My Fellow Gray Voters . . . .

by Dr. Ellen Brandt


Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are both among the oldest Baby Boomers - putting them smack in the middle of the immense group of Americans - 43 percent of us - who are age 50 and older.


The second group of GOP Loyalists that our Presumptive Nominee needs to win over as quickly as possible are Gray Voters age 50 and older.


This is not only an absolutely huuuge group among Republicans (drawing on Trump's turn of phrase), it is a huuuge - and angry and highly Populist - group within the current American electorate.


Gray Americans 50 and older now make up about 43 percent of the U.S. population - or over 2 in 5 of us. Because women still outlive men by several years, Gray American women are already close to half - or 1 in 2 - American females. And because people age 0-17 still cannot vote, Grays will account for close to half - or 1 in 2 - American voters, not only in the 2016 presidential cycle, but also in 2020, 2024, and 2028.


Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, who were born a few months apart, are among the very oldest Baby Boomers (people 52-70 in 2016), which places them smack in the middle of that half of the electorate which is Gray.


Trump needs to embrace his Gray-ness and seek as much common ground as possible with his Age Peers - especially since Hillary Clinton and her Limousine Liberal allies have been doing everything possible to harm Mature Americans for at least the past three decades, or ever since Bill Clinton's first day in the presidency.


The Limo-Liberals have placed Mature Americans at a great disadvantage via the devastating roster of economic disasters they've managed to toss in our path: outsourcing, downsizing, the decimation of middle management, housing crises, market crashes, and the hollowing out of both manufacturing and resources industries and of Main Street small business.


Meanwhile, they have seemed to find a sadistic kind of satisfaction in knocking vast numbers of people over 50 onto the garbage heap of American life - our life's savings stolen by predators, our professional legacies forgotten, our dreams and hopes dashed to the point of pure despair.


People over 50 make up the great majority of the long-term unemployed and under-employed. We are responsible for the lowest historical labor participation rates in U.S. history - at Depression-era levels in many parts of the country - while many Grays don't even make it into these abysmal national statistics, because we are self-employed professionals and/or (very) small business owners.


How does Trump win us over? Frankly, he has a head start by not being Hillary Clinton, Darling of Wall Street and Limo-Liberals everywhere. No matter how hard the Democrat-controlled Mainstream Media try to hide it, Grays over 50 are skewing very heavily towards the GOP this cycle. What our Presumptive Nominee needs to do is make sure that pronounced electoral skew is not somehow reversed by negative actions nor lack of positive outreach to his own Age Peers.


Here are a few areas of commonality between Trump's already successful rhetoric and what the one-half of GOP Base Loyalists who also happen to be 50-and-over most want: 


***** Stress self-reliance - but be sure to reset a place for us at the Table of American Life.


Trump needs to empathize with his Age Peers and imaginatively put himself in our place. What if he didn't have his billions of dollars to fall back on? What if he had lost most or all of his life's savings through one or more of the economic cataclysms outlined above? What if he were told, as so many of his Peers have been told, that it simply doesn't matter how well-educated, how intelligent, how talented, how creative, how skilled, how experienced we are - America no longer wants or needs us?


Despite advances in longevity that should give many of us another 30 or 40 or even 50 years of life, we now are meant to sit on our hands, live off meager entitlements - or perhaps in cardboard boxes on street corners selling apples - while we are not only as healthy as ever in body, mind, and spirit, but quite possibly now at the peak of our intellectual powers and ability.


We believe Trump can make hay politically - and help effect profound economic, social, and cultural change - by embracing the Gray Renaissance doctrines we've outlined previously in several articles and presentations.


It is clearly completely within Trump's wheelhouse to stress the need for a sea change in our national mindset towards Mature Americans. Our nation should revive its historical legacy as the land of strong, self-reliant, hard-working, free-thinking individualists, whose main goal in life is to actualize our individualism through productive achievement. 

