What Should Be Worrying Republicans

Today I had the occasion to be speaking with a representative of the non-profit that manages the scholarship that I endowed in honor of my late parents.  Not surprisingly, we talked about LGBT rights issues and from there it progressed to talking about politics that ranged from putting up campaign staffers to what I perceive to be the shortsightedness and seeming suicide wish of the Republican Party.  Which brings me to a column by former Republican Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post that looks at what ought to be terrifying the Republican Party leadership as we move towards the 2020 elections.   A second column in the Post by another former Republican, Michael Gerson adds to the theme.  First, highlights from Rubin's column:

Republicans likely won’t have Robert S. Mueller III to rescue them from their approaching train wreck. And they should be honest with themselves (if not the rest of us): They are heading for a political derailment if things go on as they have been.

What’s the jam? Republicans have a presidential incumbent whose most recent polls put him in the mid-30s. Even worse, the intensity of the opposition to him is off the charts. The Post-ABC poll tells us:

A 56 percent majority of all Americans say they would “definitely not vote for him” should Trump become the Republican nominee, while 14 percent say they would consider voting for him and 28 percent would definitely vote for him. Majorities of independents (59 percent), women (64 percent) and suburbanites (56 percent) rule out supporting Trump for a second term.

The depth and breadth of animosity are unlikely to dissipate even in the best of economic times. Should the economy stall out, as many economists expect will happen by 2020, even those Republicans in the “But taxes . . .” or “But Gorsuch . . ." camp may see the handwriting on the wall.

Moreover, it’s not like Republicans are all that jazzed about him. Sure, when a pollster asks Republicans if they approve of Trump’s performance, a strong majority say they do, but that doesn’t mean they won’t recognize his unelectability in a year. To the contrary, in the Post-ABC poll already 32 percent of Republicans/Lean Republicans would like the party to nominate someone else next year.

But Republicans' prospects for an alternate nominee are sparse. And that’s where we come back to Mueller. Regardless of the inappropriate comments of acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker (whose meandering, nervous remarks at a Monday news conference suggested Mueller was nearing the end of his investigation), we have no idea how far along Mueller really is. We don’t know if Whitaker (drenched in sweat and looking entirely uncomfortable in his role) was telling the truth . . . . Unless Mueller has Trump dead to rights on collusion (or the Southern District of New York has him on conspiracy to commit fraud and/or violate campaign finance laws), a jaw-dropping obstruction case would be needed for Republican senators to abandon Trump. They may do so (in part because Trump is a weight around the necks of Senate incumbents), but no one — especially not GOP primary voters — should count on a knockout blow that would absolve them of the choice in the primary between a wounded Trump and some as-yet-unknown challenger. Flash forward to the primaries. On one side, in a wide open race with no obvious front-runner, 20 Democrats will be electrifying Democrats, boosting turnout and creating a tough, moving target for the Republican opposition machine. . . . On the other side, in all likelihood you have a wounded president, growing unease among the base, a less-than-ideal economic record and — if Republicans are lucky — a decent challenger or two who will pound away at Trump’s faults.

This sure doesn’t look like 1984 or 1996 or even 2004 when an incumbent president had a clear advantage. No, 2020 may look a lot like 1976 — or, worse for the GOP, 1976 with Nixon still in the White House. As I said, Republicans should be very, very nervous.

As noted, Michael Gerson column continues the theme Jennifer Rubin wrote about.  Here are excerpts:

The news that President Trump’s approval rating is near historical lows brings some relief that the laws of political gravity still apply. When the president is doing a spectacularly bad job, a majority of our fellow citizens — or at least a clear majority of people contacted for the Post-ABC News poll — think Trump is doing badly. . . . . perceptions of the president’s performance have plummeted on the federal budget deficit, on improving the health-care system and on the economy.

Perhaps the greatest danger to Trump’s political future is the cost of these negative perceptions to his brand. [Trump] The president was elected, in part, by giving his supporters an impression of business acumen. This was, in fact, the image carefully cultivated by book publishers and TV producers. . . . . .These claims can now be believed only by the ideologically addled.

The problem for Trump is not only that he lost the most visible and important confrontation of his presidency — in negotiating with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) over the government shutdown.

If, in the next stage, the loser acts unilaterally under the pretense of a border security crisis, it will merely prove that Trump is a dangerously sore loser. For the MBAs taking notes, this complex negotiating strategy is known as: Throwing the game off the table if you can’t win. The other branding claims made by Trump have become equally incredible. His reputation as a self-made billionaire lies in ruins. An extensive New York Times article on Trump’s wealth found a bassinet millionaire, consistently bailed out of bad bets, who dodged gift taxes, milked his empire for cash and cultivated a deceptive image of business brilliance. And special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation may reveal serious corruption and perjury in cataloguing Trump’s 30-year panting desire to sell his brand in Russia.

