Steve Bannon Is Worse Than the #NeverTrump Republicans

January 16, 2018 By Todd Royal 5 Comments

Steve BannonDespite having over 91% of all mainstream news stories negative against President Trump, he still has accomplished cutting corporate and individual taxes, repealing the Obamacare individual mandate, appointed Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, added a record number of conservative judges to the circuit courts, rid the booming economy and stock market of unnecessary regulations, destroyed ISIS and approved energy exploration and transformative pipeline projects in states like North Dakota; according to Byron York of the Washington Examiner. Additionally, eleven Obama legacy items have been repealed.

Enter Steve Bannon and his “dubiously sourced,” gossip-laden new book that trashes Trump, but now he’s “apologizing” for what he said. Unfortunately he’s doing that awful Republican trait of eating our own. He broke Reagan’s 11th commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican.” And for that Bannon is now worse than the #NeverTrump Republicans while becoming “his own worst enemy.”

Seemingly, liberal icon George Clooney was prescient when he trashed Bannon, and certainly Bannon’s usefulness came to a conclusion when he lost Alabama by endorsing Judge Roy Moore. What he should be doing now is showing penance for his stupidity.

Certainly the California Republican Party (CRP) doesn’t need this type of press or derisive confusion that now emanates from the Bannon brand of Breitbart-Republicanism. The maddening part is Andrew Breitbart would more than likely applaud Trump who actually fights back and doesn’t roll over the way the Bush’s, Romney and McCain Republican-types have for decades.

For all Bannon’s bluster he seems to have forgotten what happens when Democrats have absolute control of a state (California). More about California’s woes in ensuing paragraphs, because there are different choices when it comes to both imperfect parties. The adage, “the enemy of the good is the perfect,” is true. However, Bannon took it to mean let’s blow up the Republican Party without consideration of what that means. The national Republican Party and CRP have their problems, but anyone who thinks Democrats or independents are the solution doesn’t understand what it means to have a viable society.

The days of my father’s Democratic Party that included FDR, Truman, JFK, and Pat Brown is over, replaced by a no-growth, regulation-heavy, environmentally beholden anything goes “cultural leviathan,” that did nothing to deter Iran, Russia, China and North Korea while shunning traditional allies.

The contrast between Trump and the Obama-inspired Democrats couldn’t be more different and this is where Bannon tragically fails. The numerous policy and philosophical differences between Trump and Obama, including the horrible divide between Trump and Democratic California is only growing. Exemplified by California legalizing marijuana, which has been a disaster for Colorado.

View the differences – big and small – Trump is more press accessible than Obama ever was and allows his Cabinet officers to do their job that wasn’t previously the case. His Russian policies are tougher and more effective than the #NeverTrumpers or Bannon ever realized. Trump would never vote for Bernie Sanders – but that’s exactly what took place in the last election when President George H.W. Bush bragged about voting for Hillary Clinton over Trump.

Trump’s economy is booming compared to Obama’s with labor growth and consumer confidence both at seventeen-year highs. African-American unemployment rate is at record lows and something Republicans and the CRP should pounce on in this next election cycle. What does Bannon and the #NeverTrumpers have to say about those figures that affect all Americans? Moreover, Obama governed based on division of race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality and curtailing religious freedom, growing the administrative state and stretching the limits of the constitution. Whereas, Trump believes in America exceptionalism and a regime based on the actual constitution – not a living constitution.

I’d posit that Obama governed all facets of America the way James Burnham in Suicide of the West wrote about modern liberalism:

“Liberalism permits Western Civilization to be reconciled to dissolution. The Principle function of modern liberalism is to facilitate the suicide of Western Civilization.”

When Bannon ran Breitbart he understood this truth about Democrats and Obama, but Bannon along with the #NeverTrumpers, have lost the existential battle Republicans and decent Californians are engaged in against the Democratic Party. It’s a struggle where the very lives of our babies depend on us beating the hegemonic totalitarianism that are today’s viciously vapid Democrats.

The biggest difference that affects the entire world is the differences in foreign policy. Syria is a disaster for a generation, China is on the march in the South China Sea, North Korea is a nuclear menace, Russia annexed Crimea, the Arab Spring has left the Middle East in shambles; and now Iran is a bigger threat than all the above problems combined based on their capabilities and the awful, Hezbollah-enabled, falsified, Iran nuclear deal. Protests – though well intentioned – aren’t changing the totalitarian, theocratic Iranian regime. Only an armed-to-the-teeth American military will deter the Ayatollah, IRGC, and Quds Force.

All of this happened under Obama and embraced by California Democrats. What does Bannon have to say about this? Nothing, because it’s easier to criticize Trump and make a bigger name for yourself than assist the President in dealing with problems that we haven’t seen since World War II.

Does Bannon realize that either Trump or his deregulatory experts (Scott Gottlieb, Scott Pruitt, Ajit Pai, Ryan Zinke, Betsey DeVos, Elain Chao, Neomi Rao) succeed over the #NeverTrump chattering class of (Max Boot, Michael Gerson, Jennifer Rubin, Bret Stephens, The Weekly Standard and National Review, etc.) because if Trump fails then the United States and California will fail. The rosy delusion printed recently by the Los Angeles Times doesn’t exist and won’t exist in the future unless men like Bannon and the #NeverTrumpers support Trump’s policy views.

If Bannon wants a place to fight then choose California and assist the CRP restore the home of Reagan. Just one of our pensions (CalPERS) has a $153 billion unfunded liability while our economy has slowed because of state worker pensions. According to the Social Science Research Council, California suffers the worst income inequality in the nation, the third worst economic environment for middle class families and over one-third of California’s population is at or near poverty. Tech-driven growth is nearing completion since the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) revealed California’s GDP was 35th in the U.S. And The San Jose Mercury News reported the Bay Area lost 4,700 jobs – and 1,000 from the tech sector – because of a lack of affordable housing.

Our schools are in disarray, the Black Lives Matter movement isn’t addressing the issues killing black men and women, infrastructure needs over $800 billion in improvements and we still haven’t built any dams, reservoirs or canals to capture rainwater from the previous drought. Joel Kotkin calls it, “the what, me worry?” state of California. The CRP, Republican candidates and citizens being crushed by the California Democratic environmental-jihadists and tech oligarchy could use Steve Bannon’s help. But that is real work and change of this sort is a slow-motion effort to undo the “social opprobrium” that Trump and Republicans have with California voters.

