Last night, Donald Trump continued hurtling toward that GOP nomination for president. Establishment Republicans are clearly in shock and panic. Their public responses are truly remarkable.
On CBS last night, former Reagan speech writer and current conservative columnist Peggy Noonan speculated that we are watching the Republican Party “shatter before our eyes.” South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has been unrelenting in his criticism commenting last week that his party has gone “batshit crazy.” Mitt Romney’s former consultant Stuart Stevens says that conservatives have a moral obligation not to support Trump. And here in North Carolina, John Hood urges conservatives to take a pass on the presidential election if Trump is the nominee.
Make no mistake. These leaders and others are urging their party to give up on the presidency if Trump is the nominee. They believe that he’s not just a danger to our country but an existential threat to the Republican Party. Their public call to reject their party’s likely nominee is unprecedented.
We may be witnessing the splintering of the Republican Party that results in two parties—one rooted in traditional conservative principles as laid out by people like William F. Buckley and the other rooted in reactionary authoritarianism based on ignorance and bigotry.
The Republican Party bears plenty of blame for Trump. They coddled racists for years and pandered to an anti-intellectual populism that has now taken over the base of their party. They are reaping what they sowed.
However, Hood, Noonan, Graham, Stevens, and others like Commentary editor John Podhoretz, National Review’s Jonah Goldberg should be applauded. You don’t have to agree with their views, but you should admire their courage. They are part of the intellectual and communications arm of a conservative movement that is quintessentially American and patriotic and they are putting principles before politics. We are a better nation for having their voices in the public debate.
Democrats who are cheering Republican chaos should beware. We might be entering a greater realignment. The rancor that’s divided the GOP isn’t too different than what’s shaking up the Democratic Party. While Bernie Sanders has no authoritarian impulses, some of his supporters do. They are as intolerant of divergent views as the Tea Partiers who started the current Republican implosion. They don’t have a demagogue to rally around now but what about later, after they don’t get their nominee? Will they flock to somebody like Alan Grayson, the Florida Congressman who resembles Huey Long and who will tell them what they want to hear with little tolerance for those who disagree?
Instead of cheering the demise of the traditional Republican Party, Democrats should take note. The pitchforks could come for them, too. The grievances that have created the movements behind Trump and Sanders are real. The political system has served too few for far too long.
The realignment offers opportunities as well as threats. Democrats could expand their tent by embracing the economic populism that might co-opt some Trump supporters while mollifying Sanders loyalists. Or they can continue to defend a status quo that alienates people from our political system, increases income inequality, and reduces opportunities for upward mobility. Now’s the time to choose.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
I have been reading the ongoing commentary with great interest. Couple of points. Just for the record, my question about Hitler was the first time in my entire life I have ever even considered the idea. Secondly, Bernie (and I do like him) has not been drawing large numbers of new voters to the polls despite their turnout at his speeches. Yes, there are more, but nothing like Trump has done across the board, so turn out is clearly an issue for the Democrats.
As for the leftist illusions, and their dropping out if Bernie is not the nominee, it is risk, but I believe Bernie Sanders will do his best to get them to vote. Will it be enough? I doubt any of us knows.
Part of the issue in this ongoing commentary is the assumption that electoral politics can be done or lived the same way as “cause” politics. They are almost two different planets, which occasionally cross paths with each assuming the other does not care about or understand the other. One reason Obama was such a great candidate was his ability to meld at least some of those disparate groupings into a voting bloc. Governance in a democracy is about compromise, and “cause” oriented politics very often cannot or will not go down that road.
I have been on both these planets and find both frustrating. I dislike the need to compromise, sometimes intensely, but I also find never getting much accomplished for decades incredibly difficult. It does not make sense to me, however, to level snarky or condescending criticisms at each of these groups within our political life. At their best, these forces intersect as we have been seeing to some extent in the Bernie versus Hillary process.
I am not suggesting we should all “just get along” but it would be good to see respect from both planets towards one another. I also wonder how much more each could achieve if we accepted the differences as an integral part of a healthy political life. Anger is not the only source of passion.