Mature Americans should be encouraged to realize that the ideal of a lazy retirement without goals or direction - particularly if such a retirement is meant to span 1/3 or more of our lifetimes! - is not an ideal at all: It's a kind of Purgatory, at best, or Hell-on-Earth, at worst.


Our entire national entitlements problem would simply disappear - and quickly - if concrete steps were taken to fully reintegrate and re-employ every American age 50 and over who wants to work, wants to produce, and wants to be a useful and healthy and happy part of an American economy that truly is on its way to sustained Growth and full employment.


***** Emphasize entrepreneurship and small business growth across a much broader business spectrum.


Once upon a time, in those far-off, halcyon days of . . . . maybe 7 or 9 or 11 years ago? it was recognized, as it had been throughout this country's history, that most new-business formation  - or growth of small businesses into bigger businesses - occurred under the capable management of founders and business owners over the age of 40 or 50 or 60 or 70.


These worthy entrepreneurs launched new businesses only after receiving solid educations, developing their talents and skills, and putting in the years of hard work and experience that would finally be rewarded by their becoming bosses and masters or mistresses of their own economic fates.


Do we even remember those days, a few short years later, or have we now been so brainwashed as a nation that we accept the new normal of virtually all venture capital and government economic help going to company founders under the age of 30 - some in their teens! - and a range of businesses pretty much limited to Tech, with a special emphasis on gaming and ephemeral apps, on the one hand, or climate change-oriented companies on the other?


Simply changing this emphasis and again supporting entrepreneurship and small business growth across the entire spectrum of sectors and industries, not just a handful, will automatically bring many more Mature founders and entrepreneurs into the mix again.


Moreover, it is time for a complete and total rethinking, on a national level, about which kinds of businesses are really most important and most useful to our country and our economy.


Many Republicans would argue that the most useful businesses are not those which the current crop of venture capitalists and Wall Street operators can launch as IPO's, resell to investors, and make the most hot money from - but rather those businesses which can truly grow in scope and importance, employing more and more people in a sustained productive capacity, while benefiting their home States and regions plus other States and regions as they continue to expand.


Trump certainly understands this, as a very successful founder and entrepreneur himself, and he can make the cause of Mature and experienced entrepreneurs his own.


***** Emphasize reviving those (Red) States and regions - including rural or less-populated States and regions - which have fallen behind under Obama administration policies.


Once again, do this, and you will automatically help that key part of the Republican Base - half of all 2016 voters - which is age 50 and older.


As free-thinking, self-reliant individualists, many GOP adherents prefer to live and work in parts of the country which are not urban - and it seems as if every deal of every deck has gone against them lately because of the re-centralization and Federal power grab policies of the Limousine Liberals and their Wall Street masters.


Just restoring a much healthier balance between Washington and the States should and will help Mature Americans, as will encouraging the States to revive rural and small town life - making sure "Gray" entrepreneurs, professionals, and workers over 50 are enthusiastically included in those revival plans.


***** Cut way back on immigration for employment purposes. Instead, put Americans back to work in those so-called un-fillable jobs the Limo-Liberals talk about incessantly.

We find it almost physically painful whenever an Obama-ite pundit talks about immigrants being needed, because there are jobs Americans are unqualified to fill. Dear Pundits, give me ten minutes to thumb through my Rolodex, and I'll point out thousands upon thousands - upon thousands - of long-term unemployed or under-employed Gray Americans over 50 who'd be thrilled to death to step into those jobs or be (quickly) retrained for them.


And as an (important) side-issue to the above: There is a plethora of anecdotal evidence that the current adminstration has wasted vast amounts of money on training programs that have had little long-term effect. Could that possibly - just possibly - have something to do with the people you're choosing to train and those who are entrusted with doing the training?

Many of us are thoroughly disgusted with the constant Propaganda from the Limo-Libs: Train ex-felons. Train those poor misunderstood drug addicts and drug dealers and gang members and . . . arsonists? extortionists? serial killers? people just released from Guantanamo Bay?


