Like John Oliver, I have, for the most part, ignored Donald Trump on this site partly because he’s so ubiquitous, and I don’t want to be perceived as writing about him just to get a few click-throughs. The other reason is that a lot of my thoughts on politics are recorded in a column I write for the newspaper, so while I have plenty to say, much of it has already been said in newsprint. With that out of the way, what I am about to say has been stewing in the attic for quite some time, so pull up a chair …
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Back in November 2008, just after President Barack Obama was voted into office the first time, I wrote a blog post titled, “Republican Party on the wane,” and the main point was that the GOP had been in a process of slow decline for years leading up to that point in American history, and it culminated, or so I thought, in the nomination of Sarah Palin, who was one of, if not the, most clueless politician ever to be a few heartbeats away from the White House.
Here’s what I had to say at the time:
The general failing that has been accumulating over the years begins with the party’s seeming inability (or unwillingness) to move on, to modernize itself in our multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religion society.
… Many Republicans, at least those not yet attempting to analyze where the disc skipped, are still locked in a time, real or imagined, where America was more morally upright and more partitioned into separate ideologies, social classes and races. … This no longer represents America today. The inability to recognize this has led to the coinage “the stupid party.” I include this not to trivialize the matter or make jokes because it’s not funny in the least. …
Whether the title of the original post was understated or not — I tend to think it was about right for that particular time — the events of the last four years, and particularly of the last six months leading up to Tuesday night’s primary races, have clearly demonstrated, after scores of meaningless and symbolic repeals of Obamacare, the GOP-forced government shutdown of October 2013, the resignation of former Speaker of the House John Boehner, the emergence of Trump as a “serious” candidate, the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the party’s subsequent unconstitutional refusal to hold confirmation hearings to pick a replacement, that the current iteration of the GOP is now in its death throes as a party with scarcely any coherent, unified message.
As you might recall, Boehner, more or less a centrist, mainstream Republican, attempted to rein in the more fringe elements of his party and, as witnessed by his resignation, failed to do so and was apparently no longer interested in fighting the battle. Perhaps Palin was the more identifiable manifestation of the fringe contingent in the GOP, but it had been there all along, simmering somewhere under the halls of Congress, for the better part of three decades beginning with the advent of the Moral Majority back in the late 1970s when the party became inexplicably bound up with evangelicals and the religious right in a way that it had not been in previous generations. The tide clearly shifted with Ronald Reagan’s election of 1980.
According to Clyde Wilcox in “God’s Warriors: The Christian Right in Twentieth-Century America,” one-fifth of those who supported the Moral Majority cast their ballots for Reagan that year, although the same people voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976. Although the Moral Majority as an organized political organization went under in the late 1980s, only to be briefly reincarnated in 2004, its influence, its conflation of religion and patriotism, its strident opposition to things like a homosexuality and a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body, its support of public prayer in schools and its populist anti-intellectualism all, in my view, laid the groundwork for the Tea Party and for the kind of post-Tea Party GOP that we see today. Indeed, a detailed analysis on the long-term influence of the Moral Majority on the Republican Party would make for a fascinating study.
Now, Sen. Ted Cruz, once a darling of the Tea Party, was, at one time, heralded as the kind of politician who could give the movement a fresh, more diverse face and erase the image that the Tea Party was largely a club for angry, white Christians, is barely hanging on in this year’s GOP primary, as real estate mogul Donald Trump, despite being a liar and a firebrand with questionable business sense, carried seven states Tuesday en route to what looks to be a decisive overall victory, while Cruz won three states. Another “diversity candidate,” Sen. Marco Rubio, only managed to eek out a win in Minnesota this week.
Credit: Tea Party Express
The irony, of course, is that while Trump has been tapping into the worse angels of our nature in his open hostility to Mexican immigrants and Syrian refugees — nonetheless using illegal immigrant labor on his own construction projects, as reported here and here — the field of Republican candidates this year has never been more diverse.
But the GOP’s Johnny-come-lately strategy in modernizing itself to look more like the body politic, if not in reality, at least in the candidates it has offered this election cycle, has simply been drowned out by the meteoric rise of Trump, who has proven time and again that he will literally say anything and insult anyone to gin up votes.