Bannon has given fresh ammunition to the ilk trying to remove the duly elected president since the night he won. Proclaiming virtue is for CNN; Bannon should be learning how to bring manufacturing, single-family homes and blue-collar jobs back to California. Faulting Trump and putting the CRP on the defensive is inexcusable and time for Bannon to leave the political stage into the dustbin of history.

Todd Royal is a geopolitical risk and energy consultant based in Los Angeles.

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The Trump Dossier’s Implications for California

November 15, 2017 By Todd Royal 7 Comments

donald-trump-2Lost in the most important foreign policy trip of Trump’s Presidency and escalating Saudi-Iran war cries are the revelations about President Obama, Hillary Clinton and the dark deeds both partook in to discredit and deceive the American people and Donald Trump. Meanwhile, California focuses on the sexuality of the Palm Springs City Council, instead of electing officials who can deal with CalPERS’ $1.4 trillion in unfunded liabilities and CalSTRS’ $200 billion of obligations in the red.

California’s Trump-hatred has made our Democratic supermajority state obsessed with a dossier and Russian collusion. We should be fixated on what Trump is getting from President Xi of China over Kim Jong-un’s nuclear arsenal that is now able to annihilate California. It will be difficult for Trump to receive any concessions on North Korea on the Asian trip while the American media led by California and its electorate bent on Trump’s destruction by focusing on the Russian red herring.

Here’s what we know about Clinton and Obama’s actions undermining Trump’s ability to take on real threats to California. With Obama, he used intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA, DNI) and the FBI as a political handgun to neutralize opponents throughout his Presidency. Intelligence agencies were weaponized against Democrats and Republicans in Congress and then candidate-Trump. This is chilling for California, because Obama’s actions are worse than anything Nixon did during Watergate. According to The Weekly Standard’s Stephen F. Hayes who wrote an in-depth article titled, “The Big Reveal: The Story of How 470,000 Documents from Osama Bin Laden’s Compound Finally Got Into the Open,” reveals a number of treasonous actions taken by Obama.

Less than 24 hours before Trump was sworn in the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper released 49 documents that he said, “Closed the Book on bin Laden: Intelligence Community Releases Final Abbottabad Documents.” These 49 documents were only 571 out of 470,000; but why when more should’ve been released? A military intelligence briefing to reporters on May 7, 2011 at the Pentagon disclosed, “As a result of the raid, we’ve acquired the single largest collection of terrorist materials ever.” Tom Donilon, Obama’s national security advisor said, “we could fill a small college library,” with the amount of terror documents and sources from Bin Laden. Hand picked documents (one showed deep tied between al Qaeda and the Taliban) though were given to the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point to confirm that al-Qaida was defeated and Obama’s path to reelection in 2012 was secure. This means Obama misled the country, Congress and the P5+1 partners negotiating nuclear stoppage with Iran to ensure his administration’s narrative about defeating al-Qaida and the Taliban when it wasn’t true.

The worse part is the Iran / al-Qaida deep affinity and connections to each other. Now that these documents are being examined it’s come to light that Bin Laden considered Iran as “the main artery” for al-Qaida, which led the Treasury Department to designate Iran a terror-sponsoring-entity while causing U.S. intelligence analysts to undo the assumption that Shiite radicals in Iran would never back their Sunni counterparts. Obama and his leading national security officials either lied, covered up or looked the other way so their President could have his signature foreign policy achievement – negotiated peace with Iran – used for posterity to validate Obama’s legacy.

In a 2011 interview, David S. Cohen, a senior Treasury Department official who became deputy director of the CIA said:

“There is an agreement between the Iranian government and al-Qaida to allow this network to operate. There is no dispute in the intelligence community on this. Iran was providing a core pipeline of support that included safe haven for al-Qaida members and the facilitation of travel and the flow of money and weapons.”

What this means for California is we are on our own politically and possibly for our national security if a devastating nuclear attack takes places in the near future. If California voter overwhelmingly supported Obama throughout his first election, re-election and Presidency then Trump’s tax plans will go after our high deductible state, local and property taxes as political revenge. Obama can lie, cheat and steal and he’s loved by California, but the ever-evil Trump should be vilified for locker room talk and deep affinity for Christians, conservatives and his America-first agenda.

In the world of realpolitik, international geopolitics and nuclear jockeying Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Russia, China, the U.S., et al., false nuclear deals and backing the Iranians over the Israelis and Sunni allies showed the Russians, Chinese and North Koreans that America was shirking her post-World War II responsibilities under Obama’s leadership. California doesn’t realize that we have a target on our back from being the world’s fifth-largest economy because of Obama’s actions written in Robert G. Kaufman’s book “Dangerous Doctrine: How Obama’s Grand Strategy Weakened America.” Our beautiful coasts, stunning weather and world class technology and educational firms won’t save us from the Iranians, Chinese and Russians who would love to crush us according to Angelo Codevilla’s book, “The Character of Nations.” Argue your hatred for Trump all you want, but first acknowledge Obama’s sin and shortcomings that have put California in a vulnerable, precarious position.

Clinton’s actions revealed by the Washington Post are directly undermining the U.S. presidency. Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded a dossier on then candidate-Trump that wasn’t true, taken actions that could be construed as treason, tangled former FBI Director Mueller in a web-of-deceit causing questions to be raised on investigating the investigator. Clinton also used intelligence agencies and the FBI to her campaign’s false-benefit.

Clinton has a history of obfuscations but her undignified, feigned outrage about the dossier put together by the malignant firm, Fusion GPS and losing to Trump reads like a bad Tom Clancy novel. To make matters worse Buzzfeed published a batch of lies back in January that Clinton never disassociated from. What the Washington Post correctly reported was that the dossier had unproven claims about Trump; and the DNC and Clinton’s campaign paid for a Democratic law firm, Perkins, Coie to finance “salacious and unverified,” (James Comey’s words) evidence taken from a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele to write these falsehoods.

The worse part is Clinton’s still upset the media didn’t print lies to swing the election her way despite shaky allegations. Congressman Adam Schiff goes along with this nonsense while never considering the geopolitical realities described above. Discredit the president; national security and California’s safety if it means Democrats win the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey. That seems to be California’s unenlightened mantra.