Meanwhile, I personally know at least 30,000 Grays with Ivy or equivalent degrees, decades of experience, high I.Q.s, and excellent skill sets, hovering on the brink of pure despair - several have committed suicide -  because we can no longer scrape up enough money for frills like food and heat and property taxes and insurance premiums.


If I personally know 30,000 such uber-qualified Mature Americans - and I do - chances are there are 30 or 40 or 50 million of us nationwide - white-collar, blue-collar, no-collar, and professionals alike.


Since we are already so well-educated and experienced and skilled, how much retraining would it actually take to place us in your un-fillable jobs? Five days? Five hours? Five minutes???


And while we are at it, how about hiring us Grays to administer such training programs and do the teaching? A large percentage of us have solid experience as teachers and professors at the high-school, community college, college, university, or even graduate school level.


***** Along these lines, we'd like our Presumptive Nominee and his campaign Team to take a look at our prospective Bring Back the Meritocracy! Project, which we've temporarily put on hold during this historical election year.

 
This Project, still in its conceptual, rather than operational stage, proposes the formation of one or several for-profit Peace Corps-like entities, which would employ the Highly-Educated But Under-Employed to work domestically and around the world on some of the Unmet Needs in infrastructure, finance, healthcare, education, and social services, which every development conference talks about, but no one really does much to alleviate.


Why Peace Corps-like, rather than just expanding the Peace Corps or other existing Federal programs? And why is the term for-profit emphasized? These questions go to the heart of the matter and demonstrate why I think this concept should appeal to Nominee Trump and his Team.


We envision mobilizing the long-term unemployed and under-employed part of our population over age 50 as instant task forces to be sent wherever in the country or in the world they're most needed to solve pressing problems localities cannot solve without additional help.


These task forces will work at the lowest cost possible - but they won't work at no cost. In other words, this Project will not be a form of domestic nor foreign aid, and we hope these entities will become profitable quickly.


The Gray Americans they will employ - and who also will administer these entities - desperately need to start earning their own living again and making their own way through life, without charity nor the pressing need for government entitlements.


In return, the countries or localities which choose to employ these teams of true veterans - in the best sense of the term - will be dealing with people who know what they're doing, people with decades of experience, education, and finely-honed skills.


The Meritocracy Project, as we envision it, would start with Gray alumni of the Ivy League and other top-tier universities and colleges - partly because that's the world we came from and partly because we think it's a good place to begin a national demonstration of the concept, proving that such a Project could be extremely successful.


But we would hope to expand the Project quickly to encompass the entire U.S. population of long-term unemployed and under-employed Grays from all educational backgrounds and in all employment categories.


The Federal government would not be involved in the Project's funding nor administration at all, other than to talk it up as an example of American self-reliance and one way to solve the potentially disastrous entitlements problem this nation faces.


Initial funding - which would be kept to a bare minimum - should come from the Universities which are initially involved and their earmarked endowments and gifts, as well as foundations and perhaps some political think tanks and PACs which approve of the Project's philosophy of self-reliance.

 
Frankly, we think both major Parties and patriotic and intelligent Americans across the political spectrum should support efforts to re-employ or better employ financially suffering Grays.


But GOP adherents should especially applaud efforts of this kind. And we hope that with a Republican back in the White House, projects with the goal of helping financially-beleaguered Grays reclaim their lives and their careers will take off in a very big way.


***** Creative and innovative programs aimed at helping 50-and-over Americans need to become routine and expected, rather than unusual - literally, the order of the day.


If you have any doubt just how skewed our national priorities have become during the dark years of Limousine Liberalism, we suggest you search the databases of your choice and attempt to find programs and projects - supported by any entity whatsoever - aimed at financially-strapped, but otherwise healthy, capable, and highly-motivated Americans over age 50.


