Oh, not in regard to having orange hair or in possessing several billion dollars, but rather in their mode of operation in matters of controversy. Dave Griffey at his blog Daffey Thoughts nailed this back in March, and now that Shea has given his blessing to votes for the pro-abort Cruella de Ville Hillary Clinton in pursuit of his crusade against the Trumpster, I thought the readers of TAC would be interested in Griffey’s sharp observations on the subject:
Donald Trump, Mark Shea and the Facebook Generation
By that, I don’t mean Mark supports or likes Donald Trump. Quite the contrary. Mark routinely takes on Trump and Trump’s supporters the way Mark does most things: in the same manner as Donald Trump. In fact, that’s my point. If you want to be brutally honest, you’ll admit that Mark Shea is simply a Catholic Internet version of Donald Trump. If you visit Facebook or similar Social Media sites, you’ll see that Mark is far from the glaring exception. Go onto most Internet sites, including major media outlets, read the comments and you’ll see Donald Trump all over. And in some cases, such as Daily Kos or Salon.com or even such esteemed sites as the Huffington Post, you might find published editorials that aren’t much different.
I hate to say it, but my boys are correct. Donald Trump is the candidate that the Facebook generation deserves. And it isn’t because of a few radical exceptions to the rule. It is the rule. We are the generation that liberal society has been striving for over the decades. From the 50s through the 60s and 70s and beyond, Trump is what we’ve been aiming at.
Just look at Mark Shea as an obvious example. Mark is familiar to most Catholics on the Internet and is highly regarded by many. And yet, not only does he resemble Trump in his approach to topics and interaction on his various sites, he does so as a representative of the Catholic Church. At least Trump just represents politics. And yet Mark is quite the hero for many Catholics. For many non-Catholics, too. Including those who are quick to attack and bemoan the Trump phenomenon.
How can I be so heartless and judgmental to compare Mark to Trump? Or compare others on Social Media to Trump? Easy. I read. I listen to Trump and what people criticize him for, and then visit various Facebook pages, including Mark’s, and I see no difference. Trump, beyond the policies he advocates – when we can figure them out – is brash, crude, rude, vulgar, sinful, mean spirited, ill-informed and simply a lousy person because of how he interacts with others and treats others who dare disagree with him.
So how is that different than Mark, or even Mark’s own followers? Or the followers on any one of a million sites? For instance, Mark’s own lack of substance and knowledge of topics he comments on outside of Catholicism is legendary. Even those who support him and agree with him have hung their heads over his approach to such topics as the Death Penalty or Gun Control. The same is a common complaint about Trump. Mark thinks nothing of using the same language Trump is condemned for using. Mark attacks through name calling and condescension and scorn any who dare disagree, unless Mark happens to be friends with the violators. Mark isn’t even above making false and slanderous accusations against people, even to the point of libel.
But Trump says horrible things! He mocks people for things they can’t help. He made fun of Carly Fiorina’s looks. He talks about killing people. He talks about destroying other countries. So does Mark. One of his Facebook followers recently said that things would be better off if America was burned to ashes. Mark only disagreed because he said Americans, being the murderous barbarians that we are, would take millions of innocent lives with us. Mark justified his view of America by reminding us of the millions of Indians and Slaves who fell to our murderous, barbaric ancestors. Imagine if Trump or a Trump supporter produced the same dialogue about another country, like Mexico or China. Imagine the outrage and anger.
And Mark not only uses death and suffering to advance his opinions, he even has begun to mock people murdered by guns – if those same people were hard right wing activists. That might seem understandable to some. But remember, Mark and many others were shocked at how many celebrated the death of Osama bin Ladin or Hugo Chavez, saying that the only appropriate Christian response was to pray for their souls. Yet many of those same Catholics are rightly shocked when Trump appears so callous and cruel to other people in the world. Notice a trend? What about making fun of others like Trump does? Last election cycle Mark was forced by his own readers to remove a post he had submitted that made fun of Michelle Bachmann’s eyes and facial features. Sound familiar?
