Sarah Palin Endorses Donald Trump For President

NY Times: “Sarah Palin Endorses Donald Trump.” Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced her endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a January 19 campaign rally in Iowa. From The New York Times:

Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee who became a Tea Party sensation and a favorite of grass-roots conservatives, endorsed Donald J. Trump in Iowa on Tuesday, providing him with a potentially significant boost just 13 days before the state's caucuses.

“Are you ready for the leader to make America great again?” Mrs. Palin said with Mr. Trump by her side at a rally at Iowa State University. “Are you ready to stump for Trump? I'm here to support the next president of the United States -- Donald Trump.”

Her support is the highest-profile backing for a Republican so far. It came the same day that Iowa's Republican governor, Terry Branstad, said he hoped that Senator Ted Cruz would be defeated in Iowa. The Feb. 1 caucuses are a must-win for the Texas senator, who is running neck-and-neck with Mr. Trump in state polls. [The New York Times, 1/19/16]

Conservative Media Blast The Endorsement For Abandoning “Anti-Establishment” Conservative Values

National Review's Charles Cooke: Palin's Endorsement Abandons Tea Party For “Nothing But Opportunism And Ego.” In a January 19 article, The National Review's Charles Cooke called Palin's “rotten endorsement” of Trump “nothing but opportunism and ego,” and criticized Palin for abandoning Tea Party ideology to "add a few zeroes to her bank balance:

Alas, there is no grand principle on display here. There is nothing but opportunism and ego. For a long time now, Sarah Palin has been apt to say anything and everything to keep the cameras buzzing around her hive. This rotten endorsement completes the decline. What, we might ask, has become of Palin's beloved Tea Party? What, too, of her purported admiration for limited government, and of her ostensible hatred of heretics and fakers? The prospect of a mass movement that was earnestly committed to libertarianism was always a little too good to be true, but even I didn't imagine it ending like this. All that talk of the Constitution and the Declaration; all that energy expended against the cronies and the rent-seekers; all those purifying voter drives -- and for what? So that Sarah Palin could add a few zeroes to her bank balance and Donald Trump could go from the purchaser to the bought? Today was the day that Rick Santelli's famous yelp finally melted into populism and avarice. Today, at about ten minutes past six, P. T. Barnum beat out Hayek for the soul of the insurgent Right. Today, the rebels became the charlatans they had set out to depose. What comes next will be anybody's guess. [The National Review, 1/19/16]

RedState: Palin's Trump Endorsement Is “An Inglorious Display Of Crass Opportunism” That Betrays Conservative Ideology. Conservative blog RedState's Susan Wright called Palin's endorsement “an inglorious display of crass opportunism,” and criticized Palin for betraying the Tea Party “ideology she once rode to prominence” by supporting Trump, who “will be the death of the GOP”: 

Today we saw someone who was once a rising star in the conservative world explode in an inglorious display of crass opportunism.

Sarah Palin, that darling of a failed John McCain presidential bid, has resurfaced to throw her voice and her support behind the gilded toad of the GOP, Donald Trump. Where she was once a strong Tea Party leader, promoting free market ideas, limited government, and power back in the hands of the people, today she forsook it all, in favor of a big government, foul mouthed, Wall Street liberal with atrocious hair.

[...]

No, sadly, the mask of the Sarah Palin so many of us were drawn in by has slipped. Rather than a warrior for conservative principle, we now see the oh-so shallow pool of her conservatism. She could have endorsed literally ANYBODY else running, but she threw her full-throated support behind a man who has said he identifies as a Democrat, has backed single payer healthcare, eminent domain, abortion, and a progressive tax on the wealthy. He has attacked real conservatives, shows a glaring lack of knowledge on most every important issue facing our nation, and covers it all with a gross layer of incivility and arrogance towards any who question him or hold him to task. He is all these things and will be the death of the GOP, or any chance of growing conservatism in this nation, again, if he is not stopped.

Make no mistake. Palin isn't alone in this betrayal of the ideology she once rode to prominence.

[...]

