Follow the Trump-Bannon Spat, but Think about Locke, Burke, and "The Common Enemy" -- #NeverTrumpers, Progressives, and Romney

THE ONLY NEWS ANYONE IS TALKING OR WRITING ABOUT TODAY IS THE TRUMP - BANNON PUBLIC SCRAP. Well, the public part of the "scrap" is pretty much over and President Trump had the last word. As Ari Fleischer put it -- President Trump took a "2x4 to the head of Steve Bannon." • • • THE "FACTS." When the news broke on Wednesday that Bannon was quoted in a soon-to-be-released book "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" by Michael Wolff, the media was in a frenzy to cover any unfavorable gossip about President Trump. Steve Bannon, who resigned his White House post last August, was quoted in the new Wolff book as saying that the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower between Donald Jr. and a Russian lawyer with links to the Kremlin was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.” Former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner also attended the meeting, and Bannon apparenylt told Wolff : “The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor -- with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers.” • Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox News that Breitbart executive Steve Bannon has "an exaggerated sense of self-importance." Gingrich said he correctly expected the media to "build up" the comments of Bannon against the President's 40-year-old son, calling it "the kind of nonsense they like to fill time and space with." Gingrich also said : "Trump had won the nomination without Bannon... Trump governed without Bannon...[who] is simply a guy who's been fired, who's been trying to claim a bunch of things." You can watch the Gingrich interview on You Tube at < https://youtu.be/xO3ZN_IukpQ >. • Ari Fleischer's comments covered in the Fox News story include the statement President Trump made that Fleischer described as a 2x4 : "Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating seventeen candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party. Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than thirty years by Republicans. Steve doesn’t represent my base -- he’s only in it for himself. Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party, yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was. It is the only thing he does well. Steve was rarely in a one-on-one meeting with me and only pretends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books. We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates who are very supportive of the Make America Great Again agenda. Like me, they love the United States of America and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down." A somewhat dumbfounded Ari Fleischer told Fox News : "I have never in my life seen a reaction like this. Donald Trump just blistered Steve Bannon." When we recall that Fleischer served as White House press secretary for former President George W. Bush where he must have heard a lot of "blistering" comments, his statement takes on real meaning. Fleischer said he expects Bannon to deny that he made the comments, adding : "Bannon then is going to say Michael Wolff made it up. Then it's going to go to Wolff, and Wolff is going to have to show a tape recording or proof of it. That's where this is going to go. But boy, it sure is juicy." • • • TRUMP LAWYERS SEND BANNON A 'CEASE AND DESIST' LETTER. Fox News reported on Thursday that President Trump’s lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter Wednesday night : "threatening ‘imminent’ legal action against former top strategist Steve Bannon, capping a whirlwind day of a war of words between the two men...The letter is a response to sharply critical comments that Bannon reportedly made to journalist Michael Wolff about Trump’s campaign and leadership. Charles Harder, Trump’s attorney, charges in the letter that Bannon violated a non-disclosure agreement signed during the campaign by disclosing confidential information, speaking to the media about the campaign and disparaging members of the Trump family. Additionally, Harder suggests that Bannon told lies that defamed and slandered Trump." It appears that Trump's lawyers may also be trying to halt publication of the book itself, based on a charge of slander. • Proving a slander case against a public figure as well-known as Donald Trump would be difficult, but not impossible, if it can be proven that Bannon spoke with knowledge that what he was saying was untrue (malice) and that he had the intent to harm Trump. CNBC is reporting on Thursday that the Trump lawyers say they can prove 'malice." • That aside, only hours later, Bannon appeared on Sirius XM’s Patriot Channel’s “Breitbart News Tonight” late on Wednesday -- Steve Bannon is the chief executive at Breitbart, a position he left to become an advisor to President Trump. Amazingly, in that interview, Bannon called President Trump a “great man” : "The President of the United States is a great man. You know I support him day in and day out, whether going through the country giving the Trump miracle speech or on the show or on the website.” Appearing on Sirius XM’s Patriot Channel’s “Breitbart News Tonight” late Wednesday, Bannon seemed to be offering a white flag to the President. Bannon might have considered the Trump reaction before he talked to Wolff, because Bannon has surely seen the wrath of Trump descend on others who attack his family and so he must have