Go here to read the rest. Bobbie Burns once observed:
‘O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
God often does give us that gift in the mirrors of ourselves contained in other people, and most of us entirely miss the point.
Donald Trump
Bernie Sanders
Hiillary Clinton
Jorge Bergoglio
Mark Shea
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The only substantive difference in that list is that Mark Shea is not (yet) as renown as the other four. And the truth is that I too can be a nasty SOB in my writings. Frankly, I am fed up with all this godless leftist liberal lunacy. I want the America that once was after victory in WW II and the Church that once was before Vatican II, not the Obama America and not the Bergoglio Church. But maybe we have gotten what we deserve and Mark Shea is but a reflection of ourselves as a society. The reality TV, Facebook generation. 🙁
. Trump though just faced Megyn Kelly on tv whom he called bimbo for months of tweeting and she called him on it wherein he smiled and said ….”excuse me” ….and she was charmed. But Trump has just given a list of Supreme Court judges which really were the work of the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation and Congressman Sessions. Keep the long run in view. His picks are largely young and will far outlast Trump who will want to return to TV after four years as President. Trump’s interview with Megyn Kelly on Fox won over many women though not at the New Yorker or the Times. Trump will counterpunch you and he’ll reconcile if you make the next move because you started it….as Megyn did start it and as Megyn made the big move into Trump Towers one day. It’s about the Court.
Now you’re hitting President Trump “below the belt” – equating him with Mark who?
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Bill, the women (and men) of the idiotic left will never get it. It took years of high-cost education to imprint them with the moronic stuff that they believe.
The elevation of Trump by cheering, emotional throngs of my erstwhile, rock-ribbed, middle-American, small-town conservative fellow travelers is a clarifying moment for me. Constitution based conservative political ideology is dormant or dead. Something else now dominates. I recognize this new movement not.
You, (channeling Mr. Griffey), nailed it. There is something quite sordid, vicious, nihilistic and immoral underlying a sociological movement that produces Obama, Sanders and Clinton on one side and Trump as the “conservative” response on the other; all sides of the socio-political spectrum using different code words, but essentially identical in nature. The social anger, aggression and empty immorality supporting these candidates’ elevation to power, at this crucial historical moment, is the true shame. This problem is systemic and will not be cured by a “better candidate”. I am shocked that the conservative movement is so bereft that it supports, cheers and praises this man. Tries to justify him, (“it’s all about the Supreme Court”).
But as you say, look around; the public spaces are filled with the anger and sociopathic nihilism of Trump. Patriotism? What is that? Hail Trump!
There is something quite sordid, vicious, nihilistic and immoral underlying a sociological movement that produces Obama, Sanders and Clinton on one side and Trump as the “conservative” response on the other
In large part, Trump’s rise is precisely because of the sordid, vicious, nihilistic and immoral political class. Had you forgotten the GOP “establishment” detests Trump? He is the protest vote, and has demonstrated there is sufficient protest that the establishment now has to put its collective tail between its legs and lick his feet. Had he not entered the race, Cruz would likely be the nominee as the most non-establishment candidate. He only lost because Trump came across as more non-establishment.
If the Shea’s true goal was to defeat Trump, why not just advocate voting Libertarian, which is far more in line with Catholic teaching than the current Demoncrat party? It may likely still result in a Hildebeast win, but at least you would not be directly supporting the Hildebeast.
For the record, I always thought Ms. Bachmann rather attractive; what would there be to mock?
Mark-who, and the rest, ought to consider where Hillary and Trump, respectively, stand on the question, “Does Christianity have a place in American culture?” For decades, both Dem and GOP rulers have acted as if Christianity has no place here.
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“But as you say, look around; the public spaces are filled with the anger and sociopathic nihilism of Trump. Patriotism? What is that? Hail Trump!”