And who can take Trump seriously as a manager? He has a talent for weeding out the talented and responsible. He is a world-class nepotist. He is incapable of delegation or of taking conflicting advice.

Those 37 percent who approve of Trump’s performance may point to the state of the economy or the composition of the Supreme Court. They may be impressed by his destruction of norms or enthused by his promotion of exclusion. They may want a president who speaks his mind, even when it is hateful gibberish. They may want a president who is an institutional arsonist, even if the result is mere destruction.

But no one can reasonably claim to believe in Trump’s brand as it was sold in 2016. We have plumbed the shallows of his boasts. They are refuted lies. And whatever else [Trump] the president may be, he is a fraud.

The Growing Insanity and Paranoia of the Right

The "Redoubt" 

Perhaps there have always been insane people among the far right elements of society and it is only because of today's 24/7 media cycle that they seem much more prevalent.  Or, instead, they are more numerous because of the constant bellowing of Christofascists and the GOP's years of using dog whistle racism and talk of conspiracies to deprive 2nd Amendment nuts of their weapons.   Whatever the cause, I find it difficult to even comprehend the mindset of these folks, especially the "patriots" and survivalists.   The Washington Post has a lengthy piece on these folks who are moving to parts of the Pacific Northwest - eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, Idaho and Montana - to  arm themselves and prepare themselves an expected Armageddon.  While the article doesn't outright say it, I suspect that racism and white supremacy is a strong driving motivation given that the "Redoubt" as they call it, is mostly lily white and they talk about their "strong Christian beliefs."  The latter, in my view, increasingly meaning that they are right wing Christian racists.  Here are some article highlights:

Don and Jonna Bradway recently cashed out of the stock market and invested in gold and silver. They have stockpiled food and ammunition in the event of a total economic collapse or some other calamity commonly known around here as “The End of the World As We Know It” or “SHTF” — the day something hits the fan.

The Bradways fled California, a state they said is run by “leftists and non-Constitutionalists and anti-freedom people,” and settled on several wooded acres of north Idaho five years ago. They live among like-minded conservative neighbors, host Monday night Bible study around their fire pit, hike in the mountains and fish from their boat. They melt lead to make their own bullets for sport shooting and hunting — or to defend themselves against marauders in a world-ending cataclysm.

The Bradways are among the vanguard moving to an area of the Pacific Northwest known as the American Redoubt, a term coined in 2011 by survivalist author and blogger James Wesley, Rawles (the comma is deliberate) to describe a settlement of the God-fearing in a lightly populated territory that includes Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the eastern parts of Washington and Oregon.

They are anxious about recent terrorist attacks from Paris to San Bernardino, Calif., to Orlando; pandemics such as Ebola in West Africa; potential nuclear attacks from increasingly provocative countries such as North Korea or Iran; and the growing political, economic and racial polarization in the United States that has deepened during the 2016 presidential election.

The locals regard the newest transplants as benign if odd, several said in interviews.  “The mainstream folks kind of roll their eyes,” said state Sen. Shawn Keough, a 20-year veteran Republican legislator who represents north Idaho.

Much of the Redoubt migration is motivated by fears that President Obama — and his potential successor, Hillary Clinton — want to scrap the Second Amendment, as part of what transplants see as a dangerous and anti-constitutionalist movement toward government that is too intrusive and hostile to personal liberties.

“The bottom line is that our clients are tired of living around folks that have no moral values,” Savage said. “They choose to flee tyranny and leave behind all the attributes of the big city that have turned them away.”

Savage spoke as he drove his Chevrolet Suburban with an AR-15 rifle tucked next to the driver’s seat, a handgun between the front seats, and body armor and more than 200 rounds of extra ammunition in the back — along with a chain saw to move fallen trees and two medical kits, just in case.

Treller, a sommelier at a local resort, said Obama was a key factor in his decision. He said the president has inflamed racial tensions in America, presided over a dangerous expansion of the national debt, been “hostile” to Second Amendment rights and failed to curtail the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran.

Treller said he settled on Coeur d’Alene after scouring city-data.com, a website where he looked for his ideal mix: conservative election results, low crime rates, solid incomes, low population density, affordable house prices — and few illegal immigrants, because he said they erode “American culture.”

Idaho is about 83 percent white, and its three northernmost counties are more than 90 percent white, according to Census Bureau data. Those interviewed in the American Redoubt insisted they are not trying to segregate themselves by race. And while the Aryan Nations white supremacist group was headquartered near Hayden Lake in the 1980s and 1990s, Rawles has described the Redoubt movement as “anti-racist” and said like-minded folks of all races are welcome.

