This should go without saying but in this increasingly shrill GOP primary of ours I want to be clear that analyzing Donald Trump’s political tactics does not equal my condoning of them. I’ve said before and I’ll say again that as an old-fashioned sexist I believe in a gentlemanly approach towards ladies.

This does not include Rosie O’Donnell, who is no lady. But it most certainly does include Megyn Kelly and Carly Fiorina. Amplifying a tweet referring to Kelly as a “bimbo” (which she is not) is not okay with me. Mocking Fiorina’s looks is not okay with me (nor is it accurate).

So let’s get the dumb food fight out of the way.

This is not about ethics.

This is not about right and wrong.

This is about politics.

This is about winning.

This is about moving past the ethical argument into the tactical argument.

The point I want to make is that one of the reasons Trump is currently shellacking Establishment candidates like Jeb Bush with nearly 4 times the support, is simply due to the fact that he fights like Barack Obama and Harry Reid.

Trump fights like a Leftist.

Another reason Trump’s winning is due to the Republican Establishment’s rampaging and fatal case of fecklessness when it comes to fighting back against pretty much anyone, including the billionaire businessman. Just like their limp-wristed responses to Obama and Reid, the Establishment is too busy running around crying “foul!” over a Marquis of Queensbury violation to understand that they are losing.

While Obama was hitting below the belt calling everyone racist and sexist; while he called Palin a pig; while he was rabbit punching accusing Romney of murder; while Reid was beating our guy over the head with a metal folding chair with lies about paying taxes — what were we doing?

We were losing.

You don’t win elections on defense.

You don’t win elections waiting for voters to share your outrage over the other guy not fighting fair.

You do win elections by making the other guy look weak and feckless — by keeping him reacting and reactionary and on defense. And one of the ways you accomplish that is by fighting dirty.

That’s not the entire game for winning but it is a mighty large part of it.

Trump hasn’t gone as far as Obama in accusing someone of murder. He hasn’t gone as far as the Republican Establishment in attacking The Powerless (our own voters!) as racist rubes (our loser Establishment is always willing to attack their own harder than they will any Democrat — and that’s because they cower before the media). Still, Trump has crossed some lines of decency and while it is perfectly appropriate to criticize the crossing of those lines, you don’t win elections gripping your pearls and gasping, “Well, I never!”

When it comes to the corrupt mainstream media and his political opponents (I think I just repeated myself), Trump’s entire campaign gameplan is to keep his opponents unbalanced, unfocused, on their back foot and on defense. And like Obama and Reid and the mainstream media, he is willing to do this by any means necessary.

And yes, if Trump believes mocking an opponent’s looks will get him under her skin (a place where many campaigns are won), he’s willing to go there.

Bill Clinton once said, “It’s better to be strong and wrong than right and weak.”

Let me put it another way: No matter how nasty and underhanded the bully fights, nobody respects a punk.

Nobody votes for punks.

People respect strength.

And the guy getting beat while he’s crybabying about the other guy not fighting fair is always the punk.

We live in a world where the media openly admires how well the Clintons lie their way out of trouble; a world where the media are too busy admiring Obama and Reid’s audacity to make either ever pay a political price for smearing others with what the entire world knows are lies.

Trump understands that this is how the political world now works. This doesn’t mean he’ll go all the way. He may go too far. He might implode. And if he keeps up these boorish attacks against women he probably will. But up to now all he’s done is win and win and win again; defy every rule and prediction and critic to the top of the field.

Meanwhile, the Republican Establishment is losing to him for the same reasons they twice lost to Obama and Bill Clinton: they think that if they scream “Unfair!” loud enough the voters will share their moral indignation and come around. Well, I hate to break this to you, but all the voters see is weakness.

The more The Establishment and their anti-Trump media allies complain about Trump’s dirty tactics, the higher Trump’s poll numbers rise.

After 8 dreadful years of getting serial-rolled by Obama and Reid (even after winning two midterms), the GOP base wants to win. And after these 8 dreadful years they believe it will take our own Obama and Reid to win — a streetfighter unafraid of the media willing to get in the gutter and do what it takes to win.

Again, I am not condoning the world in which we live, but I am not so sheltered and bubbled and out-of-touch that I can’t see that it exists.

Crybabying and moral outrage won’t change it.

Fight or die.

This is Thunderdome.Those afraid of their shadow need not apply.

And if you can’t beat Trump, you have zero chance against Hillary and her mainstream media.

 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC