romney seems more interested in getting liberals to say nice things about him than in standing for the ideals of the party he represents, and bore its standard in the 2012 presidential election.
If it hadn't been Donald Trump leading the charge against liberals and establishment Republicans, then it would have been someone else. Trump just happened to be the candidate to was able to harness the outrage. (Myself, I would have preferred Ted Cruz, but was not disappointed in the least with the way Trump governed.)
Grassroots voters are hungry for someone who will stand up to the left. They thirst for a leader who will make Republicans live up to the ideals they profess to hold. They crave officials who will put American interests and the American people above foreign governments and citizens. They lust for executives who are less concerned with precedent and tradition and more worried about results. And that was Trump's appeal. His candidacy offered those promises. Trump wasn't interested in caving in to the left. He wanted to defeat their policies. And he didn't feel obliged to do things the way they'd always been done in political campaigns.
It's fitting that the last two serious candidates left in the 2016 GOP nomination were Trump and Cruz, the two most unconventional contestants in the race. Establishment favorites like Jeb Bush and Chris Christie had fallen by the wayside as Republican primary voters and caucus-goers rejected the old way of doing things. The party of Reagan had strayed far from its moorings before the tea party movement took the GOP by storm in response to the Barack Obama presidency, and then the populist surge led by Trump won the nomination and eventually the presidency.
Today's GOP isn't "the party of Trump." It's the party of "we're tired of business as usual, we're tired of losing to Democrats, we're tired of liberal policies ruining this nation, and we don't care if we hurt a few feelings or step on a few establishment toes to score some policy victories so we can fix this nation." It just so happened that Trump was the recipient of the votes from the disaffected electorate. If the results of the nomination process had been different, it could have been "the party of Cruz" or "the party of Rand Paul" or "the party of Marco Rubio."
Liz Cheney wasn't ousted because she wouldn't side with Trump. She was exorcised because she sided with liberals who are opposed to the things for which she says she stands. Like many of Trump's GOP detractors, she has put personality above policy. She'd rather go to battle alongside people who stand against her ideology than to stand with someone who shares her policy positions.
But the left and the liberals in the Republican establishment will continue to get it wrong. They'll keep on confusing loyalty to one man with the disdain for a political society that pushes aside American autonomy for global interests, and would rather acquiesce to liberal desires than stand strong on their beliefs. They underestimate us at their peril.
