They had it all. The GOP party bosses appeared to be winning every legislative and electoral battle with conservatives. After beating back almost every primary challenge in 2014 and after passing one liberal bill after another with the support of Democrats, the elite technocrats and cronies within the party were high-fiving and slapping each other’s backs over their successfully crushing of the tea party.

Except – they never won anything. It was all an illusion. And in fact, their temporary victories set the stage for an irrevocable defeat in the long-run.

Last cycle, in my previous job, I was heavily involved in recruiting primary candidates to run against the phony Republican political class. The most striking lesson throughout the election season was that not a single establishment Republican would run on the veracity of their views – the ones they espouse and pursue in Washington. They co-opted all of our talking points on the core issues while often accusing the conservative candidates of being ideologically impure. In addition, they used their superior money, resources, and talent to bury the upstart candidates – most of whom had only rudimentary campaign resources and novice staff – before the candidates could even define themselves.

The bravado from the GOP establishment was only emboldened by the smashing victory over the Democrats in the general election.

At the time, verses from Psalms (10: 5-6, 10) came to mind:

His ways prosper at all times; Your judgments are far removed from him. All his adversaries-he blows at them. He says to himself, “I will not fall; for all generations I will not be in adversity.” He crouches, he bows down, and an army of broken people shall fall by his signals.

Blinded by their pomposity and a false sense of security, the oligarchs in the Washington Cartel – as Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) refers to them – overlooked two points:

1) They didn’t win anything. They actually won on a mandate to pursue the priorities of the very enemies they thought they vanquished – conservative Middle America. They wanted possession of the ball, and now they had it. But the voters did not plan for them to march the ball into the K Street or Obama’s end zone; they elected these politicians as one last opportunity to put them first. There were no more excuses and this was their last chance.

2) They forgot about Obama. They overlooked the fact that Obama is not your run-of-the-mill Democrat president who would fade away in his final two years after suffering a humiliating defeat in the midterm elections. The GOP elites projected their own impassivity to Obama’s radical transformation on Middle America voters as well, wagering that they won’t care about Obama’s dastardly deeds enough to demand action.

The establishment had planned to “clear the decks” of any contentious issue by giving Democrats whatever they desired, freeing them to focus on trivial items and payback for their donors. They would then ride a controversy-free year into the presidential election with Jeb Bush (or someone similar), raise a ton of money from day one, and crush the conservative base in the primary. After all, this formula had always worked auspiciously in their favor for the past few election cycles.

However, just two weeks after the November elections, Obama announced the nullification of all immigration laws and the suspension of enforcement of our borders and sovereignty. The GOP treated it like another day in the political playground and failed to see that this was a revolutionary act in the eyes of Middle America. And as 2015 came upon us, it was one issue after another and one broken promise after another. Between the fallout from amnesty and the release of criminal aliens, ObamaTrade, the Planned Parenthood videos, the fomenting of insurrection and dismantling of law enforcement, allying with Iran, the courts remaking the Constitution and redefining marriage while preserving Obamacare – there was a bursting sense of disquiet among the people. It became painfully clear that the GOP had no plans to lift a finger to stop Obama and his allies on a single important issue, and that he had a free lane to remake the country in his final months.

All it took was a man with money, pomp, and fame to burst onto the scene and strike the match on the lighter fluid that had long been marinating in the electoral wood pile. Trump’s official stances on a lot of critical issues are being overlooked because, for the most part, this is not even about Donald Trump. This is about a party that had long been disenfranchised but lacked any national vehicle through which to express its despair. And with a Democrat Party controlled by a Hillary Clinton/Bernie Sanders/Martin O’Malley freak show, many Middle America Democrats and Independents feel the same way.

The tables have been turned. It is now the Washington Cartel that is completely helpless and hopeless in controlling its destiny. Their candidates are polling below Martin O’Malley’s numbers in the Democrat primary, even though they are flush with cash, consultants, and pollsters. All because they “won” the inside game, but lost the people – most likely, for good.

It’s very likely Donald Trump could still gradually flame out over time, but that won’t change the equation because it was never about Trump. Ted Cruz has quietly positioned himself to win the hearts and minds of the people, and for once, he is beating the establishment in their own money game. Ben Carson is polling well just on his outsiders appeal alone. It’s not that Trump is sucking out all of the oxygen in the room; it’s that the establishment has run out of any oxygen to survive in this environment, irrespective of who else is in the room. Every candidate could drop out tomorrow leaving Bush as the de facto nominee and he still will still lack support outside of a few zip codes.

They forgot the old adage, “you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” (Re-posted with permission from the author, “The Establishment’s Lies Are Catching Up” originally appeared HERE)

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