Republicans Refuse to Punish Trump for Openly Racist Rhetoric

The Republican Party of the past is dead and gone and has been replaced by a political party that relishes open racism and misogyny in general. The takeover the of the GOP base by white supremacists and religious extremists is nearly complete.  Old school Republicans who refuse to leave the party and/or pretend that the party of the past still exists are not only deluding themselves, but are complicit in the sins of the GOP and its head, Donald Trump. Seemingly, there is nothing beyond the pale that will cause Republicans to push back against Trump and the destruction of any shred of morality in the GOP.  They either enthusiastically support his overt racism or are such cowards they refuse to confront the hideous elements of the party base. Trump's racist tweet rant over the weekend has failed to bring any punishment or for that matter, even much hand wringing. A piece in CNN looks at the Republican refusal to condemn or rein in Trump.  Here are excerpts:

The most shocking thing about Donald Trump's racist tweets is that possibly the most fundamentally un-American outburst of modern presidential rhetoric did not come remotely as a surprise.

The second most shocking aspect of an episode that would have rocked any other administration is that the President knows he can trade in such base tactics because he will pay no price in a Republican Party cowed by his fervent political base. Many GOP voters and lawmakers are uncomfortable with Trump's conduct and sentiments. But most are sufficiently satisfied with the ideological direction of his presidency that they are willing to turn a blind eye to such behavior, making it a useful political weapon as he seeks to drive a rampant base turnout in 2020. In an attack clearly aimed at four minority Democratic lawmakers – [Trump] the President did not name the "progressives" in his tirade -- Trump underlined how his presidency has used bigotry as a lever of power and made it a fact of 21st century political life more than half a century after the peak of the Civil Rights era. His use of the nation's most revered office to make such unequivocally racist remarks emphasizes how a presidency stewing in rage, fear and identity politics lacks boundaries. And Trump's xenophobia made it more obvious than ever that he plans to win reelection by carving a nativist schism between white, rural America and the increasingly diverse population being courted by Democrats. He risks opening divides that will take years to heal.

By telling the four women — three of whom were born in the US — to "go back" to where they came from, Trump employed the most basic and crude racial taunt. He also implicitly rejected the motto emblazoned on America's Great Seal — E Pluribus Unum — from many one. He is implying that any American who is not white and native born has no place in the country. The silence from Republicans Sunday about Trump's tweets was near universal, emphasizing how his outlandish behavior is tolerated by lawmakers who represent half of the electorate and who won't risk their own political careers to condemn him. [T]he already poisonous tone of Trump's reelection campaign seems almost certain to become far, far worse. The question is whether Trump will alienate sufficient crops of more moderate voters to swing the White House to Democrats or whether his raging culture wars will maximize turnout in his own party and hand him a second term.His attack is a logical extension of an election strategy that is clearly designed to exploit racial and social divides. The reason why Trump's attack was not surprising is because it fits into a pattern of racially charged rhetoric that he has been willing to use in private life — dating back to his comments on the Central Park Five and the "birtherism" campaign against Obama. While it is shocking to see such open racism expressed by a President of the United States, Sunday's tweets were far from the first time that Trump has dealt in such toxicity in office. . . . The debate about whether Trump is a "racist" that pops up after such comments seems increasingly academic.
 Republicans who support Trump by margins of close to 90% in recent polls have long ago made peace with the President's outrageousness or are willing to look the other way as he implements a conservative agenda, especially in the courts. Trump's incessant catering to his base means he has little to fear politically from the modern Republican Party. [Trump] The President has only one hope of winning reelection -- thanks to the way that he has conducted his presidency. He must hope his fired up political base will show up to the polls in greater numbers than voters supporting Democrats that he is painting as extreme and bent on a communist takeover.  That's why Sunday's tweets are probably not a historical aberration but a taste of things to come.

Republican "friends" who consider themselves moral, decent people are running out of time to prove their decency.  The time has come to either leave the GOP or become complicit in its sins.  There really is no middle ground.