You will find next to nothing, because there is next to nothing. More than 2 in 5 Americans over 50, with so many struggling to survive, let alone thrive - and no one at all seems to care!


Many of us believe the RNC, the Republican-oriented think tanks and foundations, and the various GOP PACs should begin a coordinated National Initiative to give people over 50 who desperately want to work and be productive and earn their own keep the opportunity to do so - not just because it is good for the individuals involved, but because it important - in fact, crucial - to our national well-being, both economically and culturally.


Let's put on our thinking caps and create all sorts of projects and programs which will cost very little, but which should have immediate economic and societal benefits, since many of the Mature Americans who'll participate are now at the peak of their powers and will work hard and creatively to prove it, if given the chance to do so.  


So many American Grays want nothing more than to become productive and useful - and respected - again. We want to stay part of this economy and this society for the remainder of our lives, not warehoused nor ignored nor kept on the sidelines, while the world passes us by.


The widespread dissatisfaction - and barely suppressed anger - among the 43 percent of Americans - and 50 percent of voters - who are age 50 and older presents a fantastic opportunity for the Republican Party and for our Presumptive Nominee.


We believe that the Obama administration, the Limousine Liberals, and their Presumptive Nominee Hillary Clinton have all expressed pure contempt and lack of consideration for the plight of Mature Americans.


They have supported the Ponzi-scheme economy, in which the life's savings and jobs and hopes and dreams of Mature Americans have been stolen, only to be redistributed among supposed Democratic constituencies with far less education or skills or experience, who are undeservedly reaping all the benefits of our hard work over so many years.


The Democrats have turned a blind eye to the flagrant abuses and outright criminality of the hot money on Wall Street. And they have precipitated every major financial cataclysm of the past several decades. Let's voice the litany again: outsourcing, downsizing, the decimation of middle management, housing crises, market crashes, and the hollowing out of manufacturing and resources industries, as well as Main Street small business.


Gray Americans are savvy and smart and passionate Americans.


We are sick of the contempt, verging on sadism, with which the Limousine Liberals and their Party-of-choice have treated us.


The Republican Nominee will get our votes this year - again, fully 1 out of 2 votes this electoral cycle - if he meets us halfway, treats us with the respect and consideration we deserve, and shows he is enthusiastic about embracing policies and programs that can harness our talent, creativity, and intelligence for the good of our economy and our nation.



Next Story: Women Voters 






 

In It to Win It - Economics Voters

by Dr. Ellen Brandt



There Are Five Groups of Republicans Candidate Trump Needs to Make Nice-Nice With Now

 
With the luxury of having several weeks before the GOP Convention in Cleveland, Presumptive Nominee Trump has more than enough time to reconcile his interests with those of the loyalist GOP base.

 
But he and his various advisors now need to posture themselves, if not as overly apologetic and cringing, at least as decent and magnanimous and - dare we say it? - kind. 

 
They need to express their eagerness to put the bitterness of the primary season behind us. And they need to embrace both Ronald Reagan's Eleventh GOP Commandment - "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican" - and a Party of Yes attitude, demonstrating that Republicans can debate issues, opinions, and ideas, but finally emerge as a unified Team - a Team which can put aside personalities and petty differences for the good of the Party as a whole.

 
We believe there are at least 5 distinct GOP Loyalist Base constituencies Trump needs to court, woo, and make nice-nice with immediately.

 
This is not, by the way, the same list of interest groups many other commentators have been stressing as important - which is fine. One of the GOP's main strengths is that we - not the Other Party - embrace and include a wide range of free-thinking individualists, both among our intellectuals and among our rank-and-file.

 
But the constituencies we'll be talking about in this brief 5-part series are those we see as  the most important - and also perhaps also the easiest - for Trump to come to a political understanding with quickly and efficiently.