known his words would set President Trump off -- including attacking Trump's eldest son. Not only did he apparently tell Wolff that he thought senior Trump officials’ meeting with the Russians in Trump Tower in 2016 was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic,” he also said Donald Trump Jr. will “crack like an egg” in the event of public testimony. • • • WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT, STEVIE. Sorry, I couldn't resist that reference to Alfie. But, when we "sort it out," there are things churning through this story that make no sense -- the most obvious being that Steve Bazannon deliberately attacked his erstxwhile friend Donald Trump in the most egregious way possible. Trump is a she-wolf when it comes to his family. Bannon had to know that. So, WHY?? • Hotline may provide a clue. On Thursday it reported that in the 2018 battle for the Senate majority : "Steve Bannon’s abrupt status update from perceived Donald Trump whisperer to pariah is a pleasant development for national Republicans focused on holding their congressional majorities. GOP strategists have insisted for months that Bannon’s potential influence in primaries had been vastly overstated. Still, his vocal criticism of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the rest of the party establishment was at the very least an undesirable nuisance amid a possible Democratic wave. We'll find out to what level it persists." • I have a gut feeling that we are watching political theatre here. President Trump called out the fact that "many great Republican members of Congress and candidates who are very supportive of the Make America Great Again agenda" when applying the "2x4" to Bannon's head. Bannon, instead of fighting back, rolled over and called Trump "a great man." Are we watching two political allies stirring up the pot to destabilize the #NeverTrump Republicans who could cause trouble in the 2108 elections? Are we seeing a Trump-Bannon move to lull them into thinkging they have won?? And, wre we surprised that the "fight" hit the airwaves at exactly the moment whne there is a serious 2018 question looming large -- Utah's Senate seat. • • • HATCH, ROMNEY, AND TRUMP. On Tuesday, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, the longest serving GOP senator, announced Tuesday that he will not seek re-election in 2018 – opening up a possible pathway to the political resurrection of 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. The 83-year-old Hatch, a staunch supporter of President Trump, first took his Senate seat in 1977 and had been debating whether to run again in 2018, and President Trump had publicly beseeched him not to retire, although Trumpo said "no hard feelings" when the Hatch announcement fell. • Romney, a native Utahn and a vocal critic of the President -- to put it very mildly -- has been widely reported to be considering running for Hatch’s seat. Trump visited Utah in December to announce the shrinking of two Utah monuments and urged Hatch to stay on, saying : “We hope you will continue to serve your state and your country in the Senate for a very long time to come.” Hatch has been a strong supporter of the President’s agenda, and as head of the Senate Finance Committee was a key player in getting the tax reform bill passed in December. In his statement, Hatch noted that had authored more bills that became law than any living member of Congress. He also hailed the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as one of his proudest legislative achievements. Hatch said : “I'm deeply grateful for the privilege you've given me to serve as your Senator these last four decades. I may be leaving the Senate, but the next chapter in my public service is just beginning.” In that regard, there is a Hatch Foundation ready to roll when Senator Hatch retires. • I cannot think of any Republican Senator more likely to give President trump grief than a "Senator" Romney. He would be John McCain, but with all the polish and money of a true GOP elite Swamp Creature. The first question is -- will Romney run? My reaction to that is "WHY?" What could being a Senator possibly bring to Mitt Romney -- or to Anne? No matter how glamorous a Washington couple they would be, Romney would always be subordinate to his party's President -- Trump. And, can Mitt Romney, who horrified every conservative in America, including those in Congress, with his outrageous attack on candidate Trump, hope to now pull those same conservative Republicans to his side against Trump? Not likely. • Can Romney win? Most likely he can. Fox News reporter Stephen Miller, who likes Romney but hopes hopes won't run, wrote on Thursday that Romney "has changed his Twitter location to Utah amid growing speculation he will run for Senate...If Romney were to actually run, he would almost assuredly win the seat. There is little to no doubt about it. A Democratic opponent would be inconsequential in Utah, as most likely would be a Steve Bannon-endorsed challenger from the right." Miller says : "Romney has everything to lose and only a binder full of headaches to gain if he runs for the Senate. These would come daily from media asking Romney ad nauseam of his thoughts on the President’s tweets or gaffes. The headaches would come from the left and opposing Democratic Senators. Romney would cease to become an honorary check on Trump for the perpetually concerned the moment he voted for a policy in the Senate -- or for a policy he pushed himself as a