What Clinton, Obama and #NeverTrumpers would ever acknowledge are these facts about the dossier, Trump and the entire hacking narrative. In a barely reported story, a group of former intelligence veterans called VIPs sent President Trump on July 24th a memo on the subject of the Russian hack and how insiders leaked it with access to DNC computers and databases. William Binney who designed the National Security Agency’s signal intelligence center debunked the entire Russian-collusion-hacking affair. Their (the VIPs led by Binney) executive summary to Trump concluded:

“On July 5, 2016 forensic studies revealed the data was leaked (not hacked) by a person with physical access to DNC computer, and then doctored to incriminate Russia. An insider copied DNC data onto an external storage device and that ‘telltale signs’ implicating Russia were then inserted. The speed of copied data after the independent forensic investigations shows the speed exceeded an internet capability for a remote hack.”

Mueller or congressional Republicans are investigating none of this. If the #NeverTrumpers have reached this level of vitriol towards Trump and it seems they have witnessed in a recent article by Anne Applebaum for the Washington Post that implies Trump’s America First movement mirrors the 100-year Bolshevik revolution and 100 million-plus people murdered by communist regimes since their Bolshevik beginnings. If Applebaum and others believe this then why not pin Russia on Trump instead of investigating Clinton and Obama.

Many establishment Republicans – Bush 41 confirmed this – voted for Clinton over Trump. If former presidents, defeated politicians, intelligence lackeys from Obama’s administration and media pundits who only vote Democrat keep this up then Trump will allow California to flounder. We are the leader in the highest taxes, worse infrastructure, poorest schools, highest inequality and abysmal business environment over the other 49 states.

This type of California Republican – from the Hoover Institute to Orange County enclaves blame Trump and won’t heavily investigate Obama or Clinton – when in actuality they should look themselves in the mirror and ask why they allowed California to go from solid Republican to solid socialist via the Democratic Party. If real investigations don’t happen to Obama, Clinton and I’d add #NeverTrumpers undermining Trump then don’t be surprised when our nation and beloved state is attacked. Our enemies are watching and grinning at our self-inflicted, nihilistic turn taking place and California should be chilled. But we aren’t and whether its our inept churches, hipster millennials or entitled baby boomers there is a reckoning that is coming our way unless we change direction and begin to support Trump whether we like it or not.

Todd Royal is a geopolitical risk and energy consultant based in Los Angeles.

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The #NeverTrump Crowd Owes President Donald Trump An Apology

April 20, 2017 By Todd Royal 2 Comments

donald-trump-3Before launching into this piece I know wonderful conservatives who are part of the #NeverTrump ideologues. I also have close, personal friends – even mentors – who are still part of this movement; but now for the good of the country, California and professional reputations I implore all of you to let prudence be your guide. Stop your continued misguided, ridiculous and frankly embarrassing behavior and admit he is a great, conservative president who actually stands up and fights for what is best for the United States and California.

Let’s review what President Trump accomplished in one week. He got Judge (now Associate Justice) Neil Gorsuch onto the Supreme Court, and according to Senator Tom Cotton (a former member of the 101st Airborne, served in Iraq and Afghanistan), “Restored America’s credibility in the world,” after striking Syria over their chemical weapons attack. Senator Cotton further remarks:

“It’s also telling that the strikes in Syria occurred while President Trump dined with President Xi Jingping of China since the president has repeatedly expressed his concerned about North Korea and expects China to restrain Pyongyang.”

No fan of President Trump, Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, echoed the same sentiments as Sen. Cotton, that Trump understands the rough and tumble world of international diplomacy. He one-upped President Xi by making him wait an hour for his arrival at their recent summit the same way Ronald Reagan first greeted Gorbachev on a cold winter day wearing only a suit while Gorbachev was bundled in a heavy top coat and scarf. Trump understands what Obama didn’t, and the Chinese have begun changing their behavior after the summit, when it was reported by Reuters that China is turning back North Korean coal (North Korea’s main export) from their docks.

“But wait,” the #NeverTrump crowd will say, “Donald Trump is an ally of Putin and aligned himself with his crude behavior against American interests by wanting normalized relations with Russia.”

Sen. Cotton takes issue with that line of reasoning from the #NeverTrump crowd when he further stated in an op-ed for the New York Times (not the biggest President Trump fans by the way):

“Russia’s geopolitical standing has taken a severe blow. Mr. Putin was powerless to protect his client in Damascus. Moscow now faces a Hobson’s choice of empty words of condemnation or escalation on behalf of a global pariah, which risks further American action. After years of Russian aggression being met by empty American words, now Mr. Putin finds his credibility at stake.”

Or, as my former graduate school professor Victor Davis Hanson recently opined about “redline threats” in a brilliant article titled, “Ancient Laws, Modern Wars,” when smaller nations (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran) believe deterrence is nothing more than hollow words – which the former administration gave the U.S. and the world – then wars such as World War I are the outcome. Words need forcible actions and this president and his secretary of state are proving that on a daily basis.

Even a former high-ranking Obama administration official despaired over the moral depravity and ineptitude of her former colleagues and boss who knew chemical weapons were still in Syria, lied about it anyway, and did nothing to stop this latest chemical attack – except having the Treasury Department:

“Quietly introduce last minute treasury sanctions against Syrian officials involved in chemical warfare. Assad in particular.”

In other words, President Obama’s administration, led by former Secretary of State John Kerry (Kerry said, “100 percent of chemical weapons are out of Syria”), knew Putin and Russia had done nothing about Assad’s chemical weapons, continued the myth, or are such gross incompetents they had no idea that Putin’s government didn’t keep their promises to remove Assad’s chemical weapons.

That would mean the 16 U.S. government intelligence agencies, “that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities considered necessary for the conduct of foreign relations and the nationals security of the United States,” never spoke with, wrote a memo of, or even had an underling relay that information (chemical weapons still exist in Syria) to President Obama, his national security team (led by Susan Rice), or former Secretary Kerry.

But the Republican purists and #NeverTrump crowd will still argue and debate President Trump’s merit as a leader, policymaker and how he isn’t presidential enough for their liking. As Dennis Prager articulates in a recent column: “Purists Kill Whatever They Believe In,” whether health care reform (Obamacare is still law costing hundreds of billions in taxes, wages and premiums), no hope of tax reform (also costing hundreds of billions), or not having the ability, reasonable level of competency and skill to actually govern, which purist Republican are demonstrating right now in California and the U.S. Congress.

Why wouldn’t he go to Twitter to bash his own party and the press? Given the above example does any reasonable person believe he will receive fair coverage by the press and his own party at this time?

