Tuesday, April 10, 2018

"What is a country club approach to politics?"

My response to an inquiry:


"What is a country club approach to politics?"


'I am a lady or gentleman and I shall not engage with the rabble on their terms, no matter what it costs me."

One of the problems common to Republicans is their extreme hostility to fighting political street fights except by following Queensbury rules. There is only one rule in street fighting: 1) There are no other rules.

Remember the first Indiana Jones movie when a giant muscular Arab in the street twirls a scimitar to threaten Indiana Jones? Did Indiana pull out his own knife and fight the guy in fair fight? No. He pulled out a great big revolver and shot the guy. That's a street fight.

Gentlemen automatically lose street fights because they are more concerned with being gentlemen than they are with winning.

John McCain, Mitt Romney, all of Trump's primary opponents, were more committed to seeing themselves and being seen as gentleman than they were were in winning. They were all in street fights, so they all lost.

Romney was at a complete loss in 2012 when he, probably the most decent man to run for high office in our lifetimes, was routinely denounced as a Nazi, a hater and a despicable human being.

He had not the foggiest idea how to respond other than to maintain his gentlemanly attitude and deny it. He was the archetypal Nice Guy, and the old saying is 'Show me a nice guy and I'll show you a loser.' One NEVER wants to be called a nice guy by a street fighter, because he is explicitly calling one a loser. 'Explicitly' because all street fighters know the saying.

Trump was the only Republican to understand that he was in a street fight and to relish it. Like him or despise him, he was the only Republican with a shadow of a chance of defeating Clinton.

The upside is that while our opponents around the world are street fighters, even actual street fighters, Trump's delight in street fighting made him the only Republican qualified to take them on.

The Republicans finally nominated a street fighter, and by golly, he won.

How did that Romney presidency turn out? Oh....yeah....

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