Presidential candidate and governor -- that President Trump then signed into law." • Consider that polls show Romney remaining more popular than Hillary Clinton, probably because he accepted his election loss with quiet dignity. Unlike Clinton, he didn’t drag the country through an unending pity party, blaming everything and everyone but himself for his loss -- while at the same time wink-winking to anyone on a street corner who will still listen about actually winning the election. Miller says : "Romney retired from politics with the satisfaction that his words during the 2012 campaign -- such as warning the country of Russia as our No. 1 geopolitical threat -- are now taken seriously and accepted by many Americans. President Obama ("this is the 21st century"), along with much of the media, scoffed at Romney’s warning about Russia. Time has shown they were terribly wrong. In another example, Romney warned of a power vacuum in the Middle East created by withdrawing US forces too hastily from the region. President Obama did so anyway, and ISIS was born in Syria and Iraq. Again, Romney was proven right....Almost no losing candidate in modern presidential history has been able to spike the I-told-you-so football like Mitt Romney over the current crisis of confidence facing the country, both at home and abroad. And yet he still refuses to do so." Miller then hits on the key to why Romney will probably not run : "Romney would coast through his election, only to hit a buzzsaw of 'But Trumpism.' He did himself no favors reaching out for Donald Trump’s endorsement in 2012, only to speak out against him in 2016. He would certainly be reminded of daily if he were to become a Senator....no matter how many people see Mitt Romney as the man on the white horse, he will never be that man....Mitt Romney is exactly the hero the Senate deserves, but not the one it needs right now. My advice to him is to stay tanned, stay rested. Focus on the family. In private among the ones you love, don’t hesitate to tell them you were right. Throw an endorsement behind a chosen candidate and rest assured that your legacy is safe. But don’t run, Mitt. It’s not worth it." • Another Fox News reporter, Erich Reimer, wrote a companion piece with Miller on Thursday. Reimer doesn't like Romney but thinks he should run. Reimelr wrote : "It is almost certain that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will be running for and likely win Hatch’s seat in November. Recent polling has shown that Romney has an over a 69% approval rating in the state, including over 81% among Republicans, and would defeat the presumptive Democrat in the general election by over 50 points." Reimer says : "I voted for and support President Trump. I believe he has done immense good on many policy fronts for conservatives and America this past year, including cutting regulations, signing tax reform legislation into law, appointing constitutionalist judges and rebuilding our military. Nonetheless, I think a voice like Romney’s is also very valuable for both the GOP and our country as a whole. Romney’s brand of aspirational and internationalist conservatism is one that is greatly needed now, due to the major policy challenges our nation faces on the economic and foreign policy fronts, as well as pressing political problems for the GOP." Reimer lists Russia, China, North Korea, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, and the peace efforts for Israel and the Palestinians. Reimer says that Romney’s expertise on international affairs is undoubtedly one reason why President Trump seriously considered making Romney his secretary of state. Reimer build a strong case for Romney : "Romney’s diverse experiences and perspectives in business also are needed at a time when our economy is experiencing extraordinary transformation. Romney has been not only a governor but also a successful businessman, whether at the Olympics or in venture capital. He was exposed to the frontier strategic questions facing many different companies across all sectors. At a time when many disruptive companies in technology and other industries are precisely the ones driving major growth in jobs, the stock market, and the economy -- as well as creating product innovation -- Romney’s perspective is desperately needed in a policy world that in many cases remains bewildered by these changes. Furthermore, Romney’s successful turnaround of the 2002 Winter Olympics demonstrates an efficiency-oriented financial mind very much needed when voting on our federal government’s budget and structure. We see massive federal waste and a big deficit that continues to increase our national debt." • Reimer notes that : "However Romney’s reputation has taken a sour turn these past two years among many Republicans as he emerged as one of the most vocal anti-Trump voices during the 2016 presidential primaries and general election. It is true that Romney was harsh -- including perhaps sometimes unfairly -- to then-candidate Trump. However since Trump was elected, Romney has changed his tone significantly. While Romney has remained critical of President Trump frequently and very ruthlessly at times, such as after Charlottesville, nonetheless Romney has also praised President Trump on issues that Romney seems to believe are in agreement with the aspirational and internationalist conservatism Romney espouses....I am no fan of “Never Trumpers” but I believe Romney is not and would not be one....I also think Romney’s presence again on the national stage would bode well for Republicans hoping to rally around an aspirational conservative who can appeal to the middle and grow our party in our increasingly polarized time....Whatever the feelings of Republicans nationwide are, it looks for the moment that Romney will likely be the next senator from Utah if he so chooses. As a supporter of President Trump, I welcome and applaud this prospect." • Two divergent opinions about why Romnety should or should not run for the Hatch Senate seat. At one point in his essay, Reimer says that Romney is a 'man of integrity." For me, that was proven wrong the day Romney took to the microphone to say : "Here's what I know: Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He's playing members of the American public for suckers : He gets a free ride to the White House, and all we get is a lousy hat....dishonesty is Donald Trump's hallmark," pointing to his "bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third-grade theatrics." • Let me be the first to remind you just how treacherous and deceitful Mitt Romney was in 2106 -- listen to him on You Tube at . • Trump does not need Mitt Romney leading the #Never Trump cheering section. When the Washingotn Post -- "Say it again, Mitt Romney: Trump is unfit to serve, WP, Jananuary 3, 2018...Will Romney reiterate this sentiment, when he's running for the Senate? ---- and CNN -- "Romney could become Trump's new Washington foe" CNN, January 2, 2018..."Before they settled into an uneasy truce after the election -- when Trump even considered the 2012 Republican nominee as his secretary of state -- Romney delivered a remarkable March 2016 speech at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah calling Trump 'a phony' and 'a fraud' -- join together with Joe Biden, who encourages Romney to run for Senate, to support Mitt Romney for anything, we should worry, a lot. • And, in his effort to help elect Judge Moore in Alabama in December, Steve Bannon hit Romney for avoiding Vietnam, but Kellyanne Conway said in early December that Trump and Romney have a "great relationship," adding that President Trump and Mitt Romney spoke by phone following the President's trip to Utah on Monday. BUT, Conway would not tell CNN if the President and Romney talked about a possible Romney run for Sen. Orrin Hatch's Senate seat : "I didn't see Governor Romney file papers to run," Conway said, later adding, "Governor Romney would want to be in public service in many different roles." This for lthe Trump counsellor despite the fact that Romney and Trump have long been fierce political rivals. Shortly after Trump endorses Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore this week, Romney said his election next week would be "a stain on the GOP and on the nation." Then, the man CNN called the "top Trump ally, Steve Bannon lashed out at Romeny during a rally for Moore, saying Romney "hid behind" his Mormon faith to avoid military service in Vietnam." Romney, a devout Mormon, served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in France for two and a half years in the late 1960s. onway said she wasn't sure the President was aware that Bannon planned to zero-in on Romney during his speech, adding that Trump had been entertaining guests for three hours at a ball. She did say, however, that Trump did not send Bannon down to Alabama for Tuesday night's rally. "Steve Bannon has been with Roy Moore for a while now," she said. BUT, the weekend before the election, Trump was in Florida just across the vorder form Alabama telling his packed housez to vote for Moore. does Trump like Romney or see him as an enemy? There are a lot, a lot, of mixed signals there -- did Trump and Bannon work together to try to elect Moore, or was Trump a latecomer? is Trump playing "grand theatre" with Bannon or are they still political allies? does Trump like Romney or see him as an enemy? • • • CONSERVATISM vs CONSERVATISM. On Thursday, Real Clear Politics (BCP) published an article by Peter Berkowitz, an RCP contributor and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Berkowitz is hard to categorize -- he is a conservative, perhaps a neo-conservative in some respects, but he has supported President Trump. In the RCP article, Berkowitz : "Donald Trump’s disruptive presidency has exacerbated a long-festering intra-conservative controversy about American conservatism’s core principles and purposes. So big and diffuse has the conservative world become since the 1960s -- when William F. Buckley’s National Review set the agenda -- that thoughtful right-wingers themselves doubt that anything so discrete and organized as a movement exists today. They suspect, moreover, that the ambition to revive one represents a distracting exercise in nostalgia." Berkowitz' point is that : "Trump owes his election in no small measure to a rebellion undertaken by many working-class conservative voters against an establishment -- conservative as well as progressive -- that they perceived to be contemptuous of their concerns about the loss of good jobs, the influx of illegal immigrants, the waging of foolish wars, and the spread of a haughty high culture of political correctness. Former Trump campaign manager and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has led a crusade against what he regards as an ossified Republican elite. The Judge Roy Moore debacle in Alabama, in which Bannon’s candidate in the special election to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions lost a dependable Republican seat, may have exposed the outer limits of right-wing populism. But Moore did not lose by much, and Bannon has not abandoned his quest to subject GOP Senate incumbents all over the country to 2018 primary challenges." • Berkowitz -- an American academic intellectual with a JD and PhD in political science from Yale University, an MA in philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a BA in English from Swarthmore, but who taught at Harvard but was denied tenure despite his department's recommendation -- writes that : "Many conservative intellectuals have advanced bleak diagnoses of America’s condition and proposed radical remedies. Implacably averse to the President whom they regard as an existential threat to the Republic, leading Never-Trumpers have thrown their lot in with Progressives. A new breed of 'paleoconservative' seeks to restore the true conservatism. They derive it from the Hebrew Bible and Protestant thinkers who adapted biblical politics to early modern conditions, and contend that this true conservatism is separate from and incompatible with classical liberalism. Proponents of “the Benedict Option” wonder whether the classical liberalism inscribed in America’s founding has corrupted politics and debased culture to a degree that leaves men and women of goodwill and understanding little choice but to withdraw into communities apart, where they can preserve decency and faith as the new Dark Age descends." • That is a mouthful -- but in reality, he is saying that true conservatives find nothing much to support from either the Trump populist-nationalist version of conservativism or from the Bill Kristol : National Review balkanized and classically liberal version of William F. Buckley's rebirth of conservativism in America. True conservatives even wonder if the Founders got it wrong and have created a "monster" that has deceived them. • But, says Berkowitz : "That doesn’t mean that the 1960s reconciliation of traditionalists and classical liberals over which Buckley presided has ceased to be relevant." The continuing argument between "Goldwater" conservatives and neo-conservatives began withthe unfortunate choce of words by Goldwater in 1964 -- "extremism in the service of liberty is no vice.” Yet, says Berkowitz : "Goldwater’s ablest surrogate went on to win two terms in the White House, the second in the greatest landslide in American history. Like Bill Buckley, Ronald Reagan was an exception among spokesmen for conservatism : He disarmingly harmonized dedication to individual liberty and limited government with respect for traditional morality and biblical faith." • For Berkowitz : "Progressives can unite around a substantive goal : the pursuit of an increasingly egalitarian society through ever more comprehensive government regulation and redistribution. Classical liberalism also advances a recognizable doctrine -- namely, individual liberty and the limited government, free markets, moral virtues, voluntary associations, and religious practices that secure it. In contrast, conservatism never was and never can be a single school of political thought. It is always relative to, and intent on preserving, a particular tradition. Since traditions -- moral and religious, national, and civilizational -- differ, and sometimes dramatically, there is no one conservatism. There are only varieties of conservatism....As the 19th-century Whig statesman Edmund Burke observed in “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” which became the classic statement of the distinctively modern form of conservatism, we confront a 'choice of inheritance.' Every morality and religion, every nation and civilization, contains diverse imperatives and aspirations. Consequently, even those fervently devoted to conserving the same tradition may well find themselves at loggerheads over the dangers it confronts and the principles it cherishes." • This leads Berkowitz to American political principles. He says : "The distinctively modern form of conservatism emerged in response to the French Revolution, the first major crisis of the modern tradition of freedom. The classical conception equated liberty with self-government but did not specify who was entitled to it. In contrast, the modern liberal view -- articulated most memorably by John Locke, affirmed by the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the American constitutional order -- held that human beings are by nature free and equal, legitimate government is based on the consent of the governed, and government’s task is to protect individual rights. Conserving freedom became the paramount political purpose of the new variety of conservatism." • So, we have freedom and tradition -- sometimes sending different signals about how to behave and what to believe. Burke, saw Berkowitz, brokered a reconciliation. In the “Reflections,” he warned friends of freedom against the : “ 'total revolution' underway in France that sought to overthrow throne and altar, erase custom and habit, and transform humanity by reinventing morality and politics. Waged in the name of liberty, the French Revolution’s sweeping rejection of tradition presented a novel and grave threat to liberty, Burke argued. Political freedom, as British history demonstrated, was rooted in beliefs, practices, and institutions that develop over centuries, and was sustained by morality, religion, family, community, and sound political judgment grounded in historical study and