Ironically, his tweets of Sweden being overrun by terrorist-immigrants and President Obama spying on him have more truth than falsehoods to them. Read Eli Lake’s piece in Bloomberg on Obama officials spying on Trump transition team members where NSA Susan Rice was behind breaking the law and high-ranking national security officials (Deputy Defense Secretary Evelyn Farkas) admitted to spying on the incoming administration along with high-ranking officials from the National Security Council, Department of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA.

But Trump is a buffoon and un-presidential, correct? Now the Swedish Prime Minster has said, “His country will never go back to the days of mass immigration,” after the failed asylum seeker (who launched the recent Swedish terrorist attack) was let in Sweden without being vetted. The #NeverTrump crowd and Republican purists owe President Trump their deepest gratitude for their safety, because he doesn’t seem so wrong after all – now does he? And whom do you trust – the eloquent, former law school professor or the rough and tumble real estate developer?

Yet Republican policymakers are still blaming President Obama while not working with Trump for their inability to pass any of the above changes. This was confirmed by Congressman Frank Lucas (R-Ok.) to Politico when he said, “Clearly President Obama gave us a common focus. Now that he’s gone, we have to govern.”

Congressman Lucas and his ilk should be voted out of office. Either govern or at least support the president, because members like Congressman Lucas and California State Republican Senator Anthony Cannella are killing the Republican Party while making the case for the continuation of leftism perpetuated by the Democratic Party.

Using the reasoning that the enemy of the good is the perfect, here are a few questions for the #NeverTrump crowd: Who else was going to beat Secretary Clinton? I voted for Cruz and supported Rubio wholeheartedly until he dropped out of the race, but if it weren’t for Trump in Florida, Rubio loses, to the detriment of Florida and the country. Were Drs. Thomas Sowell and Victor Davis Hanson wrong for supporting Trump? Are they stupid, unwise, without domestic or international knowledge or simply non-prudent bumpkins? Not hardly.

Final question for The National Review and The Weekly Standard folks and California policymakers who didn’t support Trump, and still lost: After your high-priced and overpaid columns, speeches, lectures, luncheons, dinners, conferences, radio and television appearance along with week long cruises around the world, where you are all speak and no action, what would you have done if Hillary Clinton had won and the Democrats were in control?

Because for 99.9 percent of the world under assault from the U.S. and California Democratic Party over social issues (abortion, gay marriage – support it or else – transgender rights – also support it or else, and global warming – unfortunately, support it or else) not to mention the disaster that is taking place around the world echoed by Victor Davis Hanson and for California, written extensively by Joel Kotkin over its forthcoming financial and societal meltdown there are few options over our intrusive, leviathan government. What are your answers? As opposed to we hate Trump’s tweets and he isn’t Reagan?

Trump is confronting Russia, China, North Korea and Iran the way Reagan confronted Russia. Secretary Tillerson is exactly what is needed to deal with those four bastard countries. The day of niceties red-reset buttons with Russia are over.

Here’s what today’s Democrats are giving us: Higher taxes, horrible racist, crime-infested cities, poor infrastructure, failing universities and public education, higher taxes, global warming policies costing trillions and most Republicans go right along with it like lambs to the slaughter. Is it any wonder the country elected Trump? Paradoxically, these same Republicans and the #NeverTrump crowd still haven’t repealed Obamacare, cut taxes or begun rebuilding the military – it’s been Trump – and it’s why you owe him an apology. Begin working with him, and start preparing for the foreign policy disaster that is coming our way when California implodes and China/North Korea, Russia or Iran attacks us.

Todd Royal is a geopolitical risk and energy consultant based in Los Angeles.

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NeverTrump’s Ant Flatulence in a Hurricane

March 15, 2017 By Bill Saracino 3 Comments

Legend has it that President Franklin Roosevelt’s son James (soon to enlist in the Marines and serve with distinction) was in the White House on December 11, 1941 and one of the first to learn that Italy had declared war on the United States. He rushed to the Oval Office and breathlessly told his father that Italy had declared war. Without looking up from his paperwork FDR said, “Jimmy, have you ever heard an ant fart in a hurricane?”

The remark gives insight both to Roosevelt’s sense of humor and his judgment of Mussolini’s war-making prowess. FDR was proven correct, as Il Duce’s divisions were a pale imitation of the invincible legions of Julius or Augustus Caesar.

Roosevelt’s “ant flatulence” bon mot gained new relevance last year in the personas of NeverTrump. The leaders of the NeverTrump cabal were every bit as haughty and imperious as Mussolini. Il Duce was hung upside down and left to bleed to death by loyal Italians at the end of the war. Millions of conservative voters did the same to NeverTrump, first at the GOP convention and then on Election Day.

Trump adultThe political prognostication powers of NeverTrump grandees like Billy Kristol, Bow Tie Will and former President-Designate David French turned out to be equivalent to the battle readiness of the Italian army, with all the effect of ant flatulence in a hurricane. Rational conservatives assumed that a group of people so wrong so often about so many things would do the honorable thing and slink away in silence under the cover of darkness. No such luck with the smug and pompous elephantine egos of NeverTrump. They continue to spout their nonsense as if the election never happened and their total disconnect from reality never exposed.

How wrong were they? Let us count the ways.

NeverTrump charged that Donald Trump had duped conservatives supporting him and if nominated would veer sharply toward the center in the choice of running mate. The actual result was Trump choosing Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, widely regarded as the most conservative governor in the country.

NeverTrump charged that the GOP nominee Trump would be routed by Hillary Clinton, losing in an historic landslide. The actual result was Trump destroying the Democrats’ Midwest “blue wall,” carrying states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan that hadn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since the 1980s. Trump received more electoral votes than any GOP candidate since H.W. Bush in 1988.

NeverTrump warned that GOP nominee Trump, losing in a landslide to Hillary, would most certainly cost Republicans control of the U.S. Senate. The actual result was continued GOP control of the Senate, with Trump aiding the come-from-behind victories of endangered Republican incumbents like Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania and Ron Walker in Wisconsin.

NeverTrump assured us that not only would the Clinton landslide win over Trump cost the GOP the Senate, but that the loss would be so big as to endanger the GOP majority in the House. The actual result was a miniscule Republican loss of 6 seats out of a GOP total of 247, when even the most optimistic GOP forecasters were predicting a 12-15 seat loss to the Democrats.

