What Is NeverTrump's Great Strategic Plan for Regaining Power, Exactly?

Tweets below.

He talked about the break-up of the party being about the "Senior Partners" in the coalition -- the Establishment, which actually had a relatively small popular base of support but was closer to power, as they ran magazines and lived in DC -- not being willing to cede any amount of power-sharing to the "Junior Partners" in the coalition -- religious cons, real conservatives -- despite the fact that the Junior Partners were not willing to be mere Junior Partners any longer.

I talked about this Senior Partner/Junior Partner dispute back in February 2016, and I predicted, because it was obvious, the sweeping away of the "Senior Partners" if they refused to share partner and decision-making with no-longer-willing-to-be-pawns Junior Partners. And of course the Establishment did just what I expected them to do -- the stupid thing, because, despite their protestations and egos, they are simply not very intelligent at all. They decided to make all-out war not only on supposed allies but allies who actually outnumbered them, and then were shocked when those allies made war back and deposed them from power entirely.

As I've repeatedly shouted, the GOP must be open to a more equitable division of power through its ranks, or it will simply split apart.

It's true that Trump's 40% is not all of the party, nor is Cruz's 30% -- but then, neither is the "Senior Partner" wing's 30% all of the party, either, though they frequently act as if it is.

But they desperately want their 30% of the vote to continue giving them 100% of the veto power.

BTW, I was long a nonpartisan in this fight and considered the fights between the wings to be inside baseball and petty palace intrigues. But now that the fight is out in the open, and consuming the party, it will have to be engaged with and settled with some sort of resolution.

"We will continue to win all the important fights" is not an acceptable resolution.

A big reason for this, of course, is Obama: Obama is actually the transformationally figure he wanted to be. He is hyperpartisan, and his hyperpartisanship has exerted such pressure on the conservative coalition that the weak fissures in it have begun to crack wide open.

Nevertheless, it is clear to many people that the "Senior Partners," as Douthat calls them, seem to call all of the shots, and they are no longer content with this arrangement.

The Senior Partners simply must permit some reorganization and some serious power-sharing and decision-making, or else they'll be left a rump party, a bunch of chiefs in search of Indians to follow them.

I keep saying this, and I'll keep on saying this: You can attempt a winner-take-all strategy against an actual enemy, in this case the Democrat Party, but you cannot, or rather must not, attempt such a winner-take-all strategy against allies.

Because if you employ this All Out War attitude against allies, they'll first attempt to rebel, and then, failing that, they'll secede.

Trende argues some with that Obese Idiot Tom Nichols, calling that fat sack of fat "delusional."

I don't know why it's satisfying to read someone else writing extremely obvious things, things we've written ourselves ten billion times, but it is. I guess it's just good to see someone else finally figuring it out:

posted by Ace of Spades at 04:02 PM

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