Whereas politicians in previous elections have shown a modicum of restraint and decorum, Trump is openly combative, speaks in populist platitudes and caters to the lowest common denominator of right-wing anger, and GOP officials, flailing about as if caught in the undertow, simply have not been able to control him or the message, such that traditional Republican talking points and substantive discussion on things like low taxes, limited government and social conservativism can all be scrapped in favor of unbridled derision and infighting. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who in any other election cycle would have been a boilerplate mainstream conservative candidate, has himself been relegated to the hinterlands of the GOP. Graham has expressed his consternation with the current political landscape, calling Trump a “jackass” this past summer when he was still a candidate, and most recently, describing his own party as “batshit crazy.”
Graham, who hails from my home state, should be given credit for speaking out about the decline of the GOP, even now as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, formerly a harsh critic of Trump’s xenophobia, has now shamefully fallen in line, which is more than I can say for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republican Party leadership in Washington. Although Ryan and McConnell “denounced” Trump’s latest cringe-worthy episode, a refusal to decisively eschew the support of David Duke and the KKK, they have been mostly quiet and have only said they will get behind the eventual nominee.
Here is what Ryan had to say earlier this week regarding Trump’s comments on Duke:
This party does not prey on people’s prejudices.
Actually, it has and does — it’s just that now, the scab formerly covering up the ugly underbelly of the GOP has been ripped off for all to see.
In the past, the GOP played to people’s prejudices in less obvious ways, in support of policies that stunted economic and social progress in inner cities and among low-income residents, giving overwhelming preference to the interests of corporations, defense contractors across the globe and Wall Street. Today, and thanks to the GOP’s failure to neuter, first, the Tea Party, now Trump and put the party on a path toward modernization so its platform is more aligned and attuned to the 21st century, the face of the Republican Party, who commanded a dominating win Tuesday, has made his bones channeling the frustrations of the middle class, speaking to people’s anger about our supposedly inept government and appealing to the same old bigoted spirits of the past that never quite seem to fade away, all the while, alleging that he is going to restrict the First Amendment, expand the role of government to build a wall along the Mexican border — and somehow make that nation pay for it (“I’m not going to pay for that fucking wall!” retorted former Mexican President Vicente Fox.) — and get tough on sanctions with China and Russia, promises that Trump can’t possibly deliver.
And here is how McConnell addressed the party’s perceived bigotry problem:
Let me make it clear: Senate Republicans condemn David Duke, the KKK and racism. That is not the view of Republicans that have been elected to the United States Senate.
Credit: John Cole
That does, however, appear to be the view, veiled or otherwise, of a shocking number of Republican voters who have welcomed a candidate who is finally giving voice to their most closeted fears and prejudices. Unfortunately for the GOP — and most unfortunately for the country at large — the “batshit crazy” voting bloc is no longer a fledgling little demographic on the fringe. I hate to say it, but GOP leaders couldn’t do anything about Trump now even if they wanted to. They missed that chance, and attempting to stop Trump at the convention, against the will of the people, would be tantamount to authoritarianism.
I don’t believe Trump has much of a chance to win a general election, and if he gets the nomination, my hunch is that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will win decisively, as Sen. Bernie Sanders’ supporters fall on the sword and cast their default Democratic vote, while all but the most conservative Hispanics, blacks and women, left with scant few options at that point, will simply flock to the party that clearly has their best interests at heart.
Disturbing as recent events may be, this is democracy in action, like it or not. The double-edged sword of democracy is that while Trump and his supporters may in the midst of a heyday right now after Super Tuesday, we, as a nation, will inevitably get the kind of government we deserve, especially if he somehow gains enough traction to pose a serious challenge to Clinton. If we are irresponsible in choosing our candidates at the ballot box, as we have been, don’t stay informed about who these people are and view the sobering task of picking the next president as if it’s a fucking game show, we will reap more than a few ill-gotten fruits, as our collective stupidity continues to be laid bare before the world.
[Cover photo credit: SublimeBudd @ DeviantArt.com]