By Bill Wilson
A recent podcast by liberal political analyst Steve Schmidt caught my attention. In gleeful tones, Schmidt proclaimed that President Donald Trump’s movement was like an exploding star. It would generate a lot of heat and light and ultimately implode in on itself and be done. The analogy was vivid and completely wrong. It is well worth looking into this mock celebration more closely because it reveals the true nature of the battlelines inside the ongoing war within the GOP.
First, who is Steve Schmidt? Schmidt is a pure example of the end product of GOP, Inc. — a climber through the maze of “Republican” organizations that have become almost totally insulated from the public and the thoughts of regular GOP voters. This group is truly the modern American equivalent of the apparatchik, a Soviet term for a full-time agent of the Communist Party. That describes Schmidt and the mob of others of his ilk, agents of the party not of the people or regular votes.
Schmidt was a loyal underling to Karl Rove in the Bush White House, a functionary of the Republican Congressional cabal and a top official in the John McCain presidential campaign. There could be no better resume for an aspiring “consultant” of the GOP elite than this. And then Donald Trump came along. Everything Schmidt and those he served were rejected by Trump and his voters. He was out in the cold for the first time in his life. And what was his reaction? He was a co-founder of the scandal ridden Lincoln Project aimed at attacking Trump and the policies of the MAGA Movement. When it went belly-up — for a host of reasons — Schmidt established yet another anti-Trump PAC and regularly attacks the President in his podcast.
With a background like this, it is not a shock that he would be predicting the demise of Trump. But he seems to be missing the main point. Yes, Trump is getting tired. He has been compromised by the powers in Washington and has made more than a few mistakes. That, however, does not in any way impact the basis of the movement that was galvanized by Trump in 2015 or in any way predict its future.
What Schmidt and his ilk either ignore or are ignorant of is that this fight inside the Republican label has been raging for at least 115 years. And despite every effort to crush it, that movement has persisted and grown. After the significant gains made in the last ten years, it is not likely to fade away now.
This struggle began with a group of issues and political tactics that will sound very familiar to most Americans. In 1910 and 1911, forces based in Wall Street and London grew angry at the policies of President Howard Taft. Among them were issues with tariffs and the role of the government over private property and resources. Taft favored tough tariffs to protect American industry and was a staunch defender of private property rights. Those opposed to him embraced the British model of total free trade regardless of the impact on local industry and advocated for government increasing control over land and natural resources regardless of ownership. Ultimately they sought government ownership or control through excessive regulation and taxation.
Seeing that the upcoming election in 1912 would validate the Taft policies, these forces used a common tactic of divide and conquer. They persuaded former President Teddy Roosvelt to seek the Presidency. He did so and split the vote so that the worst person to ever occupy the Office of the President, college President Woodrow Wilson, was elected with 41 percent of the vote.
The money for the Roosevelt coup came from George Perkins, a partner at J. P. Morgan — a major bank with deep ties to the banking houses in London. The other backer was Frank Munsey. Munsey was a major newspaper and media mogul who shared Perkins economic philosophy; what would come to be known as the Eastern Establishment.
The damage done by this coup still haunts us today. The many direct attacks on the Constitution and the fabric of the nation are too many to list in this article, but they are the source of most of the problems that America faces.
This split between Wall Street money, the policies of free trade globalism — known then as Internationalism — continued. It became apparent in 1952 when the rise of Senator Robert Taft so threatened the globalist Wall Street crowd that they went in search of a national hero to block him. That is how General Eisenhower was recruited. At the time he said he wasn’t sure if he was a Republican or a Democrat but it didn’t matter to the globalists. His primary qualification was that he could block Taft.
Twelve years later, the movement for sound American based economic policies and an end to the insane drive for world government led to the nomination of Senator Barry Goldwater. Unable to prevent his nomination, the Eastern Establishment went on a spree aimed at destroying Goldwater at any cost to the GOP. Rockefeller, Scranton, Romney – all big names of the Eastern Establishment — publicly attacked the Arizona Senator. No greater example of character assassination had ever been done a person before this.
It wasn’t the end, just the beginning of the fight. In 1976, the same grassroots forces demanding a return to American greatness rallied behind California Governor Ronald Reagan. In the end, the nomination was only blocked by insider tricks that were later exposed as underhanded and dirty beyond anything done prior. But in 1980, after four years of the failed Carter Presidency, Reagan was unstoppable. So, the Eastern bloc used a different approach. Using the media to spread a false rumor about a so-called “Co-Presidency” with the weak Gerald Ford, Reagan was maneuvered into accepting George Bush as his Vice President.
Bush, the grandson of a top Woodrow Wilson functionary and linked professionally to the same Rockefeller cabal that had operated behind the scenes for decades and a former Director of the CIA, was the fail-safe for the Eastern Establishment. In 1988 when Bush was elected, elements inside the GOP openly called it the Restoration, the return of the Eastern Establishment to control. It was not to last.
Just four years later two men destroyed Bush and ensured he would not have a second term. Pat Buchanan, a Firey speechwriter for Richard Nixon, author and strong advocate for a rejection of globalism and the economics of give-away trade challenged Bush in the primaries. He did not win but so rallied forces opposed to the Eastern Establishment that he was given a prime speaking slot at the convention, further uniting millions to the cause. Then, in the General Election, Ross Perot, an independent candidate and wealthy oil baron, was devastating in his attacks on the Bush trade policies. That gave the growing movement a place to go on Election Day. Perot received nearly 20 million votes, 18% of the electorate. Bill Clinton was elected with a scant 43% of the vote.
Over the next 24 years, the globalists maintained their control over the GOP with George W. Bush followed by John McCain and then Mitt Romney capturing the nominations. But the movement that had been birthed by the 1912 divide and conquer scam was still there. Opposition to the Open Borders policy grew with each passing month. The results of the free-trade dogma were now evident for all to see as thousands of towns throughout America were hallowed out and destroyed with all the resulting social ills. Over 5 million manufacturing jobs were shipped overseas. And the ever increasing demands of the globalist cabal for more and more American treasure and blood were facing growing opposition.
Then in 2016, Donald Trump grabbed this nascent movement and not only crushed 15 GOP opponents but won the Presidency. All the subsequent turmoil and ultimate vindication are well known. Now, as we reach the end of the Trump years, professional hacks like Schmidt want to pronounce the end of the movement while gloating over Trump’s closing act.
The long but abbreviated history just recounted shows that it was not Donald Trump that forged the movement for American principles, he was simply smart enough and bold enough to take it and propel it forward. It will not die when his time on the stage is done just as it did not die when Senator Taft was defeated or Barry Goldwater was pummeled in 1964. It will exist as long as there are even a handful of American citizens who still believe in the fundamental principles of self-government and independence from the rotting old world. And nothing Steve Schmidt or any of his cronies can say or do will alter that fact.
They all — from Liz Cheney and Tom Tillis to the talking-heads like Schmidt — are whistling past the graveyard of their globalist schemes. The movement birthed by Lincoln, McKinley and Taft and brought to the height of prominence under Donald Trump is only going to continue to grow. The globalists on Wall Street and London and Davos are now exposed. The battle will be joined on November 3.
Bill Wilson is the former president of Americans for Limited Government.
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