Manning: Quit whining about Trump

Many Republicans are bemoaning the populist ascendancy of front-runner Donald Trump as if it were the end to the republic itself; that we are somehow entering a new age which is the equivalent of the runaway mobs with their guillotines during the French Revolution. Surely tyranny will follow.

What a bunch of nonsense.

Here is a clue for those just waking up to the political phenomena that we are witnessing: Don’t blame Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) or even Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.). Blame those in the Washington political establishment who refused to stand up to President Obama’s destroying what remained of the rule of law under the Constitution. Blame those who accepted the premise that allowing the federalization of our nation’s schools (at all levels) was acceptable and could be managed.

We are in post-constitutional government. This is not a good thing, but it is objectively true. Congress has ceded all of its authority to the executive branch. The Supreme Court has ruled in King v. Burwell, with a GOP nominee agreeing, that the actual words in legislation don’t matter, and can be reinterpreted however the executive branch decides suits its purpose. The GOP in Congress continues to give lip service to things like executive amnesty and concern about the borders while funding Obama’s every move. The GOP in Congress pretends to want to stand up to Iran while giving Obama’s Iran deal an OK through the original Corker bill.Congress, the branch of the government that was supposed to be the closest the people, is on life support for all intents and purposes — and has been for years. And with it, the consent of the governed has effectively been eviscerated.

After the disappointments of the 2010 and 2014 Republican congressional landslides, the people understand this, and that is why they are now flocking to a Trump whom they see as their last, best hope of staving off the forces of darkness that are destroying the nation. They don’t care about the Constitution per se; we have allowed Americans to graduate from high school without having any appreciation for its genius. They don’t care about free-market theories; they have seen their jobs outsourced with big corporations and big government rigging the system against them. And they don’t care about speeches at the border; they want someone whom they believe has the strength to tell everyone to go pound sand and send the illegal immigrants back to wherever they came from.

The appeal of Trump is an expression of democracy and representative government, not a rejection or end to it. He is representing his supporters by offering them a voice they have lacked — and he’s doing a better job at it than any of his competitors.

The fact that Trump has no identifiable ideology beyond doing what is in America’s best interest, as he sees it, is a refreshing change from the politicians offered since President Reagan, and that is why so many people gravitate to him.

I voted for Cruz. But I certainly am sentient enough to understand why the American people have had enough of the business as usual, and have gone with someone who scares the enemies of this country so much that they are already violently protesting him.

And into this mix, we have the GOP Congress blithely proceeding as if nothing has changed, studiously avoiding anything resembling a fight for the future of the nation in the hopes that their meek acquiescence will be rewarded because the other guys are nuts.

Any questions why Trump is swamping everyone in the Republican primaries? If GOP politicians are looking for someone to blame, they merely need to look in the mirror to find their quarry. It was their own failure to properly represent their own constituents that created a rich environment for an outsider like Trump to succeed.

The emergence of Trump is not the end of democracy; it is affirmation that, in fact, democracy in America — if not the constitutional rule of law — is alive and well. Stop whining.

Manning is the president of Americans for Limited Government.