I was watching Fox News a little bit last week, and I can't imagine a network that does a better job shilling for a Republican. Mind you, I am not saying the Democrats don't have their own counterparts (hello ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and the New York Times, among others). I am only saying that Fox News is just another propaganda arm for the GOP. This is why I gave up watching tv news about 3 years ago: It isn't really news.
Moving on to some opinion pieces...
The Weekly Standard:
This would be a great editorial by Jay Cost, except it opens on a failed premise:
Alan Abramowitz, an Emory University political scientist, has published a predictive model of presidential elections for decades. Through three simple factors—economic growth, presidential job approval, and tenure of the incumbent party—Abramowitz explains most of the variation in presidential elections. This time around, his model points to a narrow Republican victory, but he does not believe this result—because the GOP has gotten behind Donald Trump, which "violates a basic assumption of the model that parties nominate mainstream candidates."How does one define a "mainstream candidate"? Considering Trump won with more votes than any Republican has ever had before, it is difficult to find a better definition for "mainstream" than that.
I spoke too soon! Add another failed premise:
Meanwhile, the FiveThirtyEight "polls plus" model, which combines polling and economic data, finds Hillary Clinton nearly a 2:1 favorite over Trump.Actually, the FiveThirtyEight model gives Hillary a 58% chance of victory. That isn't "a 2:1 favorite". Also, the FiveThirtyEight model uses government-supplied economic data to weight their forecast. The U.S. government's economic data is about as accurate as China's, so the average American who doesn't pay attention to that garbage may have a different view of the economy than the politically-rigged numbers show.
Regardless, Cost goes on to discuss how all the Republican "political pros" have jumped on the Trump bandwagon in spite of their own misgivings about him. Yet, deep in the heart of his editorial, Cost brings up a valid point:
With that in mind, it's time for conservatives to ask themselves some difficult questions, above all: What is the point of the Republican party anymore?
The best definition of a party is a team whose goal is to win elections, for the purpose of advancing shared principles.Trump doesn't represent conservatives, except for the protectionist wing of the GOP, which has ballooned in recent years. When Trump decided to run as a Republican, he opened up the GOP to a large segment of voters who had previously been disenfranchised by both parties. Early in the primary process, there were many stories about large numbers of new and transferred GOP voter registrations. These numbers added to the protectionists already in the GOP to create the Trump phenomena.
Returning to Cost's question, "What is the point of the Republican party anymore?", and the answer is "protectionism". For conservatives, it seems the Libertarian Party is the only choice.
The Weekly Standard:
This editorial by William Kristol is the partisan Republican sour grapes story.
This one paragraph tells you all you need to know about Kristol:
But we do think it fair to say, tipping our hat to recent revisionist studies of Warren G. Harding, and making allowances for a few unfortunate stumbles by Richard M. Nixon, that none of the previous GOP nominees was an embarrassment or a disgrace. I can say, as someone who has cast votes for the Republican presidential nominee in the eleven elections of my adult lifetime, that in no case have I felt it necessary to engage in serious second thoughts about the propriety of my choice.So George H.W. Bush's "read my lips" lie didn't even phase Kristol? McCain's ambitious meandering and Romney's empty suit didn't make him consider alternatives?
So Trump is the worst nominee ever? I would add Kristol as one of the worst voters ever.
U.S. News & World Report:
Here is yet another sour grapes Republican story, this time from Mary Kate Cary. Get with the program Mary! It is all about protectionism now.
Isn't it funny that Republicans are all on board with the whole "only two political parties" thing, and "you're wasting your vote on third parties", until a fringe issue enters the mainstream and takes over their party?
Speaking of fringe, back to Trump...
Christian Science Monitor:
The campaign of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is continuing to solicit donations from foreign politicians, despite highly publicized FEC complaints against him, The Hill reported. Accepting donations from foreign nationals is in violation of FEC rules.
Mr. Trump was accused in June of asking politicians in Iceland, Scotland, Britain, and Australia for donations, according to an FEC filing. The complaint was filed by two campaign finance watchdog organizations, Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, after foreign media reported members of the government in their countries had received emails from the Trump campaign asking for donations, as the Guardian reported.Poor Donald. Doesn't he realize he needs to set up a foundation to channel foreign donations? That is what Hillary did. Silly man.
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