Eugene Robinson has an interesting opinion piece in WaPo titled “How Donald Trump destroyed the Republican Party in 2015”, as if it is a fait accompli. He does soften that, saying “An entity called the GOP will survive — but can never be the same.”
His point is that Trump has exploited the resentments and fears that have been so carefully cultivated and used by the Republican establishment to keep the base in line. However, the GOP action has never matched their rhetoric. Not on immigration, on abortion, on gay marriage, on terrorism, even on whether Obama was born on American soil. As Robinson puts it “Trump has given voice to the ugliness and anger that the party spent years encouraging and exploiting. He let the cat out of the bag, and it’s hungry.”
Bottom line? One of two things will happen:
The party might nominate Trump, in which case the establishment will have lost all control. Or party leaders might somehow find a way to defeat him, in which case they will have lost the allegiance of much of the base. In either event, the GOP we once knew is irredeemably a thing of the past.
3 Comments
Oops, sorry IK, to have sort of “trumped” you with my previous comment on yesterday’s column, but thought ER was spot on with his piece as well. Great minds think alike! 😉
The GOP has painted itself into a corner from which it’s hard to imagine a clean escape under its present disguise. What emerges post-2016 is anyone’s guess, but my guess is it’ll probably be the same old pachyderm in a slightly different dress.
Just so long as the dress isn’t on Carly
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The republican party was dead after the 2008 elections and the 2012 elections… and the 1996 elections and the 1964 elections and the democratic party was dead after 1980 and 2004, and the anti-federalists were dead after 1798… oh, wait, they were!
Every election you hear this stuff and every election the losing party finds a way to re-invent itself, usually in much the same way it existed prior to the romp, just a new slogan. The 45% of angry white voters is not going away and will need to express itself in the future, the scarey bit is they might one day find someone electable, say like a Ronald RayGun… They always do.