If Trump is the nominee (and still think that’s a big “if”), it should all come down to a matter of how many voters are ANGRY ALONG WITH TRUMP vs. how many are ANGRY AT AND EMBARASSED BY TRUMP.
IMO, given his spate of words and actions of the last 2 weeks, Trump seems to be getting many more folks angry at him and embarrassed by him.
As such, I don’t see how Trump beats Sanders or HRC, especially if so many prominent GOP leaders continue to speak out against him. They are providing the Dems with an immense amount of video clips to use against Trump in the campaign.
And if the GOP manipulates the convention or process so that Trump, the winner of many more primaries/caucuses/delegates, does not get the nomination and then does not go gracefully, the GOP won’t be able to win with anybody at the top of the ticket anyway. Focus group results suggest that even Paul Ryan (if drafted to run) cannot win if current Trump supporters feel cheated.
A lot to agree with in this post, Thomas, but a couple of points are off-key, and I’d ask for specific facts to back them up.
First, can you name Sanders supporters who have authoritarian impulses, and are “as intolerant of divergent views as . . . Tea Partiers . . .” That strikes me as false equivalence.
Second, I can understand you disagreeing with Alan Grayson, and maybe even finding him distasteful, but . . . Huey Long?
Some “glass half empty” views about the Dem Party being thrown around here. Some even sounding as if the “wrong” (in their eyes) Dem in the WH would be worse than a Republican in the WH. And one even hinting that Democrats dissatisfied with their nominee and/or with the pace of progressive change opt instead for a rather Ayn Randian, apolitical existence. Puleeze.
IMO, the most important thing for this nation is not about who specifically the next Dem president will be, but rather making sure that the GOP presidential nominee loses in November of 2016. That’s not being shortsighted or narrow-minded; rather, it is just being realistic and hopeful.
A Dem president (who just might have a Senate majority and maybe less of a GOP House majority to work with) could be in position to advance policies that Obama couldn’t, especially if the GOP is in a state of dysfunction, disrepair, and internal warfare. And with maybe 3-4 SCOTUS appointments to make over the next 4-8 years, that POTUS will shape the country in a positive and progressive way over the next several decades in major ways.
You are aware that Clinton’s big problem is her “Enthusiasm Gap”, most especially with youth, right?
That is, the young Democratic rank-and-file member can’t get excited enough to actually do anything for her campaign. “Settle for Hillary” is the joke currently circulating.
And you are aware that apathy, er, “an Ayn Randian apolitical existence” is actually the norm amongst youth in America, right?
And Sanders is drawing people into the system that ordinarily would not vote. These are young people who were not interested in doing anything or getting involved for Hillary, but when Bernie got in they decided to cast aside their typical, ordinary “Ayn Randian apolitical existence” and work for something of substance.
What do you expect them to do when Bernie is no longer in the race, and it’s only Hillary? Hillary hasn’t even bothered to absorb a single plank of Sanders’ platform, let alone try and reach out to his supporters. She’s pissed at them. She thinks they’re “retards” just like Rahm Emmanuel thought.
Puleeeze yourself. You either don’t have any political experience AT ALL, or else you exist inside the establishment bubble. Do you even know what apathy means, let alone its prevalence and how it damages our political process?
Of course they’re going to drop out of the process in large numbers.
And if you think a GOP House or Senate, regardless of the margins, is going to cooperate with Hillary Clinton in any way other than her capitulating to their demands, you have been asleep for the last seven years.
Of course, no Hillary supporters have any authoritarian tendencies, now do they. They will not welcome Bernie supporters with open arms without requiring some bootlicking on the part of Bernie supporters. I have long said that I will vote for whomever wins the Democrat primary, though I am a Bernie supporter because he represents values the Democratic Party has brushed aside. In this election, I would support a blind pig over any Republican Candidate. Hillery is certainly better than a blind pig.
A lot of truth; however, Mitch McConnell, other Republican Congressional and state obstructionists have only themselves to blame. Had they worked with Obama in creating bipartisan legislation that would have sped up the recovery, put a chicken in every pot, fund improvements to the infrastructure, agreed to make positive changes to Obamacare and assisted in providing Medicaid, we would not be where we are today.
Sour grapes do not change history.
