Steve Hilton: Bolton's book reminds us what the 2020 election is really about - Trump versus the establishment

Do not underestimate the significance of the Bolton effect. This is not just a short-term swamp story that will soon be replaced by another. It is the big story of the last five years ever since Donald Trump came down the escalator and launched the Populist Revolution, and it will be the big story of the 2020 election.

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From the start, the Republican establishment has been trying to take Trump down. They shoveled cash, over a $100 million  into pockets of Jeb Bush. That didn't work. They organized the Never Trump Movement, starting with this issue of National Review magazine in early 2016. That didn't work.

They turned on Trump in the final stages of the campaign. That didn't work either. They even ran their own candidate against him. Ask President McMullen how that turned out.

None of it worked. So, they were stuck with President Trump. But they didn't give up. They just kept going, doing everything they could to sabotage the new administration.

Their chosen tactic -- put their own establishment stooges into key positions. Once there, these self-appointed guardians of the national interest would inform, educate and guide President Trump away from the policies the American people actually voted for and towards the establishment ideology the voters rejected in the election -- open borders, globalism and endless war.

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There's a kind of breathtaking arrogance to it if you think about it. These establishment megalomaniacs genuinely believe they should be in power, regardless of actual elections. And they call Trump an authoritarian.

The president brought them in precisely because, as he put it in a tweet last week, he likes hearing differing points of view. But these establishment stooges aren't satisfied just giving their opinion.

What does it tell you that all these establishment Republicans are now endorsing Joe Biden? It tells you that they now see Biden as the best vehicle for their elitist agenda. They are a virus. They tried to infect Trump, but he fought them off.

Here's Bolton this week explaining why he went to work for a president he fundamentally disagreed with.

John Bolton, former national security adviser: Look, I thought it was possible to work with somebody, I thought, surely they would want to learn about the complexities of arms-control negotiation and that sort of thing. And as I detail in the book, that turned out not to be true.

Oh, surely he'd want to learn about arms-control and that sort of thing.

Bolton thought he could go in there and overrule Trump, especially in the Middle East. But he wasn't the first. Rex Tillerson tried to overrule Trump on disrupting foreign policy, exactly what Trump was elected to do.

Rex Tillerson, former U.S. Secretary of State: I think he grew tired of me being the guy every day that told him he can't do that, and let's talk about what we can do.

John Kelly tried to overrule Trump on the wall in the most patronizing way.

John Kelly, former White House Chief of Staff: He has very definitely changed his attitude toward the DACA issue and even the wall once we briefed him.

"Once we briefed him."

James Mattis went in and he tried to overrule Trump, not just on defense and military matters, but on trade for goodness sake.

These smug self-righteous elitists think they think they were defending America when they duplicitously took senior jobs for a president they despised and opposed. But they weren't defending America or Americans. They were defending their own class and their own interests.

The globalist elite, the military-industrial complex -- in a word, the "Swamp." That's what all of them -- Bolton, Tillerson, Kelly, Mattis -- really are -- agents of the Swamp.

James Mattis doesn't even try to hide it. As soon as he was out of there, he cashed in on his years of taxpayer-funded employment by joining a swamp lobbyist that has worked to ship American defense and manufacturing jobs overseas. Let's keep an eye on Bolton, by the way. Watch where he ends up. Pay attention to his future clients.

But there is one thing he said this week that I strongly agree with.

Bolton: I do think that one way or another, whether Trump wins or loses in November, the Republican Party has to have an extensive conversation with itself about what it wants to look like in the future.

Yes, exactly. And I can tell you now that we will fight from morning until night to stop the Republican Party from slipping back into the clutches of the arrogant elitist warmongering gang of globalist thieves who line their own pockets while destroying the American dream.

The establishment Republicans, the Never Trumpers -- they are desperate to get power back so they can get back to doing what they love, exploiting American workers. Look at Republicans for Biden run by Anthony Scaramucci. His Skybridge Capital just put this out: "Hedge fund opportunities out of the COVID-19 crisis." Nice.

Look at the deeply shallow Bill Kristol. Uninterested in policy, obsessed with style over substance, founder of the so-called Lincoln Project, babbling like a lunatic because he has zero understanding or empathy for the millions of millions of patriotic working Americans who support Trump. "Trump's path to victory depends on voter suppression, mass disinformation, foreign interference and unabashed use of Executive Branch power to shape events and perceptions this fall," he writes.

Oh my God, what does it tell you that all these establishment Republicans are now endorsing Joe Biden? It tells you that they now see Biden as the best vehicle for their elitist agenda. They are a virus. They tried to infect Trump, but he fought them off.

Now, they've jumped to Biden, where they will find a willing host for their destructive ideas. Because Biden himself is the Swamp. He is the very figurehead of the failed ruling class that Bolton, Tillerson, Kelly, Mattis, and all the rest of them are members of.

A figurehead, remember, has no real power. Biden, if elected, would have no real power. He is mentally malfunctioning. He will be pushed and pulled in all directions. The establishment wants cheap labor, open borders, a sellout to China. The unions want higher taxes, pension protection, more regulation. The loony left wants their cultural revolution -- abolish the police, crush free speech, rule of the mob.

And so as we approach the election, the Bolton affair reminds us again what a vital choice it is because all of them -- the establishment Republicans and the establishment Democrats, the loony left -- they will use a Biden win to seize power permanently. They don't just want to beat Trump; they want to crush the Populist Revolution.

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Whatever voters think about coronavirus or George Floyd, the election is a choice about the future. People power or the Swamp. Trump or the mob. American workers first or open borders forever. A growing free enterprise economy or stagnation, sclerosis and slump.

Trump versus the establishment -- just like 2016.

Adapted from Steve Hilton's monologue from "The Next Revolution" on June 28, 2020.

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