Donald Trump may not be a conservative. His Republican opponents, both rivals in the presidential primaries and their apologists in the media, have been working tirelessly to discredit their party’s leading candidate on this basis.
However, this line of attack is disingenuous because neither of them are their elected candidates – Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina – especially conservative.
Another rising GOP wunderkind is John Kasich.
And Kasich is probably equal less “conservative” than his peers.
Five years ago, Kasich called for the repeal of laws allowing birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. But last year, Kasich said his views on the subject were – you guessed it!-“evolved”
Kasich implored Republicans in Congress to work with President Obama’s executive order on illegal immigration to solve the problem. “The country needs healing,” he noted. “I would never tell you that I don’t change my mind or that my thinking doesn’t evolve.”
Kasich added that he is “a different guy than I was many years ago” and noted that “this job [of being the governor of Ohio] growing up.
Read this carefully: Kasich would have us believe that his shift from opposing efforts to “reward” illegal immigration to favoring, in effect, amnesty is a sign of his maturity. The implication is clear: those who oppose amnesty are immature.
But, not surprisingly, there are more.
“So when I look at a group of people who may be hiding, who may be afraid, who may be afraid, who have children, I don’t want to be in a situation where I make things worse for them.”
Kasich says “I don’t want to see anyone suffer.”
When it comes to abortion, Kasich shares the same conventional GOP position: Mothers always make the mistake of killing babies growing in their wombs, unless they don’t. And there is nothing wrong if the child was conceived as a result of rape or incest or if it poses a threat to the mother’s health.
Last week, however, Kasich faced criticism from “a leading pro-life organization” – the Susan B. Anthony List – for condemning Republicans for focusing “too much on this one issue.” Last weekend on CNN State of the Union, Kasich said: “I think we focus too much on one issue, and now that the gay marriage issue has kind of been pushed to the back burner, we’re kind of narrowing it down to one social issue.”
So, according to Kasich, Republicans have a “but.” one a “social issue” and spend too much time obsessing about killing the most innocent human beings among us. As for “gay marriage,” which Kasich says he also opposes on moral grounds, the ease with which he is willing to allow government– in this case of the Supreme Court – the resolution of the moral issue for it is telling. Imagine if anti-slavery people had the same attitude?
But back to abortion: Pro-life groups have also sharply criticized Kasich refusal to refund Planned Parenthood after disclosure that the abortion company collected body parts of aborted babies.
In a May 1999 interview with the Urban League, Kasich said about (so-called) “racial profiling” that “should end in every community in America” “This is simply not how our justice system should work.”
While Kasich prefers to give local governments a chance to voluntarily end the practice, he quickly added that federal government intervention may be necessary.
Kasich means he is open to perspective nationalization of the police.
So Kasich supports “affirmative action.”” – but not “amounts” (as if there was a real difference).
On education, Kasich favored using 95% rather than the current 65% of federal funds to subsidize public education. He also argued that federal and local governments should provide more funding for later school and weekend programs for children.
When it comes to “day care choice,” Kasich insists the federal government needs to ease its “many strings and restrictions” which attaches “to the money” it “hands out” because “subsidized centers often do not meet the needs of local parents.” “If the federal government is involved in subsidizing day care facilities,” Kasich adds, “then our role should be to expand parents’ choices, not limit them.”
Kasich also maintains that the government should ensure that employers provide “flexible time in the workplace to give working parents more time with their children.” He also called for Americorps money to be redirected to youth and elderly targets mentoring kids.
In 2013, despite the protests of members of his own party and the Tea Partier who once supported him, Kasich Expanded Medicaid under Obamacare to 275,000 Ohioans.
When it comes to redistributing income and wealth for “prosperity” purposes, Kasich is all for it and seems as intolerable as Democrats who operate out-of-context biblical teachings on poverty to serve that goal. Worse still, he belittles members of his own party who disagree with him on this issue.
Just earlier this year, Kasich noted, “It’s really strange that the conservative movement – much of which is faith-based – never seems to read Matthew 25” (i.e., the chapter on helping the penniless). Kasich cited the latter in justifying his decision to expand Medicaid, and he asks conservatives, “Why don’t we feed the hungry and clothe the naked, help the prisoners and help the lonely?”
We – I mean, of course government through the resources of time, energy and money that the Kasichs of the world plan to confiscate from the rest of us – must comply with the Welfare State and “step away from the judgment side” this topic: “We” must not judge those whose existence we are forced to subsidize.
In delayed 2013, Kasich blamed Republicans over pay “war on the poor!” “I am concerned about this fact [that] there seems to be a war on the penniless. That if you are penniless, you are somehow clumsy and idle.
The New York Times wrote: “But few have gone further than Mr. Kasich in criticizing his own party’s views on anti-poverty programs [.]”
The Times praises Kasich for “surprising and disarming some former critics of the left with his support for disadvantaged people in Ohio, which he describes as a display of Christian compassion.”
That’s no miniature amount of praise coming from the site Times. But there’s more:
“During his three years as governor, he expanded programs for the mentally ill, fought the nursing home lobby to lower Medicaid costs and supported Cleveland’s Democratic Mayor Frank Johnson w increasing local taxes improve schools” (emphasis added).
Suffice it to say that while Trump may not be a conservative, John Kasich certainly is not.