We need to start looking ahead and acting. Unfortunately, there is little hope on the Republican side, and if Hillary prevails, she will need a Democratic Senate and a forward-thinking approach to this country’s problems.
Obama didn’t want them to work with him, his exact words, I believe were “We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”
The Sanders supporters aren’t going to flock to some “Third Way” demagogue. “Third Way” is the philosophy of the moneyed elite Democrats and the Unions, who routinely stage “checkbook revolts” and abandon the Party whenever they calculate the Republican agenda will make them more money.
Members of the left wing of the Party (the ones Obama’s Chief of Staff called “retards” seven years ago) are accustomed to abuse, disrespect and betrayal (some would say hardened to it). That is the status quo in a Party that openly repudiates former Democratic President Jimmy Carter. A lot of Union Democrats are going to abandon the Party in favor of Trump, along with a lot of other war-mongering “Reagan Democrats” who “want to make America great again”, but few Sanders supporters will have the stomach to do so.
The Sander supporters are mainly going to sink into despair with the realization that all of their hard work and all of their aspirations to make the world a better place were just a big waste of time that never really had any chance to succeed. Tilting at windmills takes a heavy toll on the soul.
Yes, there will be a lot of talk and soul-searching among the Sandanistas about whether the Democratic Party can EVER be an agent of change for the better. Some will abandon mainstream Party politics in favor of radical movement politics, some will stick it out under Eisenhower Republican Hillary Clinton from a sense of loyalty, and many will simply abandon politics altogether out of the grim realization that our political system is specifically ordered to prevent it from ever “working” for ordinary people who can’t make five-figure campaign donations.
But the real danger is the on-going, relentless conditioning of activists that change for the better is not possible, and those who work at that impossible task get nothing but poverty and alienation for their effort. So therefore the smart move is to spend your time making money and having fun – and maybe make what few incremental changes that are “actually possible” by allying yourself with the “least of the evils”.
And that is how evil marches relentlessly onward.
Wow, Christopher! You just burned the brush.
Holy Moly, Batman! Lizak just nailed it.
Christopher Lizak, you make sense, but don’t discount the value of tilting at windmills. “Tilting at windmills takes a heavy toll on the soul,” yes, however if you are stubborn enough that toll doesn’t lead you into despair. When things do change for the better it is often because stubborn people did tilt at those windmills. Maybe there is no visible change. Maybe the change is that things would have been even worse without those visibly-ineffective efforts.
I’m a 53-year-old Bernie supporter. The best thing about Hillary is that she is not Donald. As far as the difficulties she will face getting things done as President go, I’m not worried. I’d rather have a President who can’t get her agenda accomplished than a President who can get his bad agenda accomplished.
Walter:
And I am a 66 year old progressive . And my point earlier (that Christopher took exception to) is exactly yours: the best thing about the Dem nominee (whoever that is) is that s/he is not Donald.
And I tried to also say, as you do here, that I am certain the next Dem POTUS will make for positive change. S/he will make positive impacts—as Obama has done—on domestic policy, foreign affairs, the SCOTUS, and social/civil rights matters. MUCH more positive that any GOP POTUS.
Christopher intimates that he has a wealth of political experience, and he indeed may have. And he thinks that I have none, that I am captured in an establishment “bubble,” and that I’ve been asleep for 7 years. His posts make him sound pretty angry; still, he has a right to his opinions, however right or wrong they are.
Yet I actually have a level of political and legislative experience well beyond the average, and that tells me that a HRC or Sanders presidency is (a), first and foremost, necessary, and (b) will not cause any sort of mass defection or disaffection of younger voters.
I sure hope that Hillary has bribed the guys that control the vote-flipping on the electronic voting machines, because that’s the only way she wins without a large, enthusiastic youth vote. Remember, that was what made the difference in 2008.
I don’t think you guys have analyzed the numbers very well. Democratic turn-out is deeply depressed compared to 2008, whereas Republican turn-out is breaking records because of Trump. Trump is drawing Union Dems and other Reagan Dems, so Hillary will have to have even larger margins than usual in the other Dem core support groups. And Democratic Core support groups are not particularly motivated, with the exception of African-American women. Even feminist millenials have proven to be a problem for her.