In the immortal words of Ron Popeil, “But wait, there’s more!”

NeverTrump warned conservatives that the Clinton victory margin over Trump would be gigantic enough to wipe out state and local office holders by the hundreds, decimating our “bench” for future elections. The actual result was a Republican tsunami at the local level, winning state, county and municipal districts that had been solidly Democrat for decades. The day after the November election the Republican Party was stronger nationally than at any time since 1920. (For UCLA graduates that’s almost 100 years ago.)

NeverTrump assured us that Trump’s list of conservative candidates for the Scalia Supreme Court seat put together by the impeccably conservative Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society was a sham. They insisted that Trump had no intention of naming someone from that list and that conservatives were fools to believe that he would. The actual result was highly respected conservative Neil Gorsuch being nominated to the court. Doubts about Judge Gorsuch’s future impact on the court can be dispelled by Googling the reaction of any Democrat Senator to the nomination.

NeverTrump has been wrong about everything – quite literally, everything. Not wrong by a little, but by 180 degrees. There were no near-misses in the NeverTrump rants. As the old saying goes, they missed by a country mile.

There is a happy ending to this morality tale, however, and that is the isolation and irrelevance of NeverTrump. The worker bees of the conservative movement, the folks in fly-over country, took a good look at the NeverTrump leaders and realized that these ever-so-pious and pure guardians of “acceptable” conservative thought were empty suits. Other than bloated salaries and Sunday morning talk-show gigs they produced little of substance the last 20 years.

Instead of political and policy victories these “leaders” delivered hot air, pomposity and arrogance. Without knowing it the grass roots are channeling Senator Everett Dirkson, who shouted at Tom Dewey from the podium of the 1952 Republican Convention, “We have followed you before and you lead us down the road to defeat.”

No more. NeverTrump is taking its rightful place on the ash heap of history. The White House is the epicenter of an historic earthquake of conservative ideas and policy. Conservatives will surely find things to quibble with in President Trump, and when we do we should say so. In the meantime we owe it to our country and our movement to support the most conservative White House since the Reagan days, and more likely since the Coolidge days.

NeverTrump will no doubt continue on for awhile, full of sound and fury signifying nothing, emitting its occasional ant flatulence. Meantime, in the real world, conservatives across the country are rolling up their sleeves and getting to work making America, and the conservative movement, great again.

Bill Saracino is a member of the Editorial Board of CA Political Review.

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NeverTrump – Doing Nothing In The Face Of Evil

November 3, 2016 By Bill Saracino 17 Comments

It was Irish statesman – and one of the conservative movement’s philosophical godfathers –   Edmund Burke who said “all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Though written in the late 1700s, his thought is relevant today, most specifically in regards to the attitude of NeverTrump diehards to the many and obvious evils that would result from a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Now is as good a time as any to repeat that the few folks I know who still cannot bring themselves to vote for Trump are good people. I disagree vehemently with their conclusion, but don’t doubt the sincerity of their thoughts. The national leadership of NeverTrump, however, represents a horse of a different color – and in fact not the entire horse, just the hind quarters. These folks are not blind to the evils that lurk after next January 20 – but they can’t overcome their moral narcissism in order to do what is right for the country by defeating Hillary.

I have written before of the Stalinist nightmare that Hillary’s presidency would most certainly bring to the country. She would weaponize the federal judiciary with Ruth Bader Ginsburgs and the bureaucracy with Lois Lerners. These folks would then proceed with the persecution and prosecution of all things conservative – institutions, individuals and thought.

Indeed, that is already underway. The Christian bakers in Oregon who chose not to participate in a gay wedding were not only fined $150,000 but also ordered to attend mandatory – mandatory – “sensitivity and diversity” classes. A student at the University of Texas, committing the sin of having an “all lives matter” sign on the door of his dorm room was suspended and ordered to attend mandatory – mandatory – “sensitivity and diversity” classes. Calling these sessions “re-education camps,” Joe Stalin was more honest than our modern thought police.

dont-tread-on-meThe Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued an official ruling against a worker who had a Gadsen Flag – “Don’t Tread On Me” – hanging in his office, saying it was “prima facie” evidence of racial discrimination. He was ordered to remove the flag or face prosecution. The chairman of the EEOC recently stated that we needed to “purge” – his word – from our language the phrases “religious liberty,” “religious freedom” and “religious tolerance” because they were “synonymous with racial and sexual discrimination.”

The Democrats on the Federal Elections Commission have made no secret of their desire to “bring fairness” to talk radio and the internet, which in their definition means controlling content for Rush Limbaugh, Fox, Drudge, Breitbart and anyone deviating from the liberal party line.

A Hillary Clinton presidency would be staffed from top to bottom with empowered, radical leftists who have already shown their Stalinist roots. A full-scale pogrom of persecution against conservatives is absolutely certain. Also absolutely certain is that a judiciary full of activist ultra-leftists will give the green light to any and all search and destroy missions aimed at conservatives.

Add to this the events of the past 10 days or so when it has become obvious that the Clintons are corrupt to the core.  Hillary turned the State Department into a cash laundromat for the Clinton Foundation, while Bill was the front-man for the “pay-to-play” operation of folks seeking access and favors from Madam Secretary.

In the face of all this palpable evil the leadership of NeverTrump continues to put their own selfish, priggish, holier-than-thou attitudes above the interests of the country. Billy Kristol and Bow Tie Will proceed with their months long orgy of political Onanism. Will – who remember opposed Ronald Reagan when he ran for president because Reagan had “too many wrinkles in his neck” – opined on a Sunday talk show that Trump needed to “lose massively” in order to “free the GOP from talk radio.” In other words, free the GOP from opinions other than those of Will and his fellow effete, impudent snobs, to borrow a phrase from Spiro Agnew.

The reactions of Will, Billy, the Weakly Standard and the formerly relevant National Review are remarkably similar to the rage felt by the “old media” establishment 30 years ago at the dawn of the internet age and talk radio. The old media was panicked, realizing that their stranglehold on the flow of information, their positions as gatekeepers of what facts were and were not broadcast or printed for the general public was threatened.

