Guardrail #4 - ideology

Come on - if there is one guardrail protecting democracy that's sure to hold under conservatives, it's gotta be ideology.  It's the core of their being.  But, according to David Frum, it too has been broken.  And again, by guess which party?

As Frum points out, surely "Hardline conservatives would surely reject a candidate who barely understood what a principle was! Anti-compromise Republicans would certainly recoil from a candidate who advertised himself as a deal-maker! Wrong and wrong."

No one is under any illusion that Donald Trump's only ideology is what's good for Donald Trump.  Frum includes a dandy quote from Ross Douthat of The New York Times - - “A party whose leading factions often seemed incapable of budging from 1980s-era dogma suddenly caved completely to a candidate who regards much of the conservative vision with indifference bordering on contempt.”

Principles, vaunted Republican goals, longtime conservative ideals - we discovered over the past year that they're so yesterday.  Today's conservative is more about distrust, fear & intense loathing of anything Establishment. Trump might not understand politics, but he totally gets the power of animosity in today's political climate.

The Republicans who made Donald Trump the party's presumptive presidential candidate didn't do so based on his beliefs, but on how he makes them feel.  Finally, a candidate who lets them let loose with all the frustrations & anger, the fear & loathing (self- & other-) that's been simmering since Sept 2001, Aug 2008, Jan 2009 & 2013.

Another guardrail, gone.  Three to go.