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4 May 2016, Bookroom Room: “Thomas Lifson, one of the smartest men I know, is on to something more profound when he says that Trump represents a sledgehammer that voters have taken to an ‘irredeemably corrupt political system’:”
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You say you won’t vote for Trump. Don’t worry. I think the last (as in there will never be another) Republican was President Reagan. Because no Republican since has done what we elected him to do. I’ll happily vote Trump, thank you kindly.
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“Hail Trump” indeed. The middle class is being destroyed. The US is no longer a constitutional republic. The free market has “gone west.”
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I am 100% confident that President Trump will be better for preserving our way of life; resuscitating the Republic, fixing markets than Hillary or any (aside from Cruz who the establishment, even more than Trump, fears and loathes) GOP quisling.
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Some time during Dubya’s two terms, they silently allied with the liberals and decided that America wasn’t being sufficiently pillaged and raped, and it needed to be fundamentally transformed. Obama simply did it a little harder to the left.
c matt: The failings of the political class are not new. What is new is the active participation of Middle America in their failings. This surprised me. We are becoming fully complicit in this evil as a historical fact before God (there is still time). But almost all segments of our Body Politic are rallying around these three detestable candidates as the best of America. There is not a dime’s worth of realistic difference, politically or morally, between any of them regardless of what they say to win power. I am stunned at the rapidity of how fast this American implosion occurred. It mirrors the far graver changes in the Catholic Church from which Western Civilization draws life.
No, the establishment does not detest Trump. He IS the establishment. His trick was to snooker Americans into thinking he was anti-establishment, a man of the “people” ready to stick it to the “Man”. Such people then willingly enable him in his Trumpish, establishment cause, giving him the power of a movement. He did this by giving the “people” what they wanted and deserve: angry, nihilistic, immoral emotives that have nothing to do with our stable, non-intrusive, non-personal, eminently just, foundational Constitutional form of government. We are stepping over the brink into fascist dictatorship, mark my words.
We need a Head of State. We will get an angry, orange mouth; an icon for this generation.
“Mark’s own lack of substance and knowledge of topics he comments on outside of Catholicism is legendary”
You could have easily left out the “outside of Catholicism” clause. His version of Catholicism would have been news to many saints and popes.
But, I think the analysis is a bit excessive in regard to Trump. Trump is (at least appearing to be) championing the causes that grass roots republicans and blue collar democrats have been complaining about for many, many years – the same causes that republican candidates have been lying about for years. He is at least as much a product of the growing vacuum of what used to be American Conservatism as he is a product of Facebook. Republicans created Trump without intending to, and they paved and planted flowers along the path that he is walking to the nomination, and likey the presidency.
Shea, on the other hand, is feverishly working toward an ever increasing obscurity.
Only because they’re afraid that 1) he’ll lose so badly that they’ll go back to being the minority party (and lose the good offices and staffing perqs) and 2) he’ll make them look bad to the Washington press corps.
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They’ll make their peace with him pretty quickly once it looks like (as it is now beginning to in the polls the GOPe -—sorry Don— lives and dies by) he can win, or at least not get slaughtered like Goldwater.
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For myself, I expect they’ll have no trouble either coopting him or at least accomodating themselves to his agenda. But that’s beacuse, like our host, I don’t expect Trump to do anything to advance the cause and goals of conservatism, except perhaps by accident.
I recommend an article, by Robert Kagan, titled “This Is How Fascism Comes To America”.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-how-fascism-comes-to-america/2016/05/17/c4e32c58-1c47-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html
What Trump represents is what our Founders feared most: the unreasoned passion of a mob infecting the delicate balance of a Democracy with its populist anger combined with the magnetism of a strong, ruthless personality at their head. What worked for us, and made America great, did not work for revolutionary France and tore it apart. I fear what infected France is now upon us.
Kagan is now a Clinton supporter. I think his judgment is suspect if he seriously believes that Trump is a harbinger of fascism.
Donald Trump is a billionaire. Mark panhandles with his tin cup rattle campaigns. One earns money, the other begs for shekels. No comparison.