So it is with the fossils of NeverTrump, the D.C. to New York cabal of self-appointed, ever-so-pious and pure guardians of “acceptable” conservative thought. Rank-and-file conservatives finally took a good look and realized that these emperors have no clothes. The conservative grass roots realized that instead of political and policy victories these “leaders” delivered hot air, pomposity and arrogance. The worker bees of the conservative movement rallied around Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and yes, Donald Trump. Because they realize what is at stake, the activists are working hard for Trump, realizing that voting for him is the only way to save the country and Constitution. Meanwhile the poseurs (for UCLA grads that means phonies) of NeverTrump fiddle while all that they supposedly hold dear is burning.

This is the 14th presidential election I’ve witnessed. Never before has the triumph of evil seemed so near at hand, nor so capable of defeat if good men and women would unite to do so, even if that means voting for a less-then-perfect candidate.

A win for Hillary will bring on a long, dark night of statist repression aimed squarely at all things conservative. When that happens, NeverTrumpers will rightfully be asked, “What did you do to prevent this horror?” NeverTrump’s honest answer will have to be “nothing” – and Edmund Burke’s prediction will tragically have come to fruition.

Bill Saracino is a member of the Editorial Board of CA Political Review.

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Never Trump’s Bed Wetters and Washington Generals

October 25, 2016 By Bill Saracino 6 Comments

As Bill Clinton apparently said to every woman other than his wife that he ever met, let’s get the sex thing out of the way first.

Years ago Donald Trump engaged in piggish locker room talk, leaving the media and the NeverTrump pearl clutchers in a frenzy. To be painfully blunt, any male who has been in athletic locker rooms and claims not to have heard or participated in such blather is either lying or a candidate for Vestal Virgin status. Doubting that there are many Vestals among either the media or NeverTrump, the conclusion is clear – they’re all lying, as frankly are 99 percent of the locker room talkers.

This is the same media that labelled the waddling sot from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, as the “lion of the Senate,” ignoring that he murdered a young woman. This is the same media that winked, chuckled and guffawed at the eight-year occupant of the Oval Office who was accused of rape and serial molestation. Their protestations about words, not deeds but words, are as sincere as Captain Renault’s about gambling in Rick’s Café.

The NeverTrumpers having fainting spells over the comments need to put on their big boy pants, get over it and put the good of the country above their prissy, prudish, holier-than-thou theatrics. Mike Huckabee referred to them as “bed wetters,” and they richly deserve that title.

As to the plethora of women coming forth to say Trump committed various sorts of sexual battery on them, some as long as 30 years ago, their accusations don’t pass the smell test. We are to believe that all of them – not some, not most, but all – kept these indignities to themselves all these years, and coincidentally decided to step forward a month before the election. Right.

In the wake of Trump’s words – again, not actions but words – NeverTrump recruited some new members for their Quisling Caucus to make the media rounds denouncing the only candidate who can keep Hillary from shredding the Constitution. The new batch came in three varieties. Has-been, mainly vociferously pro-abortion politicians, members of the GOP establishment’s consultant corps and inside-the-beltway lobbyists. These folks were rewarded with their 15 minutes of fame and then some, because they are Republicans, at least technically. Though a better name for them and their fellow NeverTrumpers would be the Washington Generals.

washinton-generalsReaders of a certain vintage will remember the Harlem Globetrotters. Since the 1930s they have been a wonderfully talented and entertaining basketball team, which is still touring. Their “games” combine athleticism, comedy and theatrics. They do play basketball, but with this asterisk. Their opponents are always a team called the “Washington Generals,” and the Generals always lose. Over the thousands of games they’ve played, the Generals have beat the Globetrotters only once.

The similarities between the NeverTrump leadership and the Washington Generals is striking. Both groups get paid well for what they do, which is put up a good, entertaining “fight” … and then lose. The Trump candidacy would never had gotten traction if the self-appointed, insular, ossified conservative “leaders” in the D.C./New York axis had the slightest feel for rank-and-file conservatives or had successfully opposed President Obama the past eight years.

The Trump insurgency was and is powered by grassroots conservatives who got wise to the game and realized that while the show could be entertaining, the results were always the same – we lose. They want to replace the GOP’s and conservative movement’s Washington Generals with a team that knows how to win.

For that feeling, for wanting a team that plays to win, these conservatives are sneered at and belittled by the likes of the supercilious, ever smirking Billy Kristol and the strutting popinjay George Will. They are mocked and mercilessly attacked in the pages of magazines like the Weakly Standard and the once proud National Review.

There is little risk and in fact substantial upside in this for NeverTrump’s Washington Generals. Their sinecures (for UCLA grads that means a position requiring little work but that pays well) as the liberal establishment’s favorite conservatives will continue and be enhanced by a Trump loss.

It’s a win-win for the liberal establishment and NeverTrump’s Washington Generals. The liberals can continue to surround themselves with a trained poodle act of non-threatening Republicans and conservatives. Our Washington Generals can continue to pull down large lobbying contracts, appear on Sunday morning TV talk shows, exhibiting their intellectual and moral superiority to bumpkins and rubes who don’t understand that all power and wisdom resides inside the D.C. beltway.

There will be many salutary effects of a Trump victory, the main one being preventing Hillary from filling the federal judiciary and bureaucracy with Stalinist activists who will launch search-and-destroy missions against conservative institutions, conservative individuals and conservative thought. Not far behind that benefit however will be the retirement – or irrelevance – of the conservative movement’s Washington Generals. Our country, our movement and our party deserve a team that is interested in winning, not just putting on a good show. It’s time to trump the Washington Generals.

Bill Saracino is a member of the Editorial Board of CA Political Review.

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Pascal’s Wager – Bet On Trump

August 29, 2016 By Bill Saracino 18 Comments

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Though born a few years after the official end of the Renaissance, Blaise Pascal was a true Renaissance man. He was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and top notch Christian philosopher. His most famous work is the book Pensees. The most famous item in that tome is a discourse on why it is logical and rational to live a Godly life even if you don’t believe in God.

This has become known as “Pascal’s Wager,” and can be summarized thusly: A rational person should live as though God exists. If God does not exist, you lose nothing except some worldly pleasures by believing in Him. But if God does exist, you gain eternal life by living a good life, but will suffer eternal damnation if you deny Him through a life of debauchery. (A giant hat tip to Father Lawrence at St. Francis High School long ago for patiently taking the many, many hours necessary to get this across to a bunch of thick-skulled seniors in “Apologetics” class.)

Pascal’s wager has become my fire-wall in arguing with the Kool-Aid drinkers of  NeverTrump. Backed into a corner on the fact that a federal judiciary appointed by a President Hillary is a clear and present existential danger to all things conservative, the last refuge of these scoundrels is that Trump can’t be believed. They say that Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court appointees – developed with the input of the impeccably upright and conservative Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society – is a scam, that he has no intention of appointing such stellar conservatives to the courts.