 
Here then, the Top 5 Groups of Loyalist Republicans our Presumptive Nominee should reach out to now - and what they will want in return:

 

First Up, Economics Voters
 

This is a key group within the GOP Base that I find easy to characterize, because I'm one of them myself.

 
And while Republicans may agree to disagree on some issues - like how to tweak the tax code and what sort of social safety net needs to be retained to protect the Widows-and-Orphans among us (I'm in that group, too) - I believe there's a general consensus among Republicans about various economic ideas and issues.

 
To be frank, we think Trump has been doing really well with Economics Voters, embracing many issues and initiatives Republicans consider vitally important. Here are some of them:

 
***** The "Texas Triad" of Resources, Oil, and Manufacturing: Guess which sectors of the economy the Limousine Liberals have been trashing into near oblivion the past eight years? Guess which Party's investors have been hurt most by this trashing? And guess which States and regions have suffered immensely because of it?

 
Although he makes his home(s) in a Blue state (New York) and a Purple state (Florida), Trump has echoed Heartland, Red State voters' concerns very nicely when it comes to the Texas Triad - and he needs to keep it up.

 
Trump already seems to be strongly pro-Resources, pro-Oil (favoring the U.S.'s return as a major energy exporter, in fact), as well as pro-ramping up our Manufacturing base and getting back - forcibly, if necessary - those Manufacturing jobs lost via outsourcing and some downright horrible trade pacts.

 

***** Competitiveness and Currency Manipulation: Trump's entire campaign, some might argue, has been about restoring America's competitive stance against other nations, which he says have "taken advantage of us." This theme clearly resonates among many Republicans - and Independents - as well as a large cadre of crossover Democrats.

 
A key part of this loss of American competitiveness has been the inexorable worldwide "Currency Wars," in which nations devalue their currencies against other currencies for competitive advantage.
 

And this is where many clueless pundits, including one from the Chicago Tribune a couple of days ago, misread Trump's commentary on the strong dollar versus weak dollar.

 
He has repeatedly said that if other countries continue to devalue their currencies aggressively as competitive tools, the US needs to do the same - i.e. to favor a Weaker Dollar - as a competing tool against other countries' aggressive manipulation. 



In this case, a Weaker Dollar would be a show of Strength in the ongoing Currency Wars. 

 

***** Capital Allocation: Related to both of the topics above - the Texas Triad and the Currency Wars - is what Trump and many other Republicans consider the disastrous interference of Limousine Liberals in how world capital has been allocated under their "Strong USDollar" and "Kill Oil, Resources, and Manufacturing" mantras.

 
These mantras and the incessant propaganda proclaiming them started becoming part of the Limo-Liberal agenda during Bill Clinton's adminstration and have reached an absolute zenith during Barack Obama's terms in office, particularly during his second administration.

 
Among the major problems with these sacred mantras of the Limo-Liberals is that they have favored exactly those industries and sectors employing the fewest number of people and with the least amount of positive impact on most regions and States.

 
They have also had a disastrous effect on the 43 percent of the population - and fully one-half of all voters this election cycle - who are age 50 and over. 



We "Gray" US citizens - who, not coincidentally, skew heavily towards the GOP - have been the major victims of the Limo-Liberals' ersatz Ponzi-scheme economy, in which a "favorable job picture" has depended largely upon eliminating the jobs - and stealing the life's savings - of people over 50, then "redistributing" them to groups which tend to vote for Democrats - the very young, so-called minorities (although every American is part of one or more minorities now), and even illegal immigrants.

 
This is why labor participation rates are at all-time historical lows. The long-term unemployed and under-employed primarily come from just one group: "Gray" Americans - the more than 2 in 5 of us who feel we have been shafted. (More about this in our next story.)  

 
***** Rebuffing the UltraGreens: Republicans favor a cleaner environment and expanding the use of renewable energy as much as anybody else does.

 
But under the Obama-ites, an UltraGreen, low-growth agenda has held sway, much more aggressively than in any prior Democratic administration.

