The GOP Base Is Beyond Trump’s Control
You can get elected as an outsider, but once in office, you have to actually govern.
By Jonah Goldberg — October 4, 2017
The conservative movement is caught in a Catch-22 of its own making. In the war against “the establishment,” we have made being an outsider the most important qualification for a politician. The problem? Once elected, outsiders by definition become insiders. This isn’t just a semantic point. The Constitution requires politicians to work through the system if they’re going to get anything done.
Look at all the senators who rode the tea-party wave into power: Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ron Johnson, Pat Toomey, Mike Lee. To one extent or another, they are now seen as swamp things, not swamp drainers, by the pitchfork populists.
For example, Rubio was hailed as “The First Senator from the Tea Party” by the New York Times. But once he became a senator, he became . . . a senator.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/node/452214/print
