The Cancer in the GOP Goes Beyond Trump

Sadly, Donaldd Trump now embodies the soul of the Republican Party which is to say the party is souless and the political home of those who in my parent's generation or even up through 1980 would never have been openly welcomed into the party mainstream.   Trump is symptomatic of the canser that has metastized throughout the GOP where avowed racist, anti-semites, white supremacists, and mysogynists in general are not only welcomed but increasingly represent the mainstream of the party.  Thus the silence by many in leadership positions of the GOP in the wake of Trump's dinner with nutcase anti-semite Kanye West, n/k/a Ye, and white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes (pictured above) who wants a white theocracy and has vowed to replace non-white Americans - the reverse of the manufactured "great replacement myth - should come as little surprise.  Mitch McConnell has not condemned Trump, West or Fuentes.  Kevin McCarthy - who I believe would sell his mother into prostitution if he thought it would gain him the House speakership - has been totally silent.  And there are scores of others who out of fear of Trump and/or the ugly party base who has not said a word of disapproval.   It is past time for Republican "friends" to decide whether they are going to remain part of this moral cesspool or abandon the GOP.  They cannot have it both ways.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the degenerate and morally bankrupt state of the GOP.  Here are excerpts:

No one is buying the idea that Donald Trump’s dinner last week at Mar-a-Lago with antisemite and white nationalist Nick Fuentes was some sort of aberration — even if Trump’s claim is true that Fuentes showed up unannounced in the company of rapper (and fellow antisemite) Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.

That Trump would meet with bigots and conspiracy theorists was very much on brand for someone who sees loyalty to himself as the only character trait that matters. Trump, after all, claimed moral equivalence (“very fine people on both sides”) between the neo-Nazis who chanted in Charlottesville that Jews would not replace them and a group of counterprotesters, one of whom was murdered.

Which means things like the Mar-a-Lago dinner are surely going to continue to happen as Trump forges ahead with his bid for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination. And with each instance, the far-right extremists who spew hate will continue nudging their way from the fringes into the mainstream of the Republican Party.

In the wake of the GOP’s disappointing performance in the midterm elections, it is plainly self evident that the party has a “Trump problem.” But there is a deeper problem, and that is the Republican Party itself.

Republicans cannot move past Trump, as long as they cannot bring themselves to confront him and, by association, the element he attracts. This is not the party that had the fortitude to purge the hateful John Birch Society from its ranks in the mid-1960s.

Since the dinner became public over the weekend, we have heard plenty of prominent Republicans denounce antisemitism, as though that is anything other than basic human decency. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who is reported to be considering a presidential bid of his own, tweeted that antisemitism is “a cancer” and declared: “We stand with the Jewish people in the fight against the world’s oldest bigotry.”

But depressingly few were willing to even mention Trump himself.

One welcome exception was outgoing Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R), who told CNN: "I don’t think it’s a good idea for a leader that is setting an example for the country or the party to meet with an avowed racist or antisemite. And so it’s very troubling, and it shouldn’t happen. And we need to avoid those kinds of empowering the extremes. And when you meet with people, you empower.” Another was Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, who said . . . . I think he [Trump] should apologize.”

Come January, there will be fewer Republicans left in Congress willing to speak out when Trump does what he keeps doing. That in itself is a testament to where the party has positioned itself with regard to the crocodile, given how many of those who did take issue with him were either wiped out in Republican primaries this year or chose to retire.

And those who have followed Trump’s example in associating themselves with extremists and their ideas will have more clout within the institution. Earlier this year, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) spoke at a conference organized by Fuentes, later claiming (as Trump has about last week’s dinner) that she didn’t know who he was; House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy has promised, if he becomes speaker, to restore her committee assignments . . . .

Meanwhile, don’t expect much by way of correctives to be offered as the GOP gets ready to elect its next party chair in January. McDaniel, who was handpicked by Trump to run the party after the 2016 election and who has been a model of obeisance to him since, has indicated she plans to run for another term.

There is grumbling in the party about McDaniel’s win-loss record, with South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem telling Fox News: “I don’t know a party that can continue to lose like we have and keep their jobs.” But none of the talked-about alternatives . . . . . represent a turn away from Trump.

So Republican leaders should quit deluding themselves about the possibility of moving on from the former president, who continues to bring the worst people into their fold. They are along for the ride — even as it takes them over a cliff.