Maggie's Farm

The major purpose of current government is to create opportunities and mechanisms for graft. Our current economic system is misnamed "crony capitalism" when government power is used to give money to friends, relatives, and donors. It should be renamed "crony socialism" instead, because it is government-enforced, top-down economic system.

The Trump appeal is not based on nuance of different brands of conservatism It is a preference cascade based on shared recognition that our government has been completely taken over by crooks who have no fiduciary responsibility. Richard Fernandez at the Belmont Club accurately describes the Trump (and Sander’s) appeal as voting “NO”. “Pure conservatism” is irrelevant when both parties and their government agencies are corrupt. You mention Paul Ryan, who passes bloated budgets. Watch the "leadeship" and their families get rich on meager salaries. People know we now have a government built to receive bribes for grants/contracts, passage of laws/regulations that harm regular “unconnected” citizens, or appointed jobs giving money out to your friends. The GOP just voted more funding than even Obama requested. The “Earmark Factory” is still alive and well.
People sense the end of the US and even western civilization as a result of bad crooked government along the lines of Demosclerosis: The Silent Killer of American Government or the more generalized The Collapse of Complex Societies).
Regular people know that crooked politicians make their donors wealthy while they borrow trillions, and themselves become wealthy on government salaries. The only hope for honest “unconnected” people is to “throw the bums out”. Even if Trump or Sanders are crooks, at least the old crooks might be removed from their “connectedness” and be subject to the bad and overbearing government their regulations and crony socialism have created. Maybe Trump or Sanders will appoint an honest Attorney General to prosecute treason (accepting bribes as Secretary of State to protect mining interests or sale of uranium to Russia) and corruption)? Even if there is only a 1% chance that Trump would shut down most of the so-called Education Department, that is better than nothing. Even if there is only a 1% chance that federal funding to universities should go to US citizens for gainful employment, rather than training destructive SJWs and foreign nationals to go back home to compete, that is better than zero. Maybe Trump can close our borders to terrorists and cultures that hate US and swell our welfare expenses and overload local schools.
On the positive side, maybe Trump can make Lobbyists have to find a real job and work for a living.

Jack, I am agreeing with Ryan being part of the problem. If Ryan continues being an enabler of government-for-sale, perhaps an unrealizable fantasy to hope for is that Trump and Bernie voters together could unseat him in the general election.

The recent announcements of superdelegates for Trump, such as Oklahoma GOP chairwoman Pam Pollard, recognizes the possibility of a broad preference cascade. She admits:

"I think he has touched a part of our electorate that doesn't like where our country is."

Your commitment to "the Constitution" is somewhat puzzling. I took Con Law years ago from a very prominent Con Law scholar. What was remarkable is the plasticity of reading the plain words increasingly distorted over time to mean more govenrnent power, when its basic premise was to limit the power of the federal government over citizens and States. Much/most of this distortion is the result of crazypants expansion of the commerce clause beyond any rational meaning of its wording or intent. Does your support for "the Constitution" extend to federally-enforced monopolies to grow peanuts, or preventing a farmer from feeding his own herd, or the truly enormous Code of Federal regulations that control in-state commerce and everything else?

The "elite" are now concerned Trump would not follow the Constitution, but have no such concern about FDR or Obama. It would be enjoyable to hear their pious fake-umbrage claiming support for that "outmoded 100 year-old document" if Trump were to stop their gravy train and mock their self-presumed authority.

We have crooked tariffs now to protect certain unions. Why shouldn't more honest tariffs to protect against foreign government concerted action to destroy components of our economy be OK? Tariffs of course were the main source of federal income in the original Constitution. Until a "very small" 0.25 %(?) income tax was grafted onto it, along with the privately-owned and operated "federal Reserve". Is a secret Federal Reserve bank part of the Constitution you are concerned Trump might interfere with?

Many of "the rich" you don't want to tax got that way by government largess and corruption, refusal to put financial manipulators in jail, paid avoidance of antitrust laws, etc. Very few "rich" are getting that way now by hard work or merit in our new top-down crony socialist economy. Forget to pay lobbyists and politicians (eg, early microsoft) and the government attacks. Pay up and get rich while your competitors are attacked by government over regulations written by crooked lobbyists and their rich clients. Special non-enforcement of antitrust laws to create giant propaganda news organizations favoring the crooked government "outfit". Letting crooked bankers who destroyed the economy avoid jail if they give billions to antiamerican political groups favoring the overthrow of the governments of Arizona, Texas, California and New Mexico like La Raza ("the Race"). Would you oppose a 1500% tax on lobbying payments and bribes, as a tax on the rich?

People would only vote for Trump (or even Bernie) as an act of desperation. But the situation is desperate. I've considered writing in George Washington and John Adams or Thomas Jefferson on my November ballot, to see if my vote is even counted in my famously corrupt state. (If it is hard to identify my state from that information alone, that is a basis for Trump's support)