By Rick Jensen

National Review magazine’s “Conservatives Against Trump” issue is this election year’s boldest collection of thoughtful columns articulating what some of us have considered for quite awhile to be Trump’s big, phony political adventure.

It is quite a relief for those of us who have recognized “The Donald” early on as an authoritarian liberal choosing to identify as a conservative for political gain that others recognize this fact.

Among the 21 conservatives and one libertarian invited to participate, certain themes converged.

Trump has always been a liberal. He supports partial birth abortion. He enthusiastically supported President Obama’s failed “stimulus” scheme and “cash for clunkers” as serious policy.

Obama himself chortled at wasting hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars, joking, “I guess ‘shovel ready’ was not as ‘shovel ready’ as we expected.”

Upon hearing Obama utter these words, fellow travelers at the meeting of his ironically named “Council on Jobs and Competitiveness” fell into laughter as though on cue in some demented comedy.

The United States does not need another eight years of such “comedy.”

The National Review writers converged separately upon Trump’s eagerness to violate Constitutional restraint on eminent domain, his ignorance of powerful players leading international terrorist organizations, his enthusiasm for engaging in an unwinnable tariff war with China and the uber-liberal concept that the government “can take over companies, and, frankly, take big chunks of companies.”Donald Trump believes in bigger government having more control over your life and would expand the power of the executive branch, exercising more executive orders, actions and Presidential memoranda to push through his desires as has Barack Obama.

Donald Trump has often pontificated on his love for single payer health insurance, quoted in the Review by Erick Erickson as, “…I’m going to take care of everybody. . . . The government’s gonna pay for it.”That sentence is more appropriate to a Bernie Sanders running-mate than a leading candidate for the Republican Party nomination.

He is being seen at last by more and more observers as a phony, spewing populist slogans and hurling meaningless insults, like saying, “No one likes Ted Cruz.”

Unrelated stories in various publications are now quoting establishment Republicans saying they prefer Donald Trump over Cruz because Trump is more malleable. His lack of political experience is greatly exceeded by his lack of political leadership and these Washington, D.C. “insiders” believe they can bend Trump to their desires.

They probably can.

These “insiders” are lobbyists and consultants who make a living convincing Republicans to do the bidding of their clients and Democrats.

They believe Trump will need them to help him make policy decisions just as establishment Republicans like John Boehner needed them.

He will.

Ted Cruz is not so malleable.

Trump has recently demonstrated his willingness to “make a deal” that serves him better than the people he supposedly wishes to lead.

In Iowa, Trump doubled down on ethanol mandates, a bloated, failed crony government scheme that has been rejected by conservatives en masse, recognizing its grand economic failure.

Why?

Because his leading rival, Ted Cruz, garnered enthusiastic applause and genuine respect from Iowans when he publicly maintained his honest position against the wasted billions of dollars in ethanol mandates at last year’s Iowa Ag Summit.

Then, Iowa’s Republican Governor spoke out against Cruz, calling for him to be defeated.

Trump leapt at the opportunity to pander to caucusing Iowans, saying the federal government needs to spend even more money it can extract from taxpayers on the failing ethanol program, filling the pockets of Iowa political activists who he hopes will encourage fellow Iowans to vote for him.

This is the real Trump: the pandering populist political performer.

I now have a request for the editors at The National Review.

Will they please repeat this winning format featuring the scandalous and criminal behaviors of Hillary Clinton?