This is where old pal Blaise comes in. His wager applies to the Trump v. Clinton presidential choice in this way: If the NeverTrump folks are right and I am wrong – if Trump’s court appointments would be mediocre at best and as bad as Hillary’s at worst – then we are no worse off by voting for Trump. Whether he wins or loses, we still have an awful judiciary.

However, if I am correct and the NeverTrump folks are wrong, then Trump’s court appointments will be full of young Antonin Scalias and Clarence Thomases. That represents the difference between salvation for conservatives and our values from a Trump judiciary and the gang rape of the Constitution which is certain with a Hillary-appointed judiciary. This is a wager that ought to be obvious even to the most deranged NeverTrumpster. The only rational bet, the only safe bet – vote – is for Trump.

Rational thought, however, has never been a strong point of the NeverTrump cabal, and NeverTrump-land has lately become a logic-free zone. They obsess on irrelevancies, frothing about how much rent he charges his campaign office in Trump Towers, but ignore Hillary making the State Department a giant cash laundromat for her foundation. Hillary lying to the families of the four Americans murdered in Benghazi is not as important to them as how many copies of “The Art Of The Deal” the campaign has purchased.

NeverTrump-land is inhabited by large egos and small minds, happy to play into the hands of the left-wing media to elect Hillary. No minor official who served in a previous Republican administration is too obscure not to be given breathless headlines and interviews as they denounce Trump. Any former Fourth Assistant Undersecretary to the Chief Deputy Paper Shuffler in the Department of Swamps and Sewers is guaranteed 15 minutes of fame if he or she will wax hysterical about the dangers of Trump.

The moral preening of NeverTrump is as unending as it is astounding. Conservative icon Richard Viguerie aptly described the situation as a battle between “the new puritans and Trump’s revolutionary conservatives.” The conservative grassroots workers who are rallying to Trump are not rich or famous and don’t want to be. They want to be left alone to live their lives and raise their families as they see fit – through traditional conservative American values. By supporting Trump in order to do so they have become revolutionary conservatives.

On the other side of this divide is an a group of self-appointed conservative grandees – inside the D.C. beltway, insulated, isolated from the real world. Led by Billy Kristol, Bow Tie Will and National Review magazine, NeverTrump has devolved into a group of holier-than-thou pearl clutchers. They are the new puritans, horrified that this brusque, brash brute from New York dared to rouse the rabble in fly-over country, and did so without their permission.

Kristol and Will fit Vice President Spiro Agnew’s description perfectly of “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “effete, impudent snobs.” National Review was once a great magazine, founded by conservative giants Bill Buckley and Bill Rusher. As they rail against Trump, the new puritans currently running National Review have made it largely irrelevant. By embracing NeverTrump they are ignoring one of Buckley’s most famous bits of advice. He said that when faced with a choice between less-than-perfect candidates, conservatives should always choose “the most rightward candidate with the best chance of winning.”

Hmm, the most conservative candidate with a chance of winning. That’s apparently a tough one for our new puritans.

In closing, I want to once again make clear that I am well aware of Trump’s imperfections, both as a person and as a candidate. However, none of those imperfections threaten the future of the country. Hillary appointing far-left zealots to the federal judiciary and bureaucracy absolutely does. Longtime conservative warrior and comrade-in-arms Allen Brandstater  (we met in 1965 in “Youth For Reagan For Governor”) put the choice this way: “It’s between castor oil, which is unpleasant but won’t kill you and arsenic, which will.”

Bill Bennett, Secretary of Education during the Reagan years, put it a bit more elegantly: “Our country can survive the occasional infelicities and improprieties of Donald Trump. But it cannot survive losing the Supreme Court to liberals and allowing them to wreck our sacred republic. It would reshape the country for decades.”

Pascal’s wager would no doubt be on the castor oil, infelicities and all, instead of the arsenic.

Bill Saracino is a member of the Editorial Board of CA Political Review.

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John Kasich and the “NeverTrump” Quislings

August 2, 2016 By Bilil Saracino 20 Comments

 

U.S. Republican presidential candidate businessman Donald Trump speaks at a veteran's rally in Des Moines, Iowa January 28, 2016. REUTERS/Rick Wilking - RTX24HM9

When Germany invaded Norway in World War II, they needed a collaborator in the Norwegian government to urge the Norwegians to reject their heritage and embrace the foreign ideology of Nazism. They found Vidkun Quisling, who was installed as Prime Minister.  He was a willing accomplice, telling his countrymen that the Germans may be bad, but were better than the alternatives.

Norwegians didn’t quite see it that way, and when the Germans were no longer present, patriotic Norwegians promptly tried Quisling for treason and executed him. Webster’s Biographical Dictionary notes, “The word Quisling has come to mean a traitor or turncoat.”

All of which brings to mind John Kasich, Mitt Romney and the other “NeverTrump” diehards.

Kasich has started running anti-Trump ads in Ohio. Mitt Romney never misses an opportunity to put a knife into his party’s presidential nominee. They are joined by a rag-tag bunch of GOP wanna-be’s, has-beens, never-beens and folks looking for quick “clicks” to their websites or blogs. The one thing they have in common is that they all sing off the “Home on the range” Clinton song book. In the midst of their anti-Trump screeds never is heard a discouraging word about the Democrat nominee.

Some of them are driven by a stiff-necked, blue-nosed, prissiness which cannot abide a GOP nominee they deem to be crude, rude and socially unacceptable. Others, specifically Billy Kirstol and the Bow Tie, are mourning their lost influence among Republican voters – those knaves who had the nerve not to vote for candidates favored by the ossified conservative establishment. Kasich is still smarting from his humiliating defeats at the hands of said GOP voters, as he managed to win exactly one state – his own. The motivation clearly missing from them and the other “useful idiots” in the NeverTrump camp is doing what is right for the country, even if it means swallowing a bit of their titanic egos.

They and their like are quintessential Quislings. They are selling the same snake oil that ol’ Vidkun tried to sell to the Norwegians – abandon your principles and your beliefs to embrace the foreign ideology of Clintonism. Sure, the Nazis may be bad in some respects, but that warmongering, alcoholic, mad-man Churchill is even worse. Substitute Clinton for Nazis and Trump for Churchill in the above sentence and you have a pure distillation of the NeverTrump outlook.