Am I angry? Yes, I am. I'm angry at Trump for his charade. I'm angry at voters who would let this man rise so high in the polls, and an unwillingness to see how closely they mirror the Obama fans from 2008. I'm angry at radio personalities, TV news creeps, and attention seeking has-beens for putting their own self-interests above our nation's well-being. We had the strongest bench in many years, but more qualified candidates are pushed aside in favor of this Manhattan bully.

We are so close to the edge. The cult of personality will not draw us back. Now is the time for putting celebrity aside, not embracing it. We need sober, seasoned, rational leadership, and anyone in a position to highlight the need who chooses, instead, to glorify our most inept deserves to reap all the consequences due their selfish motivations. [RedState.com, 1/20/16] 

CNN's Amanda Carpenter: Palin's Tea Party Roots Are Inconsistent With Trump's Positions. On the January 20 edition of CNN's New Day, commentator Amanda Carpenter suggested that Palin's endorsement of Trump is counter to her Tea Party conservativism: 

ALISYN CAMEROTA: Why didn't [Sarah Palin] endorse your former boss Ted Cruz? 

AMANDA CARPENTER: Well that's for Sarah Palin to explain because I do think the endorsement does beg a lot more explanation. Listen, I was very thrilled when Sarah Palin burst on the political scene in 2008 with the rise of the Tea Party. I think back to the single most animating issue behind the Tea Party and that was the 2008 bank bailouts. That was an issue that divided Republicans and conservatives -- that was the first issue that I think really made people recognize the term the establishment, because it was Republicans and Democrats coming together to prop up Wall Street. Donald Trump was for the bailouts. Donald Trump was for the stimulus. Donald Trump disrespects property rights through his support for eminent domain. He threatens the press -- which I think is a pretty big violation of the First Amendment -- when they write stories that he doesn't like. These are big, big issues. And I just really question whether, you know, the Tea Party base support that Sarah Palin has enjoyed for so long can go along with her with this endorsement given Donald Trump's positions on these very important issues. [CNN, New Day, 1/20/16]

S.E. Cupp Criticized Palin For Endorsing Trump Who She Says Is Not “A Committed Conservative” Or “An Anti-Establishment Rogue.” In a January 20 New York Daily News opinion piece, columnist S.E. Cupp denounced Palin for endorsing Trump, “a man who is neither a committed conservative nor an anti-establishment rogue”:

Because in addition to endorsing a beer run with a man who doesn't drink, she also just endorsed for the presidency a man who is neither a committed conservative nor an anti-establishment rogue.

Trump's long history of liberalism is well known. He was once a registered Democrat who supported Democratic candidates, from Bill de Blasio to Hillary Clinton. He has said publicly that the economy usually does better under Democrats. At times he's supported legalizing drugs, raising taxes on the wealthy and embracing isolationist foreign policies.

[...]

The beliefs long embraced by Palin and long eschewed by Trump are fundamental to conservatism. That Trump has suddenly gotten religion -- on issue after issue -- should be met by Palin with suspicion.

If his world-view weren't enough to make Palin cringe, Trump's inauthenticity as an anti-establishment candidate should be. Palin admirably took on what she called the “good old boy network” to become Alaska's first female governor. Now, she leaps to support a guy who helped create that network and who thrives in it. In what bizarre world is a billionaire real estate mogul who donates money to Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid “anti-establishment”? [New York Daily News, 1/20/16]

Glenn Beck On Palin's Trump Endorsement: “I Couldn't Disagree With Her More.” In a January 19 Facebook post, conservative radio host Glenn Beck wrotethat Sarah Palin's endorsement of Trump is inconsistent with the conservative values of " small government, lower taxes, fewer regulations and the constitution":

Sarah Palin.

Small Government, lower taxes, fewer regulations and the constitution?

Not any more.

Big government, bailouts, executive orders, not just abortion but partial birth abortion, nationalizing of banks, stimulus, pathway to citizenship.

All of these views were held by Donald Trump during this administration. Pathway to citizenship in 2013. Some as recently as last year.

What was the massive pivot point to make him change so fundamentally?

When Sarah and the tea party won a hard fought election and were under attack in 2010, DJT was giving money to Pelosi, Reid and Rahm.

I couldn't disagree with her more but she has played the game now for years. Perhaps she knows more than those of us still on the outside.

Maybe the press was right about her but for all of the wrong reasons. [Facebook.com, 1/19/16]