She doesn’t need a mass youth defection to fail – she has to have a massive youth turn-out to succeed. They are looking to the future, and Hillary represents the past. Of course they’re not going to turn out in large numbers, what’s in it for them? Hell, at least something will change if Trump wins.
People are sick-to-death of business as usual, and nobody personifies do-nothing incrementalist, business-as-usual more than Hillary Clinton. She cannot beat Trump in an honest inside vs. outside election, no matter how you crunch the numbers. There is no path to victory for ultimate insider Hillary, and only a narrow one for Bernie.
Damn right I’m angry. This is as plain as the nose on your face, but denial that “it can’t happen here” is as bad on our side of the aisle as it is on theirs.
Yes, there is value in taking on the good fight even when you don’t stand a chance. But banging your head against a wall accomplished nothing. And not everyone, particularly youth, can tell the difference.
I’m not saying that ALL of Bernie’s supporters will become disillusioned and drop out of the process, but it is human nature that many will – unless a place is made for them that they actually WANT to occupy.
I totally agree with Norma’s comments and share her concerns about an emerging fascism mindset in our country, a witch’s brew of social unrest and ignorance.
I disagree, however, with Thomas’ comments on Sanders. Bernie has said some things that desperately needed to be said and he has said them in an articulate and decorous way. He has made Hillary a FAR better candidate. Clinton, regardless of what she might say, is part of the political establishment that has helped create the dysfunction that has crippled our government and poisoned the social discourse. While I will vote for her if she is nominated, I will do so remembering that she has DONOR CLASS written on her forehead.
Both parties contain large numbers of people who are frightened of the changes of the last few decades, and equally uncomfortable with complexity. Add a degree of genuine ignorance about how government functions, what the role of the president is (and is not, Donald Trump notwithstanding), and the witches brew of instant social media where all of us are critics — the spectacle is, I fear, only going to get worse.
As for the GOP establishment, I would make a bet with anyone that with the rare exceptions noted above and a small handful of others, they will all fall in line. Come fall, the Super Pacs will turn their attacks on the Dem nominee and encourage Trump supporters to insist that Hillary Clinton is a criminal for using a private email server approved as legal at the time and sending or re-sending some emails that are later classified. As for the press, don’t count on much from them. They will be too busy making sure they are first in line to ask questions at the Trump rallies.
Just curious, does anyone think we will soon see a resemblance to the rallies in Germany in the 30’s? Trump’s spectacle last night gave me pause for many reasons, none of them good.
Trump’s marketing department has already taken note of the resemblance to 1930’s Germany and can be counted on to package the Donald in an American, rather than a European, fascist mold.
As FDR told us, American Fascism will “hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for.”
Germany in the 30s is it? It’s the rise of Hitler all over again! How long have we been hearing that one?
Back in the 80s Cuban President Fidel Castro said Reagan was “as unscrupulous and as irresponsible as Hitler. In a sense, Reagan is potentially more dangerous than the German Nazi leader because he has a much more powerful military arsenal at his disposal, including nuclear weapons”.
Just a few days ago former New Jersey Governor REPUBLICAN Christine Todd Whitman wrote in the pages of Politico, “Now is the time to defeat this scourge of our party. We can make America great again by defeating the selfishness, arrogance and bigotry of Donald Trump.” She called Trump “evil” and compared him to Hitler. She called Trump a threat to “the very foundational values on which our party and our nation were built.”
Obama has been compared to Hitler, Bush has been compared to Hitler (they even had video contests, some were quite good), John Paul II, Maggie Thatcher and even Tony Blair. The only one who wasn’t was Bill Clinton I guess because Hitler didn’t self-identify as a horn-dog.
Hell I went to the Oktoberfest in Munich 40 years ago, was it the beer or the fascism that attracted me I wonder?
You leftists need to get a new shtick. You all have grown very tiresome.
If you had attended Oktoberfest 80 years ago, your reply would have made some sense. The ’30’s were 80 years ago, not 40 years ago.
People like to poo-poo the Hitler comparisons because they think of Hitler 1939-1945. You have to look at Hitler 1932-33 to see what people are frightened of.
Norma: agree, agree. The parallels are frightening.