 
Not only does much of the GOP rank-and-file consider a lot of UltraGreen dogma "junk science," we also suspect that during the Obama years an extraordinary amount of Federal money has been wasted on make-work projects, make-work jobs (mostly going to "Youth"), and make-work regulatory bodies, which have seemed to favor lower forms of life over humans - particularly Republican humans.   

 

***** Immigration: Since this is one topic every political pundit talks about constantly, I'll give it just a few sentences here.


While it is also a Security and Geopolitical issue, excessive Immigration is at its heart an Economic issue - and clearly, among Trump's favorite ones.

 
Again, good for him! Note that a large proportion of new immigrants allowed into this country on work visas are Young - and generally Male - hired into Tech jobs which supposedly cannot be filled.

 
This is ludicrous - and literally scandalous - when my own generation, the Baby Boomers (which is also both Trump's and Clinton's generation, Americans who are currently age 52-70) invented much of modern Tech, have been Tech-savvy since we were in junior high school/grade school (depending on whether we are older or younger Boomers), and are by any and every metric the best-educated generation in modern history, before or since.

 
Offer those "un-fillable" Tech jobs to us, and we will gladly take them.
 

 
***** We Need More Growth, Period: Trump seems to agree with the majority of Republicans that we need much more economic growth, after an extended period of virtual stagnation, during which supposedly "strong job creation" and the fairytale myth of "full employment" have only been achieved by knocking close to 40 percent of Americans - most age 50 and older - out of both the workforce and the recorded jobs statistics forever.

 
Meanwhile, we've seen such a "hollowing out" of the historical US economy - manufacturing, resources, Main Street small business - that regions and (mostly Red) States thriving just a few years ago are now teetering on the brink of full-blown economic disaster.

 
Most in the GOP believe that rather than pit interest group against interest group, constituency against constituency, for crumbs of a shrinking economic pie, as the Democrats have been doing, we need to focus on growing our economy as a whole, so there is more to go around for everybody, not just a favored few.


 
***** Smaller Federal Government, And Much More Power to the States: Although a smaller, less-intrusive Federal government has been the stated goal of Republicans for most of the Party's existence, Trump is right to eschew the lure of too much austerity too quickly, which some in the Party have been calling for. Go too far, and you choke off growth - which is what kowtowing to the UltraGreens has caused under the Other Party's aegis.

 
But more innovation and economically stimulative programs should be permitted to come from the States, which have generally lost out during the Federal power grab of the past 8 years.

 
Candidate Trump seems to recognize this. And if he merges his ideas and agendas on the economic front with those held by the majority of Republicans - which he already appears to be doing - the large and influential group of Economics Voters within the GOP should be willing to sign on.


 
Next Up: Mature Voters, Bedrock of the GOP Base 

Trump and the Party of Yes

by Dr. Ellen Brandt



Out of the ashes of rancor and discord, can the GOP rise phoenix-like, a true Party of Yes?


If any political entity has ever experienced a Trial by Fire, the Republican Party has certainly done so this primary cycle. The rancor, rowdiness, discord, and pure angst have been extreme.


But now the burning questions become: Can we find the courage and the chutzpah to crawl our way out of the ashes? Are we brave enough and confident enough to proclaim the recent Past as (mere) Prologue? Can we embrace the fact that it has made us stronger, not weaker? And will we reassert our basic principles, ideas, and ideology - provided we can figure out what they are?


As for the mourning period that some Republicans are going through now: Look on it as a welcome luxury the Democrats do not have. There are a full six weeks before the GOP convention in Cleveland, almost a glacially long period, in political terms, for Republican factions and candidate splinter groups to assert their continued importance to the Party and voice what they need from our nominee and our platform in order to cement their continued allegiance.


