The Death of the GOP Would be a Blessing

As I note frequently, as a former Republican back in the days before the GOP went batshit crazy and embraced ignorance, religious extremism and open hostility to all non-whites, in my view, the only way to fix the GOP is for the party to die.  The cancer has simply metastasized to a point where the patient cannot be saved and for the good of the country, a speedy death is what one must pray for. Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker  seemingly is coming to a similar conclusion, although she caveats her view with "this GOP."   My problem with Parker's piece is that she assumes that such a thing as "Republicans of conscience" can still exist in such a putrefied and ugly political party.  Most former Republicans of conscience now see themselves as independents - now the largest percentage of voting age Americans - or reluctant Democrats.   To her credit, however, (i) she does lay blame for what the GOP has become at the feet of the short-sighted, cynical opportunists in the so-called GOP establishment that first welcomed the barbarians into the party, and (ii) she has denounced their actions in the past, albeit perhaps not forcefully enough.  Here are excerpts from Parker's latest column in the Washington Post on the demise of a once great party:

So it has come to this: a brokered convention or President Hillary Clinton.

These options seem to be what’s left to Republicans of conscience, who are, let’s face it, rather Romney-come-latelies to the pyre. They’re based on the following evidence: It is highly unlikely that Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio or John Kasich can wrest the nomination from Donald Trump, even though most polls show each of the three beating Clinton but Clinton beating Trump.

The most Republicans can hope for now is that Kasich and Rubio win the primaries in their home states of Ohio and Florida, respectively, as Cruz did in Texas, and enough other contests to deny Trump the necessary delegates, thus paving the way for a brokered convention.

The other option, offered in the service of saving the republic, is to vote for Clinton.

There, there, now. ’Tis bitter fruit, indeed, for any Republican to consider voting for Clinton for reasons well-known to all sentient beings, including, for the sake of clarity, her lack of appeal to the GOP’s dominant older-white-male demographic. This was the party, after all, that saw the future in former Alaska governor Sarah Palin — she of the red-heeled tundra, sparkler of fantasies and promisor of all that is ordinary. . . . Not surprisingly, she has endorsed Trump. Because? Because he’s an “outsider” (like any other Ivy-educated heir-billionaire) and “We are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture.”

Even though few Republicans could ever vote Democratic, and certainly not for Clinton, it wouldn’t be the end of the world as we know it. But voting for Trump, whom other civilized nations find abhorrent, might be.

Any hope that Trump might not really mean what he says is either delusional or a gamble too far. Which would voters prefer: The man who promises a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” or one who’ll say anything to get elected? The lunatic or the liar?

It has finally dawned on Republicans that their die is cast and Trump is about to destroy the party he relatively recently rejoined. Like a bunch of Ebenezer Scrooges, GOP leaders have begun emerging from their sleep, blinking at the horror of past misdeeds, trying to prevent a future that their actions foretold.

Republicans . . . . don’t deserve much slack for allowing their party to devolve from an ideas-driven counterweight to liberalism to a ragtag consortium of discontents dissociated from anything like an intellectual trust.   From William F. Buckley to Donald J. Trump in the wink of a Palin eye, the reaper is grim, indeed. . . . Love of country requires that Trump be stopped.

[I]t may be time for some creative destruction. Should Trump become the nominee, more reasoned minds in the GOP might do well to abandon it altogether. The death of this party — of know-nothing ugliness and outright fascist rhetoric — might be a blessing, a cleansing of the palate before a resurrection of the party of limited government and individual liberty.