'party of Lincoln' succumbed to rightwing extremists, misogynists, xenophobes, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists, racists and bigots of every description also known as 'Trump's base.'
These Patricians conveniently forget who it was that allowed that camel to get its nose under their tent. It was them back in the days when they were cocky and sure they could pander to the mob as they milked them of their votes while manipulating and controlling them. This was back in the early days of the Tea Party. Those who let them into the tent did not foresee Donald Trump and his coup de main!
Now, after nearly four years of Trump and his bizarre team some on the right are worried that, even if Trump is ousted when Americans go to the polls in November, the Republican Party may be too tainted, too broken to switch back. They speak in a lexicon that includes Trumpocracy and Trumpocalypse.
Some have suggested that, like the city of Hue after the Tet Offensive, the only way to save the GOP may be to burn it to the ground. They envision a party purged of the vermin rising, like Phoenix, from the ashes.
Some Democrats aren't so optimistic. They fear that the GOP, even with a Democrat in the White House, will still cleave to Trump's malignant ways.
If Mr. Biden wins and if Mr. Trump leaves office peacefully — two big ifs — Democrats will be confronted with a more intractable problem: The Republican Party is the party of Donald Trump, and it is not likely to change.
If Mr. Biden wins, there will be a temptation to embrace a big lie: Mr. Trump was the problem, and with him gone, the Republican Party can return to normal. But today’s Republican Party won’t moderate itself, because Trumpism is its natural state. Democrats should avoid the temptation to expect Republican cooperation in governing this country.
In 2016, Mr. Trump didn’t change the Republican Party; he met it where it was. The party had been ready for him for years: In 2012, the congressional scholars Thomas Mann of the center-left Brookings Institution and Norm Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute wrote, “The G.O.P. has become an insurgent outlier in American politics.”
This is not a party poised to pivot toward moderation — even in the face of an electoral landslide loss. The inevitable calls for reform (like the party’s abandoned “autopsy” report after the 2012 election) will yield to the inescapable gravitational pull of the party’s own voters and the larger forces dominating our politics.
Instead of moderates, Republicans may be more likely to turn to reactionary politicians like Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas. A first-term senator with few substantive legislative accomplishments, Mr. Cotton rocketed to fame through his provocative actions against Democrats...Snookered.
If the forces shaping party politics provide the motive for Republicans to continue down Mr. Trump’s path, the Senate will provide the means. Because of how the Senate has evolved in recent decades, it takes a supermajority of 60 votes to pass most bills. A minority of 41 senators can throw a monkey wrench into most aspects of governance, from major bills to mundane business. Republicans can muster those 41 seats using only states Mr. Trump won by an average of 24 percentage points in 2016. Even if Mr. Biden wins and Democrats take the Senate, Republicans will hold enough power to derail nearly everything the new president wants to do.Breaking the Flyover States' deathgrip on democracy. Do it in the sacred name of the Founding Fathers.
It is encouraging to see Mr. Biden shifting from his staunch opposition to reforming the filibuster, whose modern iteration is what has allowed Republicans to raise the bar for passing most bills in the Senate from the majority threshold the framers set to the current 60-vote supermajority.
...The Republican Party is now an even more hopeless tangle of pathologies than it was back then. If Republicans choose to take personal responsibility for unwinding themselves and contributing productively to intelligent solutions, they are welcome to do so. But Democrats cannot bet the future of the country on it.
11 comments:
This goes way back before the tea party - this goes back to Nixon and Ford (only non-elected VP and POTUS) - passes through Rompin Ronnie Ray-gun and the moral majority. Each was a baby-step for the project that started with Goldwater and the GOP realization of how easy it is to game the system - they just needed dupes and meat-puppets - of which there are plenty.
Lately ,I have been wondering about American thought over then next few years. Trump is turning people away and the Republicans are turning people away. It is possible that American tolerance for these political assholes may minimize over the next couple of years.
Militias, Q anoners, tea partiers racists, sexists , nativists et al may find that they will not get the benefit of the doubt that the Republicans under Donnie have afforded them
I'm not sure you're not blurring the distinction between the Repug's drift to the right and the onslaught of the horde, Anon. These events did happen in a progression but it wasn't until the Tea Party became a powerful force inside the GOP ranks that the old school lost control of their party. I think that was a distinct and seismic event.
We should revisit your point in a year, probably two, Rumley. America seems to be entering a decisive moment that could decide the future of the Republic, perhaps even its survival. There are so many forces at play - political, to be sure, but also social, economic, even environmental and they'll all have an impact.