long experience in political affairs. American conservatism also emerged in response to a crisis of freedom. In the mid-20th century, classical liberals and traditionalists could agree that statism at home and communism abroad threatened to crush the individual and swamp civil society." • Bill Buckley fostered what has come to be known as "constitutional conservatism." In the early 1960s, Buckley's National Review senior editor Frank Meyer restated for his time Burke’s reconciliation of liberty and tradition. To pursue happiness, Meyer maintained, individuals, families, and communities require a limited government capable of protecting a robust civil society and a broad private sphere where citizens are largely left alone to govern themselves and advance their material and moral interests as they define them. At the same time, democratic self-government and free markets rest on citizens well-endowed with self-restraint, industriousness, perseverance, tolerance, prudence, and a host of other virtues cultivated best by family, faith, and community. This, says Berkowitz : "preserves the mix of freedom and virtue that, for all their bitter differences, was shared by 'the men who created the Republic, who framed the Constitution and produced that monument of political wisdom, The Federalist Papers.' ” • • • TIME TO REMIND OURSELVES WHY WE ARE LOYAL FIGHTERS FOR TRUMP. Berkowitz says : "Though not a guide to devising policy and directing campaigns, the spirit in which Meyer reconciled liberty and tradition has pragmatic implications. A constitutional conservatism provides, to borrow Alexander Hamilton’s suggestive phrase from Federalist 1, a 'lesson of moderation.'...if properly attended to, the unending task of reconciling liberty and tradition -- a task to which the conservatism that descends from Burke is dedicated -- encourages the sifting out of what is false or exaggerated in clashing claims concerning the whole range of political affairs and the weaving together of what is true and useful in them....It is as essential to assembling electoral majorities and governing responsibly amid our fractured politics as it was half a century ago amid the fractured politics of Buckley's and Meyer’s era that culminated in the presidency of Ronald Reagan and as it was more than two centuries ago amid the fractured politics of America’s founding era that was capped by the drafting and ratification of the Constitution." • What does this philosophical review of American conservatism have to do with Ari Fleischer's "2x4"? A lot. Trump is on the side of the conservative battle that champions economic and political nationalism, tight border security, combatting the worldwide and American blue collar catastrophes caused by globalization, and a government that responds to its people, not to the goals of an elite. But, #NeverTrump conservatives -- yes, they are conservative but spoiled conservatives who have sold out to the Progressives in order ot save their elite status -- reject these values because they see no way to reconcile them with their own drives for personal power and federal omnipotence. #NeverTrumpers tend to forgive Hillary Clinton’s glaring character defects and possible crimes. They cast aside the danger to freedom inherent in Progressive principles that Hillary and all ProgDems embrace and the even greater danger of Progressives' abandonment of principles whenever they interfere with their pursuit of power. • Donald Trump embodies the current American brand of conservatism. He is a pragmatic nationalist who will not submit to Big Brother govenrment or agree with those in his own GOP who see such submission as simply a way to "get things done." • • • DEAR READERS, John Locke would probably have thrown up his hands by now and said 'let them take to the barricades, if this democracy isn't providing the Social Compact they want, they will create one that does.' • Buckley and Reagan and Trump are standing firm with Burke and the Founders. And with the Christian values that shape the US Constitution and the Republic's social order. They are not ready to take to the barrrcades. They are determined to make America work as it was intended to work. Despite the efforts of McConnell and Ryan and Schumer and Pelosi and all the other elected bureaucrats who serve the Deep State far more often than they serve their constituents, Trump is standing firm. Nunes and Gowdy and Blackman and Grassley and Cruz and Cotton and Lee and a host of other conservatives are standing with him. And -- to bring us back to our beginning -- so is Steve Bannon. He may be a rough-spoken, ill-tempered loudmouth who angers us as often as he pleases us -- but he is doing the tough field work of a conservative determined to make the Republic succeed. Why else would he announce that his goal is to rid the Senate of the leadership of Mitch McConnell?? And, why, then, would President Trump despise and reject Bannon?? It is not, as the world is now doing, a logical conclusion to draw. These two men will put away their megaphones and shake hands. They must because they are the vanguard of the conservative future, and they know it. And, their common enemy is the conservative-turned-Progressive-apologist Mitt Romney, although Trump will wear the white Hat with Romney while Bannon wears the Black Hat. That's their style. So, I read about the spat for fun and gossip over it for amusement. But, deep inside, I feel pretty sure that we are watching great American political theatre.