The world stage is set for transformative, violent change. All the ingredients are there. Donald Trump, placed in the ultimate seat of world power, at this crucial moment in time inspires a sense of dread in me. I have seen no evidence whatsoever, none, that he respects, understands or has even read the Constitution or respects the power and significance of the Office he seeks. There is every evidence that he merely desires access to that power for his own sake. He is building a dangerous movement in a time of great emotion and gathering violence, rising to power by stoking those flames. Not a harbinger of fascism? Why? Just because this is America? Just because we’ve not personally suffered such things? Well, we are unique in that regard. It may well be our turn. It’s interesting to study history and read about tragedies and triumphs from the past. Much more difficult to extract lessons and apply them to the complicated now.
Fascism’s already arrived here under the guise of anti-fascism (take what’s going on in Academia, for example).
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Anyway, I happen to agree with Roger Kimball, so I’m already predisposed to the fascist comparison.
Brian, I just want to let you know that your posts here on what is happening to America, and where she is heading politically, were encouraging. Not because I am glad about the current state of affairs, but rather I infrequently run across comments on the web by people who seem to really see through the conditioning and manipulations of our population who express their concerns so well. Keep it up and may more people know the truth when they hear it.
Brian, in light of how you perceive what a Trump administration might be, how do you view the Obama administration, and do you think Hillary would be better? The choice this time around is Trump or Hillary. Mind you, I don’t necessarily disagree that we are screwed, but in the world of perpetual choosing of lesser of evils, Trump, to me, seems the better option.
Brian and Daniel,
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It wasn’t Trump that killed the republic and the free market. He hasn’t been elected, yet. It was guys like Obama, Dubya, Clinton, George H. W. When we elected them, they did the opposite of what they said.
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This massive travesty was engendered by the corrupt, incompetent political (both parties) establishment, not Trump.
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Jefferson did not fear the common man. He feared that which killed America: people voting for demagogues that promise them more-and-more free stuff paid for by other Americans whom the ubiquitous Obama-types have taught to hate – eat the rich.
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Do you have actual evidence for your accusations? Fascism – now not 2009? Violence – where outside drug cartels (armed by Obama and Holder), the religion of blasting innocents to smithereens, and Bernie bums?
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My wife will be 69 years old in October. She and many of our years mates are for Trump. She is a retired ICU nurse with not a violent bone in her body. Conversely, I (as old) remain capable.
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Repeated from above, “4 May 2016, Bookroom Room: “Thomas Lifson, one of the smartest men I know, is on to something more profound when he says that Trump represents a sledgehammer that voters have taken to an ‘irredeemably corrupt political system’:”
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If that’s fascism, hand me an arm band.
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You gotta love this website and you gotta love the Internet; because Mark Demo Shea can say what he wants and I can say” “It is a mortal sin for a Catholic with a well-formed conscience, ‘well-formed’ as taught by Holy Mother Church, to vote for HillaryDemon or for any Democrat.” [see Hell Vote Yourself In at sinvotedemocrat.com]. I can also say that Democatholics across the country are now publishing “You cannot vote for Trump” becasue although they believe it – It is an act of virtue to vote for HillaryDemon – they cannot say it. Rejoice in all things, esp since M Demo Shea is making a public record and will not be able to deny it. Unless of course he adopts – which will be no surprise – the Demo and liberal truth std of NonNonContradiction – which says for him Yes, I can be a good Catholic and vote Democrat at the same time. And Jitler was a saint[trains run on time] and a sinner [a little holocaust], simultaneoulsy. Guy McClung, San Antonio, Texas
a sledgehammer taken to an irrredeemably corrupt political system
I’m fairly sure that’s just what the Italians thought they were doing when they marched into Rome with Mussolini,in the Twenties; or the Germans when they voted for the National Socialist German Workers Party in the Thirties (The Argentines & Peron in the Fourties).
Brian,
How is Hildebeast any better? Trump at least says he would rather work with Russia than antagonize them and wants to put American industry back on its feet. Whether Trump will follow through on anything he says is another matter, but if he doesn’t, that only makes him like every other single politician ever. No worse.
