Anything Goes

The political  right is learning the successful "anything goes" tactics of the political left. For generations liberals have used outrageous actions to push their agenda very effectively. Ever since the anti-war protests during the Vietnam war ... which proved very effective ... the left has been building and refining the way that it captures and keeps the national stage. Act Up, Code Pink, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, etc. ... all these myriad radical organizations have elbowed their way onto the front pages of the American media ... and continually moved their agendas forward by staying top of mind.

The right, being naturally conservative had, for the longest time, eschewed such outrageous behavior ... to its regret. Yes, occasionally Republicans like Newt Gingrich, would make small inroads into this rough and tumble world. But they were quickly belted back by the liberal media ... remember Time magazine's front-cover depiction of Newt as the Grinch who stole Christmas? Basically, outrageous behavior was the privileged territory of liberals ... because it worked so well.

But slowly, painfully slowly, conservatives have been shucking their propriety and getting down in the mud with the liberals. Ann Coulter comes immediately to mind. She has honed outrageous rhetoric to a rapier-edge. The more she is attacked, the more she attacks back, whether she is always right is unimportant ... it's the fact that she is undaunted in this political contest of wills ... and that is her calling card.

Others have filled out the ranks of these conservative brick-bat throwers ... Dinesh D'Souza, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Breitbart's Milo Yiannopoulos, and now ... enter stage right ... Donald Trump. Matter of fact, one could argue that one of the reasons Trump has been so successful has been his bodacious behavior. Middle America has enthusiastically embraced someone who is finally really pushing back against our steady descent into socialist anarchy, They are willing to hug a less than a perfect conservative merely because he is kicking over a few of the loony left's bar stools.

And the phlegmatic right ... such stalwarts as Mitt Romney, George Will, Jeb Bush, and, to a lesser extent, Charles Krauthammer are aghast at such Trump effrontery. These straight-lacers are not so much turned off by what Trump says ... it's the way that he says it. It cuts against the grain of what a conservative is. "Conservatives just don't behave this way."

Well, we better get used to it. Outrageous behavior is finally working wonders for the Republicans ... to the point that Hellary Clinton is starting to look like a Victorian school marm. For good or evil, politics has finally become a cage match where now, from both sides, anything goes.