I fully admit that my own mourning period, after the momentous events of last week, has been quite brief. That's because I am very much an Economic GOP voter. And I am rather encouraged both by what did and did not happen in the markets last week and by some savvy initial moves the Trump camp has been making to reassure advocates of the "Texas Triad" - gold, oil, and manufacturing. (This almost certainly explains why Governor Rick Perry, a sincere and avid Cruz supporter, had a similarly brief mourning period.)


But it will take other kinds of GOP loyalists - those whose main orientations are either Security and Geopolitics or Social Issues - to switch their allegiances and worldviews from #NeverTrump to #NeverHillary.


GOP loyalists like me, whose main focus is Economics, understand what a disastrous mess the Limousine Liberals have made, both of our domestic economy and of the world economy, in which, reluctant or not, all humans including Americans live.


And as horrid as the Obama years have been for most of us, Barack Obama is not the living, (fire)-breathing exemplar and apotheosis of Limousine Liberalism. Hillary Clinton is.


Those parts of the GOP base whose major focus is either Security and Geopolitics or Social Issues (collectively or individually) will come to the same conclusion we Economic voters have reached first.


The Limousine Liberals and their Anointed One, Hillary Clinton, need to be stopped in their (Evil) tracks.


I think we all, as Republicans, understand intuitively that this historic election cycle of 2016 was supposed to be the cycle in which we knocked Limousine Liberalism to its knees and began to eradicate its disastrous influence on every part of our economic, social, and cultural life.


Well, that's still true. And we still need to do it, whoever is at the top of our ticket.


A Party of Yes Worldview


As we mentioned in our last piece, we believe there are at least 5 very specific groups of GOP voters and influencers our Presumptive Nominee needs to court, woo, and assuage for past misdeeds as rapidly as possible.


We will devote a separate article to each of those 5 GOP voter interest groups and also publish a (partly tongue-in-cheek, partly dead serious) story revealing our choices for Trump's vice-presidential running mate.


But first, one thing candidate-into-nominee Trump can - and should - do immediately: Embrace a Party of Yes worldview and a Party of Yes theme for his subsequent candidacy, correcting those aspects of his rhetoric and his public persona that have seemed to promote GOP disunity, rather than Republican Party unity.


From here on in, Trump needs not only to respect but to put into unerring practice President Ronald Reagan's "Eleventh GOP commandment," Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.


We know this is difficult for candidate Trump, whose personality is - to use a pretty and charitable word - volatile and whose self-censoring mechanism sometimes appears to be nonexistent.


No matter. From this point until November: Eleventh Commandment, Republicans Good, Democrats Bad.


The second thing that needs to be at least tinkered with, if not totally changed: Which supporters candidate-into-nominee Trump should accept wholeheartedly; which he should accept only warily; and which he should not accept at all.


By all means, our Presumptive Nominee should continue to court and woo "lunchbucket" citizens and, especially in the case of union members, encourage them to cross over from the Independent or even Democrat ranks, as Reagan did in 1980, an historic election which has much in common with this one.


But he needs to be wary about some of the crossovers which seemed to occur in open primaries or anywhere, frankly, which is typically a Blue State. There is the possibility - perhaps the probability - that a fairly large number of those who crossed Party or historically ideological lines to vote for Trump in the primaries did so as a form of protest about the status of the (predetermined-years-ago) race for the Democratic nomination. Will those voters stay with Trump in the general election? And if they may not, how far can Trump go to woo them, without going against the wishes and wisdom of longtime Republican Base loyalists?


Then there is the point where the quest for "new voters" becomes ugly and unacceptable. As we have said in previous stories, the GOP is simply uninterested in potential new voters who are blatant Misogynists, White (or Black or Purple) Supremacists, or come under the general heading of Thugs.


This last group, overwhelmingly young white males, have behaved a lot like those soccer hooligans who've plagued Europe and Latin America the past few decades, addicted to bullying and chaos. We in the GOP don't need them and don't want them. Let them join the Democrats. Or better yet, let them stay home.