Those of us of a certain vintage have heard this all before. We heard it used against Barry Goldwater in 1964, and against Ronald Reagan when he ran for governor and president. The “NeverTrump” critique of Trump is sometimes a verbatim repetition of the pejoratives (for UCLA graduates that means really bad words) hurled at Goldwater and Reagan.

Mitt Romney is proof that the poisoned fruit doesn’t fall very far from the poisoned tree. His father George, at the time the Republican governor of Michigan, actively campaigned against Barry Goldwater and for Lyndon Johnson. George also opposed – surprise – Reagan when he ran for president. The Romneys are at least consistent in their political tone-deafness and treachery.

As I said in previous columns about the NeverTrump derangement, I know some fine folks who have qualms about Trump – as do I. However, a large majority of these conservative activists have come around, are supporting Trump and plan to vote for him, clothespin on nose or otherwise. For they realize that a) a Clinton presidency represents an existential threat to our freedoms and b) the only candidate who can prevent that is named Trump.

The conservative grassroots activists and worker-bee types get it. The folks who actually walk the precincts, make the phone calls and stuff the envelopes are the ones showing true statesmanship and leadership. It is a few insular, sclerotic, self-appointed conservative leaders, who haven’t broken a sweat in decades, who deign not to get their fingernails dirty by doing actual political work, who are having the hissy-fit.

Like ghostly apparitions of George Romney, Nelson Rockefeller and Bill Scranton they are doing everything possible to torpedo the Republican nominee, hoping to create the self-fulfilling prophecy of a Clinton victory. Of course, if that comes about these same folks will deny any responsibility for the disasters that a Clinton presidency will most surely bring.

In his absolutely must-read biography “Witness,” Whittaker Chambers describes the “useful idiots,” those Americans who were enamored of the Soviet Union and refused to see the truth. He wrote, “To me they seemed to know little about the forces that were shaping the history of our time. To me they seemed like little children, knowing and clever little children, but knowing and clever chiefly about trifling things while they were extremely resistant to finding out about the important things.”

The NeverTrump brigades are Hillary Clinton’s useful idiots. I re-emphasize to them that control of the Federal judiciary and federal bureaucracy are the important things. Everything else, including each and every one of Donald Trump’s manifest faults, are the trifling things.

When I speak of an existential threat to basic American freedoms, conservatives and our institutions I am being quite literal. A President Clinton will infest the Supreme Court and the full federal judiciary with liberal activists who will make Ruth Bader Ginsburg look like Anton Scalia. She will populate the federal bureaucracy with conservative-haters who will make Lois Lerner look like Mother Theresa.

Chambers also wrote in “Witness” about continually running up against a certain force as he was battling the Communists. He says he finally recognized that it “was the forces of that great socialist revolution, which, in the name of liberalism, spasmodically, incompletely, somewhat formlessly, but always in the same direction, has been inching its ice cap over the nation for two decades.”

That socialist ice cap has now been inching its way over America and her freedoms for about nine decades. Its work is almost complete. Give it another four years and the ice cap will envelope everything, blocking out all rays of light, hope and constitutional freedoms.

The only way to keep that from happening is to vote for our imperfect but absolutely essential candidate – Donald Trump.  If you can’t do that, pick up a Berlitz course in Norwegian. If you’re going to act like Quisling you might as well know the language.

Bill Saracino is a member of the Editorial Board of CA Political Review.

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NeverTrump’s Nemesis: California Delegation to Republican Convention

July 18, 2016 By Joel B. Pollak 5 Comments

U.S. Republican presidential candidate businessman Donald Trump speaks at a veteran's rally in Des Moines, Iowa January 28, 2016. REUTERS/Rick Wilking - RTX24HM9

CLEVELAND, Ohio — California was the state where Ted Cruz was going to make his last, decisive stand against Donald Trump for the Republican nomination. Instead, the California delegation to the Republican National Convention is Donald Trump’s doomsday weapon.

The state’s 172 delegates were almost entirely “hand-picked by Trump,” the Sacramento Bee reports. And the sheer size of the delegation — the convention’s largest — makes it an effective tool for Trump to use to stop any “NeverTrump” insurgency at the convention.

The California contingent has been housed far away from the convention site, 60 miles west of Cleveland, in the Lake Erie town of Sandusky. The venue: the Kalahari water park and resort, where the drought-conscious Californian delegation might enjoy the sight of precious fresh water being wasted in every direction. (Some were not so impressed by the atmosphere, reminiscent of  National Lampoon’s Vacation: “It reminds me of a bad Chevy Chase movie,” one delegate told the Bee.)

Yet the delegation will be seated in the front rows for the duration of the convention, because it will present the most visible and enthusiastic bloc of Trump supporters in the Quicken Loans Arena.

The San Francisco Chronicle elaborates:

The 172-member California delegation, the nation’s largest, is Trump’s designated enforcer.

“We are the backstop,” California Republican Party Chairman Jim Brulte — in Hawaiian shirt — told me near the Zanzibar.

“If you want to mess, bring it on,” Trump’s California state director, Tim Clark — in flip-flops and shorts — explained. “This delegation was built for a fight. If the Never Trumpers want to start something, they have to go through us.”

Some members of the delegation have been on the Trump train forever; some, like Republican National Committeeman Shaun Steel, once called Trump a “clown” but now feel he is the best, and the only, alternative to Hillary Clinton. And one delegate, billionaire Peter Thiel — who is not staying in Sandusky — has a prime time speaking slot on the last night of the convention, when Trump accepts the GOP nomination.

The delegation has come a long way from early April, when the Cruz campaign mockedTrump’s California operation, predicting that Trump would fail to find enough delegates in each of the state’s 53 congressional districts.

Today, the delegation is strong, loyal, and — as even the East Bay Times observed — diverse, with youth, women, and minorities all represented amply.

Even the Chronicle acknowledged that the delegation’s vibe has changed. No longer is it made up of the “white-haired state senators” and “the political fanboys,” but grassroots activists like Rachel Casey, the woman who was infamously assaulted by anti-Trump demonstrators in full view of the media last month.

California was once among the states most skeptical of Trump. Today, in Cleveland, it is Trump’s most loyal.

Republicans hope that the rest of the party catches the same spirit.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, will be published by Regnery on July 25 and is available for pre-order through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

This piece was originally published by Breitbart.com

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