Trump, Rush, and the Establishment
Rush said yesterday that the Republican establishment is preparing to vote for Hillary to protect its “fiefdoms” from Trump. This doesn’t make sense to me. Yes, a lot of people in the establishment oppose Trump, but this is largely because they believe Trump will lose to Hillary, and perhaps badly. Since all the polling data at this moment suggest that this is exactly what would happen, this isn’t a far-fetched fear. As for Trump destroying fiefdoms in Washington, there is no doubt that he is highly unpredictable and that he is over-throwing conservatism as we have known it for decades, but it’s not as though he’s going to show up in Washington and all the lobbying shops and law firms are going to disappear. In fact, Trump is much less of a threat to the Washington status quo than a conservative like Cruz is, since Trump is not promising to reduce the size of the federal government or significantly reform it, only to run it better and cut smarter deals.
.. It’s notable in this connection that Trump has tapped a lobbyist’s lobbyist, Paul Manafort, to stabilize his campaign. There will be more where that came from if he’s the nominee, since he is evidently not liquid or rich enough to fund his own general-election campaign.