On the other hand, there is one kind of political activity which Donald Trump and his closest advisors have handled very well - superbly, in fact. That political activity, of course, is gaining the near-constant attention of the Mainstream Media.


Even with our absurdly concentrated and absurdly biased MSM now firmly in Democrat-leaning hands, Trump has somehow managed to bend them completely to his will, promoting his political interests, while effectively thwarting the interests of even his strongest and brightest primary opponents.


Maybe it is high time for the rest of us Republicans not only to learn from him on this (media-can-be-positively-manipulated) count, but also to start mobilizing his strategy and tactics, in order to accelerate the desperately-needed transformation of the MSM into a collective entity that is far more GOP-friendly.


This has also been our number one agenda item at Party of Yes. (see our story Shaping the Stream)


And in the spirit of promoting (Red) Team Play within the GOP, I invite Trump supporters at our home base, LinkedIn, to join the Party of Yes Group, provided they promise to play nice with the other kiddies in the political sandbox and refrain from knocking tiny women reporters to the ground or running stories in the National Enquirer claiming that we've a) had passionate affairs with aliens from another galaxy or b) are aliens from another galaxy.


I urge the Presumptive Nominee's close advisors and allies to read our ongoing commentary on the GOP and the MSM, starting with the Shaping the Stream story above. I think they will wholly agree with our basic premises: That we need to challenge the existing MSM to embrace Republican voters, candidates, ideas and ideology, while also working towards the establishment of a bigger and stronger Republican MSM, which we ourselves control and promote.


Candidate Trump and his advisors will agree that we need to do this especially on the Internet and within Social Media, putting an end to the harmful, one-sided bias towards Democrats and the Democratic Party, which has turned our once vibrant and exciting political Media into a bullying and biased Metaphorical Megaphone spouting nonstop partisan Propaganda for the Democrats.


On the brighter side, one thing this raucous primary election cycle has demonstrated in spades: The GOP is clearly exactly what we said it was when our Party of Yes effort was initiated several months ago. We are the Party which tolerates discussion, debate, and ideological dissent - even when rowdy or messy - in a way the Democrats and their anointed candidate have seemingly forgotten how to do.


That is a gigantic Plus for Republicans, certainly not a negative. And it is what truly makes the GOP, in contrast to the Democrats, the real American Party of Yes.

OK, Donald - If You're Willing to Be a Team Player, So Am I

by Dr. Ellen Brandt


The Playoffs are over. It's time for the World Series. And my Team is Red.


I don't apologize for having proclaimed myself NeverTrump. Of the 17 prospective GOP nominees we started out with way back last summer - (it seems like a century ago, doesn't it?) - I would have preferred 13 others to Mr. Trump - and I'm not saying who the other 3 were!


But my Party has spoken, even if our voice has been distorted by the static of non-kosher "open" primaries, media bullying, dirty trickery, and fatal missteps from the other teams contending.


As in the great political sport of baseball - or football or basketball or third-grade intramural dodgeball - the preliminaries are done with; we presumably have a presumptive nominee - and the alternative is likely to be Hillary Clinton, apotheosis of Limousine Liberalism, which all GOP'ers know has damaged this country to a frightening extent, especially during the past few years.


Of course, if the rest of we Republicans are going to come around and root, root, root for the Home Team, candidate Trump needs to do the same from now on in - and there are some encouraging signs that he will do just that, particularly on the economic front.


We intend to write a series of articles on this omnibus topic over the next several days, including our analysis of 5 key groups of GOP voters and influencers Mr. Trump needs to court, woo, and, if necessary, grovel shamelessly before as soon as possible.


First, though, our take on how candidate Trump might pick up and run with our own Party of Yes theme, especially as it applies to the media. And since everyone else is already speculating on it, too, we'll offer our suggestions about what kind of vice-presidential running mate Trump needs to choose, in a move calculated to win over prior NeverTrumpies and unite the Party for our 2016 World Series run.