Several locals did express unease about their new ammo-stockpiling neighbors.  “I don’t have a problem with preppers, but it’s the extremists people don’t want around — the fringe, the radicals. That’s the concern I hear from people,” said Mike Peterson, a real estate agent in Bonners Ferry and retired Los Angeles firefighter and EMT.

Keough, the state senator, recently fought off a tough GOP primary challenge in which she was labeled a “progressive traitor” by Alex Barron, a blogger who calls himself the Bard of the American Redoubt.  

 Reach your own conclusions, but I think these people are nuts!

Has The Republican Party’s Implosion Arrived?

A number of years ago I was a member of the Republican Party of Virginia Beach city committee and precinct chair for the Alanton precinct, historically a Republican bastion.  I held these positions for nearly eight (8) years.  On top of this activism, I grew up in a family of Republicans that stretched back to my grandparents or longer.  In those days, being a Republican meant one respected knowledge, respected science and education, sought a fiscally conservative government and had no desire to police other peoples' bedrooms. Then something began to happen: far right Christians who wanted to police everyone's bedroom and force their religious beliefs, including biblical literalism, on all members of society - I call them Christofscists - began to be elected to the city committee.  Next racist comments began to become more acceptable.  Then white supremacy became acceptable.  Slowly and steadily, the Republican Party ceased to be what it had once been.  When the fusion of far right religious extremism and party positions began to become complete, in revulsion, I resigned from the Republican Party.  

All of this occurred quite a number of years ago and in the intervening years things only got worse. Now, with the rise of Donald trump and to a lesser extent, Ted Cruz the perversion of the GOP has become nearly complete. Hate, bigotry, and ignorance are embraced and we are on the tipping point where Republicans have held their noses and voted Republican may be no longer able to so do. When their exodus begins, the GOP may finally implode and finish its self-destruction that cynical elites allowed to happen as they chased short term, cynical electoral gains.  The cancer has spread and metastasized.  The Frankenstein monster that is now the party base can no longer be controlled.  A column in the Washington Post looks at this coming implosion.  Here are highlights:  

The implosion over Donald Trump’s candidacy that Republicans had hoped to avoid arrived so virulently this weekend that many party leaders vowed never to back the billionaire and openly questioned whether the GOP could come together this election year.

At a moment when Republicans had hoped to begin taking on Hillary Clinton — who is seemingly on her way to wrapping up the Democratic nomination — the GOP has instead become consumed by a crisis over its identity and core values that is almost certain to last through the July party convention, if not the rest of the year.

A campaign full of racial overtones and petty, R-rated put-downs grew even uglier Sunday after Trump declined repeatedly in a CNN interview to repudiate the endorsement of him by David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Trump had disavowed Duke at a news conference on Friday, but he stammered when asked about Duke on Sunday.

The fracas comes as the presidential race enters a potentially determinative month of balloting, beginning with primaries and caucuses in 11 states on Tuesday. As the campaign-trail rhetoric grew noxious over the weekend, a sense of fatalism fell over the Republican firmament, from elected officials and figureheads to major donors and strategists.

The choice for voters is not simply one of preference but rather a fundamental one about the direction they want to take the country, with the insurgent Trump promising utter transformation.

“For many Republicans, Trump is more than just a political choice,” said Kevin Madden, a veteran operative who advised 2012 nominee Mitt Romney. “It’s a litmus test for character.”

Madden, like some of his peers, said he could never vote for Trump. If he is the nominee, Madden said, “I’m prepared to write somebody in so that I have a clear conscience.”

More splintering came late Sunday when freshman Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), who has been a vocal Trump critic, declared on Twitter that if the reality TV star is nominated, he will “look for some 3rd candidate — a conservative option, a Constitutionalist.”

“It’s scary,” South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who has endorsed Rubio, said on ABC’s “This Week.” She added: “I think what he’ll do to the Republican Party is really make us question who we are and what we’re about. And that’s something we don’t want to see happen.”

Then there’s the question of whether Trump’s fiercely loyal base of backers would shift their allegiance to Rubio or one of the other candidates — Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Ohio Gov. John Kasich or retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson — were Trump to lose the nomination.

The GOP base is now uncontrollable.  Indeed, the party base looks frighteningly similar to those in Germany who flocked to the Nazi banner as  Adolph Hitler vowed to make Germany great again after its disastrous defeat in World War I and the post war aftermath - even though Germany had brought that disaster on itself by going to war in a war that was avoidable.  If America is no longer great, it is because of the GOP's failed policies, a senseless and avoidable war in Iraq, and a financial market melt down spurred by GOP favored deregulation.  Obama gets blamed by Republicans, yet he has done a remarkable job in turning the country around in the face of Republican obstructionism fro day one of Obama's presidency.