It would be difficult to imagine a more wretched hive of incompetence and boobery than the California Republican Party leadership.
From the amazing implosion of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) as a politician and human being, the initial support of a tax-raising proposition that was only rescinded after the rise of the Tea Party, and the continued lack of effective push-back against progressive shenanigans, California has become a one-party state (where our choices range from Midnight Blue to YInMn Blue in key, state-wide elections).
Despite the fact that California voters are largely responsible for giving Hillary Clinton the popular vote lead, Breitbart News Executive Chairman and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has announced he’s bringing his war against the establishment to California, the front line of the #Resistance and its war against President Trump.
Former Trump administration strategist and GOP agitator Stephen K. Bannon on Friday told California Republicans, whose state party has fallen in membership and political influence, that their salvation lies in putting aside their differences and getting to work — just as they’d done to help move President Trump to his surprise victory in November.“We have a problem with understanding how to win. Nothing else matters,” Bannon told hundreds of Republican delegates gathered in Anaheim for the state party’s fall convention. “If you want to take your state back … you have to roll your sleeves up.”Welcomed with a standing ovation, Bannon clung to themes of “economic nationalism” in his speech, putting the interests and fortunes of American workers ahead of the Republican establishment. He laughed off the small number of protesters outside, saying their liberal message would repel voters and help Republicans keep their targeted congressional districts.
Not surprisingly, few state or federal elected officials attended his speech. However, the room was filled to capacity with conservatives who gave Bannon a standing ovation at the end of his address.
Bannon hit former President George W. Bush hard in his remarks, as well as the “Lords of Technology”. However, what caught my attention was his statement about a future #CalExit.
…California is to Donald Trump as South Carolina was to Andrew Jackson. Back in the 1830s the folks in South Carolina didn’t like the fact that Jackson, a populist, and Congress had put on tariffs, federal tariffs, on product. And they decided that in South Carolina they weren’t going to have those tariffs, and they were independent and they could do what they want. They could choose what federal laws they wanted to have and not have.And General Jackson said that if they can pick and choose what laws they want, eventually they are going to split off and try to try to form a Southern Confederacy, said this like in 1832. So Jackson passed another law and powered the U.S. Army. He was going to send the Army into South Carolina. And he told somebody, “And if I have to, I’m going to hang John C. Calhoun from a lamppost, but we are going to enforce federal law.”You’ve nullified the sanctuary cities law in this state. In fact, you are a sanctuary state. And trust me, if you do not roll this back — and I’m talking about people in this room — 10 or 15 years from now the folks in Silicon Valley and the progressive left in this state are going to try to secede from the union.
Bannon then said that progressives have over-reached in this state with their sanctuary state policies and that an intense grassroots effort might lead to a critical GOP victory in 2018.
Arguing that Democrats have overreached by passing liberal immigration laws, Bannon said, “they’ve given you everything you need to win.”He urged Republicans to put together a “grassroots army” to score some political victories.“You can do it — and you’re going to have to do it,” he added.Bannon insisted that while “it looks now like it’s impossible to win in California, it couldn’t be farther from the truth.”
Of course, the establishment pundits and politicos say Bannon is wrong.
Political scientist Jack Pitney, who teaches at Claremont McKenna College, said he doubted the speech would color the 2018 congressional contests, which remain far off for most voters.More broadly, he said Bannon’s politics would hurt the GOP, including among affluent, well-educated voters who play an important part in county elections.”Inviting him was a moral and political blunder,” Pitney said in an email.
Blunder? The California GOP is already blunder-rich, and it would be difficult to imagine how inviting Bannon could make things worse for them.
However, it may give the state’s conservatives who listened to Bannon a chance to rethink where they have been placing their trust in the past 10 years. I can tell from personal experience, many former Republicans who participated in the Tea Party are now “No Party Preference”, having tired of the West Coast swamp.
I truly hope Bannon inspired his audience to shake things up.
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