Hildebeast has an allergic reaction to the mention of God, and as SOS has failed miserably in everything she touched. The few policies she supports that are not incompetent, are pure evil. She has been bought and sold more often than a Vegas hooker. So the person in charge of Benghazi is a better bet in control of the most powerful seat in the world? You say Trump doesn’t understand the power of the office he seeks. I say Hildebeast understands it all too well, and is licking her chops at getting it for her own destructive ends. I much prefer the former – at least if he doesn’t fully comprehend it, there is a possibility he won’t wield it as effectively to our detriment.
So choices are: absolute certain disaster vs. slim sliver of hope things don’t get much worse.
c matt-you have just insulted every whore in Las Vegas
Trump has yet to travel to Europe to specifically bad mouth the people of Poland and Hungary, like Bill Clinton just did.
Until Trump does the same thing, and until Trump runs classified State Department data on his own server, and until Trump does nothing about Americans under attack as in Benghazi, and until Trump pulls the garbage in office Bill Clinton did, I find it stupid to say Trump is the equivalent of the Clintons. Trump’s faults are his own but he is no Bill or Hillary Clinton.
Birds of a feather flock together.
The irony of the pro-gun control Mark Shea so proudly pointing a gun into the face of his viewer rich indeed.
Micah Elyi, I am not into guilt by association. Trump has committed no criminal negligence or criminal acts.
I pointed out Clinton’s remarks about Poland and Hungary. Haven’t heard that from Trump. I don’t care if it does not matter to you. It matters to me.
“The elevation of Trump by cheering, emotional throngs of my erstwhile, rock-ribbed, middle-American, small-town conservative fellow travelers is a clarifying moment for me. Constitution based conservative political ideology is dormant or dead. Something else now dominates. I recognize this new movement not.”
Conservatives have not been in charge of the Republican Party since I have been old enough to know anything about it (1980s.) At the national level they have participated in the centralization of government & loss of Liberty in one area or the other since Ronald Reagan left office. Even Reagan agreed to millions of illegals becoming citizens. Th Rs at the national level have given or allowed Obama to get every single thing he has wanted despite the continual, ongoing efforts of the conservative base. Barbara Bush was the first person I ever heard say that you could define a “family” any way you wished (at the behest of the LBGT crowd without actually mentioning them.) GHWB, GWB, Dole, Romney, etc. never were conservatives. GHWB is one of the biggest new world order folks around and was avidly pro choice until he decided to run for president. GWB Planned to allow an international court tell the state of Texas that Texas could not execute a murderous illegal alien until Ted Cruz, as solicitor general of TX, argued the case before the SCOTUS & won. The Bushes & Cheneys have always been pro-gay rights & gay marriage behind the scenes and/or quietly–if you doubt me, read the book by Carl Rove written about his service in the Bush admin. You notice that Obamacare & Planned Parenthood are not defunded. Please note that the current speaker of the US House, Paul Ryan, claims to be Catholic. You notice after Boehner, who resigned in shame for giving Obama everything he wanted as speaker of the US House of Representatives, that Paul Ryan who is now the US speaker is continuing to give Obama everything Obama wants including busting the federal budget. The Rs at the federal level passed an unconstitutional agreement allowing Obama to make an illegal agreement with Iran that enables Iran to increase their nuclear proclivities–I have told my US Senators that they have violated their oath of office on more than one occasion. Our junior senator, Tom Cotton, has no practical recognition of the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution. I have shared with Cotton that his insistence that the NSA & other federal agencies would not share info, collected under the extra constitutional Patriot Act without the constitutionally required duly issued warrant, nor use such info against individual citizens for law enforcement purposes–was a bunch of Bologna. And now we know that it is–that info is being used against individual citizens in the manner I told him it would be. Has he done anything about these violations? No! You notice the Rs have done nothing that effectively protects our borders despite their claims that they are concerned about terrorism/national security. Jeb Bush as a candidate for president openly stated that he was going to win the nomination by completely & deliberately ignoring & excluding the Conservative base. The brother and son of R presidents despises people like me, conservatives, so much that he actively planned to eliminate any possible involvement & relevance in the party’s presidential politics. Jebb Bush, Mr. Communist Common Core, and his brother, GW-the “Compassionate Conservative” who allowed the federal takeover of public education through NCLB, proved to all of us that they will advocate & enable the Feds to run our public schools from the USDOE.
