The defenestration of Reince Priebus brings to the fore the survival of the RNC as a political party. Not that it's collapsing today. If Priebus represented the Republican establishment in the Trump Administration, and he's gone, who exactly of the multifarious influences is in charge and what will they do about Trump?
Jennifer Rubin conservative columnist for the Washington Post asks: "Does the Republican Party Deserve to Survive? "Since President Trump won the Republican presidential nomination a question hangs over the right: Should
the GOP survive or is it morally corrupted and politically deformed to
such an extent that those of good conscience on the center-right must
start anew? Having engaged in the original sin, if you will, of
supporting Trump and then defending his aberrant presidency and helping
thereby to define political deviancy down... has the GOP in essence forfeited political legitimacy
permanently?"
She raises five points:
1. Should it survive and can it survive?
2. A dramatic break is mandatory.
3. Its agenda and values need a redo.
4. The Trump experience requires leaders and center-right voters to "re-define the purpose, foundational beliefs and role of the party."
5. The manner of Trump defenestration "will largely determine whether the
2016 election was the last to produce a Republican president."
Whistling in the dark?
Whatever happened to that 2012 navel-gazing session in which the GOP said it needed to quit pandering to elderly rich white people? Hahaha!
ReplyDeleteAbout a month ago, Newsweek reported:
"Sixty-five percent of respondents in an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Thursday said the president either doesn't have much or any respect for the "country's democratic institutions and traditions." Nearly a third of Republicans or Republican-leaning independents said the same."
http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-latest-approval-rating-sinks-support-republicans-whites-drops-626096
That means most Republicans and GOP-leaners think Trump is OK, but Raber reported that he heard on the radio yesterday that only 20 percent of Americans were real Trump True Believers.
What I hear from Trump voters at work suggests that Trump is being suffered because a) at least he's not Hillary and b) he is for tax reform. Most of them, however, have said he needs to have his Twitter account deleted.
Frankly, I think the tweets are extremely valuable. They're helping him cut his own throat.
The Republican party has been a coalition of various conservatives: religious (e.g. abortion), political (e.g. limited federal government), and economic (low taxes, regulations). The word "conservative" obscured the fact that all these don't necessarily fit together.
ReplyDeleteOne conservative factor usually not identified before Trump was White Nationalism. But it has been there since the southern strategy and also the blue collar strategy.
Trump made White Nationalism the core conservative cause much like the Religious Right tried to make religion the core conservative cause.
Over the course of the primaries the Gallup daily tracking poll had questions about Trumps approval rating (not the same as would you vote for him). About a third of Americans consistently approved of Trump; almost everyone had an opinion and there were no changes over time.
So what party is going to get the third of Americans who view Trump favorably. Unlikely the Democrats could appeal to many of them even with a working class agenda. The data clearly indicate that is was not the "out of work" people but the afraid of "losing their jobs" people who voted for Trump. The Democrats might pick off sufficient numbers to win a presidential election, but can a New Republican Party win elections without a majority of them. Very unlikely.
If the Trump favorable people formed a White Nationalist Party, how could the rest of the Republicans win races? Even if they drop to 20 percent of the population they are still very formidable.
I don't think the Republicans are going to make a clean break with Trump; they are likely to go down with him. A lot of people said the Goldwater defeat was the end of the Republican party, but they came back (but unfortunately with a lot of Goldwater ideas intact).
The Republican situation is more like a ship and barnacles than like a two-winged party or a party with a split between the White House and Congress. The question, at this point, seems to be which is the barnacle and which is the ship? The dumping of Priebus -- seems like Trump's assertion that he is the ship and he just had his hull scraped.
ReplyDeleteThere doesn't seem to be one Republican left in the White House. It's vulgar lunatics, wall to wall, plus two generals who were willing to die for their country and think (probably wrongly) that this experience won't be worse.
But should we, then, be rooting for Paul Ryan and Addison Mitchell McConnell? Look at their health care ideas. Look at their tax cuts. They were willing to vote for a law saying your investment adviser (if you have one; they do) can feather his own nest with your account and doesn't have to care a whit whether you make or save anything as long as he gets his percentage. If they can do that to themselves, think of what they feel comfortable doing to the rest of us.
And just one more thing: I think every Trump-promoting bishop and every "Christian" Conservative preacher who gave Trump their benign benediction ought to be invited to sign that awful speech Trump made on Long Island when he instituted the curbside third degree. I'd love to see the God-fearing with that before them and a pen in hand. I wonder how many would at least squirm before signing on.
I think the Republicans, iirrespective of the awfulness of Trump, need to re-examine and own the logical consequences of their basic beliefs.
ReplyDeleteIt can be seen from their legislation activity that they are on the side of the wealthy, the bigots, the misogynists. They are willing to lay waste to the environment, to become a police state, to take medical care from disabled children and food from the indigent elderly. They can only get away with this for so long because their base is running out of rich white men.