On his last day in office, after boarding Air Force One, "Trump took a call from Republican party chair Ronna McDaniel. ... He told McDaniel he was done with the Republican party. This is according to multiple sources familiar with the conversation," Karl said.
- "'I'm done,' Trump told McDaniel from his office on board Air Force One. 'I'm starting my own party.'"
- "'You cannot do that,' McDaniel told Trump. 'If you do, we will lose forever,'" Karl said, quoting the conversation.
- Republican leaders told the former president that if he left, they would stop paying his legal fees and give out for free Trump's email list, "an asset Trump makes millions on renting out to candidates," per Karl.
- By the following week, Trump decided against leaving the GOP.
So to recap: Trump was perfectly willing to personally bring about the destruction of one of the country's two major political parties. For their part, the party elders, all of whom presumably loathe Trump, decided that continuing to dance with the devil was preferable to losing a few elections while trying to rebuild the party on the basis of principle and policy. And what stayed Trump's hand: devotion to conservative principle? Reluctance to dismantle a 160 year old party? Reverence for the heritage of the Party of Lincoln? No, it was the possibility of losing mailing-list rental income, and having to pay his own lawyers.
Pardon me while I go retch.
So, to summarize: money matters more to Trump than anything else. To the Republican party leaders, staying in power matters more than anything else. No surprises here. Maybe the book will cause some people to reexamine their priorities? Unfortunately I am not optimistic about that.
ReplyDeleteIf the GOP retakes control of the White House with trump as President, what future does this country have? The great American ideal - destroyed by greed for money and power. The potential for this was all very apparent in 2016. The realities became more clear in the following years. And 75 million Americans have embraced this new America, a country that stands fort ....l?
ReplyDeleteI weep for the future, for the country my grandchildren and all decent Americans. Will inherit.
The major premise behind Greenleaf's Servant Leadership was that our large institutions were failing us. He got this insight from an undergraduate sociology teacher, and decided he would try to do something about it by joining the largest company at that time AT&T.
ReplyDeleteHis first solution was servant leaders at all levels of the organization. His second solution the institution as servant required abandoning the chief model of hierarchical leadership in favor of first among equals leadership groups. His third solution were boards of trustees being responsible more to society than to the organizations managers.
Not sure how this applies to political parties. Running for candidate is a very ego-centric endeavor. In the case of Trump the people seem to be preferring an ego-centric leader. Party leadership is very vague other than the elected leaders, and there are few accountability mechanisms by party members other than voting their own parties candidate out of office.
Of course money now rules the parties so that candidates are accountable to their funders rather than the general public. The only solution so far is that started by Bernie, i.e. politicians getting their money from many small donors.
As turned off as we all are by Trump and Republican party leadership, we have to go deeper and examine why 75 million or so voted for him. Some of them of course were just fine with his style. I'm thinking more about the ones who considered him the least bad alternative. They considering that the Democrats' focus on racial issues was more likely to exacerbate problems than make them better, that raking up all the bad things that happened in the past was just going to make people hate each other. And that treating gender like a multiple choice question ignores biological reality. And that exclusive focus by pro-choice on abortion as a right ignores the right of the pre-born to their own life. And that climate change activists are trying to turn everyone into vegans. And so on. Is all of it logical? No, but there is a grain of truth in some of it. I am reminded of a rather raucous and risque Superbowl half-time show a few years back. There was a meme on FB afterwards that showed a picture of a group of Amish ladies singing out of hymn books. The caption was, "Y'all just keep it up, and this is the half time show next year!" Rocking the social boat too hard isn't a winning strategy for Democrats.
ReplyDeleteIncisive analysis as usual. More to think about in this article too.
Deletehttps://religionnews.com/2021/11/08/the-key-to-understanding-americas-political-divides-its-the-culture-stupid-election-day-gop/