I could go on & on & on. I faced the fact a while back that the R party, except for some very extreme & few exceptions, is the Democratic Party-lite.
Jebb Bush and his crowing about deliberately ignoring & not needing the base of the R party [i.e. Me & folks like me] to win the R presidential nomination, and the resultant $100 million plus the party elite gave him to actually do it, convinced me that the R party needs to completely implode and a new party needs to arise–for people like me.
Also, let me point out that while Newt Gingrich was US speaker, he was having a behind the scenes affair with his current wife, and only child to divorce his first wife & marry his 2nd wife, after he left office. This timing conveniently kept reality from impacting his political career.
My former US Senator, Tim Hutchinson was running all over the state & nation, while campaigning for his 2nd US Senate term, talking about “family values” while he was having a blatant, raging affair with his young campaign manager–stabbing his wife of 29 years & mother of his children in the back. And don’t get me started on the moral lapses of our state R candidates. I am not impressed by those who make self righteous claims re: Trumps sins.
We could write a book about the moral failings of people in leadership of the R party–yet folks act like Trump is the only R candidate who has ever sinned. What a joke!
I could go on & on & on. I faced the fact a while back that the R party, except for some very extreme & few exceptions, is the Democratic Party-lite. Their only reason for existence is to manage the continued centralization of government and the continued loss of our freedoms. They certainly give us no reason to believe that they intend to ever change course.
Barbara, a while back I posted somehting just like this (but much shorter) about the Republican Party. There was a suggestion – to “take back” the Republican Party. Conservatives never had it in the first place. Reagan was an anomaly. The GOP has always had a liberal streak in it. Dewey and Neslon Rockefeller were two of these. Even after defeat after defeat by the Democrats, the GOP was more interested in keeping their little group of East Coast wealthy “country club”types together than grow the party to actually govern the nation. The Bushes are just such people. When the Philadelphia suburbs voted Republican, they were Rockefeller Republicans.
Social issues conservatives have gotten their asses kicked. Be it by election, regulation or judicial fiat, social issues conservatives have LOST for now and the forseeable future. Our Catholic bishops and clergy have been little help in opposing the moral decline in this country and the GOP is apparently just fine with it.
Trump? Loud, boisterous, uncouth, nasty and I don’t give a damn. He can go ahead and be nasty in public to Hillary and Bill Clinton, which will make him the first to do it in public.
Whether Trump gets elected or not, his winning the nomination is a major humiliation to the GOP insiders in the Beltway and elsewhere and if Trump does succeed in blowing up the Republican Party then conservaties can be convinced to start their own party and leave the spineless, weakling, snobbish GOP behind.
No conservaive, no Republican elected to the Presidency is going to stop abortion, gay marriage, gay adoptions or transvestites demanding to use public bathrooms for the opposite sex.
This country has to return to God, realize right from wrong and start acting morally.. As long as a majority of Americans worhsip at the altar of Popular Culture and care more about Big Entertainment than their own families, we will continue to sink.
Barbara, I did not reference Republcans. I referenced conservatives. I referred to people, not a Party.
I could not agree with you more on everything you said. I am as frustrated as you, believe me. I am not looking to the “Party” for solutions but to people; communities of people compelling the powers to respond.
And we get …. Trump; to popular acclaim by my fellow “Conservatives”, throughout bedrock Middle America. That is stunning to me.
Penguins Fan: exactly. I hope the Republican Party dies a most miserable, ignominious and well deserved death. May they be remembered someday like the Whigs (who?). They have sucked the life out of the Conservative movement and led good-hearted people into a Trumpian ditch. I will not vote R for a very long time