Conservative "thought leaders" like Bill Kristol paved the way for Trump

[DonViejo]

Many leading conservatives are disgusted with Trump; a few have even said so. When will they face their own guilt?

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD
10.15.2017•11:00 AM

It's been nearly a year and a half since Donald Trump won the Indiana presidential primary last May, all but locking up the Republican nomination. Despite the passage of time, conservative intellectuals and policymakers have yet to admit their own role in his rise.

Before Trump, the Republican Party was primarily a two-front battle: There was the “conservative establishment” of Washington activist groups and fringe media figures, and there were Republican political professionals who were nearly as conservative.

As before, party elites and the grifters are still around. But their power has been shaken by the emergence of distinctly Trumpian nationalist-conservatives. Even the long-forgotten GOP moderates seem to be finding their voice again, thanks largely to Maine Sen. Susan Collins and a handful of other Senate colleagues who occasionally have joined her in opposing Obamacare repeal and other legislation.

The new mix on the right has been both befuddling and angering to Republican elites, many of whom are fully aware of the degree to which Trump used appeals to racial and religious bigotry to dispatch successive primary opponents and are upset that their power has been undermined. Many are also plainly aware how Trump utilizes grievance politics to keep his base of voters distracted from his ineffective and disorganized presidency.

While most of the GOP’s leaders, such as House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have been privately appalled by Trump’s serial failures and basic lack of decency, they are mostly keeping quiet and trying to focus on using their congressional majorities to enact conservative legislation. Every so often during the campaign, Ryan would emerge to criticize Trump but starting in May, he appears to have decided that he is “not going to comment on the tweets of the day or the hour.”

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https://www.salon.com/2017/10/15/conservative-thought-leaders-like-bill-kristol-paved-the-way-for-trump/

[eppur_se_muova]

1. The RW has pushed simplistic, authoritarianism-based "ideas" for years ...

They want only unthinking, misinformed, knee-jerk hate and suspicion from the voters at the mention of anything progressive. And dumbing the public discourse down is the one sure means to that end.

[JI7]

2. No he hasn't. People like kristol never supported the bigotry

Which is the main part of trumps support.

Trump support is all about white supremacy, isolationism, .