IMO, this could go in any number of directions.
Speaking to Americans in Mexico, our winter haven, the Trumpers, the ones you are very carefull to be around in polite conversation are also the most self-centered, greedy and selfish of all of the race. Trump just formalised these traits and made greed, selfishness and hatred of those who aren't the same as you acceptable.
I don't know what the answer is to get these people to change their mindset, but if the majority (read Dems) next time doesn't make them madder than they are by the reversal of Trumpism then that might be a start and demographics should take care of the problem in the long run.
Ben, I worry that America, like Humpty Dumpty, is already too broken to mend. I have read David Frum, William Kristol and others say that their party is beyond redemption and must be consumed in flames that it may be cleansed and reborn. This, coming from the same influential group that engineered the disaster that is today's GOP, is a bit rich.
If the "center can hold" then demographic change may solve the problem but that could be a long time coming - 10, 15 perhaps even 20 years. A lot of that demography will be in already heavily populated states. That still leaves the white majority in the flyover states to thwart the majority in the Senate and Electoral College. New York gets two senators. So does California. So does North Dakota and Nebraska.
A quick reversal of Trumps executive orders will leave Biden with a full fledged revolt on his hands.
The position the US is now in has been incremental and thus ingrained in the US psyche .
As you said, Mound, it started before Trump.
There are decades of ultra nationalism and fundamental religious belief to to corrected before any 'healing' can occur n the US.
A biden Government is likely to be even more introvert than Trump.
TB
.. The GOP has been holding their breath for the next George Wallace or Adolf or Stephen Miller.. or Alex Jones or Sean Hannitty.. or Hellelujujas here cometh Kanye West !!!
It just hits black comic dark satire.. in broad delight daylight eh !!
I myself am smoking our rooms with sweetgrass burning.. and awaiting the coming of Ivanka For President.. in 4 years or less.. and Kanye will be toast.. Trump will be purged from the collective memory.. 'didn't happen' .. fake noozed.. yet here comes Kamala.. someone with an intellect.. !
TB, what worries me most is the unpredictability of what comes next. Some argue, somewhat convincingly, that America has already transitioned from a liberal democracy into an oligarchy. I wonder if the "donor class" is getting cold feet. Buying influence is one thing. Buying control quite another. Buying control of a nation that could well be in a pre-revolutionary state, its citizenry riled up, angry, many of them heavily armed may be less appealing.
If, somehow, Biden wins, could the Republican leadership say, "okay, this has gone too far and we'll drop the hyper-partisanship that's killing the Republic"? What's the alternative. Set America on fire? The South shall rise again? Will the Republican caucus become America's Khmer Rouge? Will the Democrats finally close ranks? Who can tell? We're just going to have to sit here and watch it and pray our own border holds.
As I mentioned in my reply to TB, Sal, I'm not sure that America's "donor class" is still as fond of Republican radicalism as they were initially. Big Money doesn't like instability. It despises insurrection. Money talks in America as perhaps nowhere else but look what it has wrought. Congressional thuggery is fine provided there is iron-fisted rule from the top to keep control. When I see McConnell these days I get the sense he's always just one sharp "BOO" away from wetting himself.
Out on the streets, across the country, the mobs gather. Some protest for social justice and opportunity. They're met by others who show up in combat gear, heavily armed, to menace, intimidate. How secure must that make the Coors family or Sheldon or the rest of them? If you have to double or triple your budget for personal security, you're probably feeling less than confident and the free flow of money depends on high levels of confidence and stability. These guys must be rethinking what they're buying for all that money. Even if they haven't read history they've got people that have who can warn them of the unpredictability of mob societies.
When they dragged out the guillotines in Paris a lot of people had no idea they might wind up walking those stairs before it was over. That's the way of these things.
It doesn't actually take a supermajority to pass votes in the Senate. It's just, if there isn't such a supermajority, they can filibuster. But a filibuster is one person standing and speechifying without a break for as long as it takes. It was supposed to be an exceptional thing, which happened based on someone feeling strongly enough about the issue to go through the ordeal. And if they don't actually feel that strongly, or don't have much endurance, you can wait them out fairly easily. Heck, if you feel the publicity will be on your side you can probably wait out even a strong filibuster. It was never a "majority automatically loses" thing.
The US legislative system, such as it was, was badly weakened the day someone said, "OK, just pretend there was someone who cared enough to do a real filibuster, we'll give the minority the vote every time they say they would do one if they were gonna lose." And it could readily be put back again the moment some house leader says, "No, you want to do a filibuster, DO one. Let's see what you got."
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