Joe Scarborough - The GOP must dump Trump

The train wreck that is Donald Trump and the fetid swamp of insanity which is today's base of the Republican Party is becoming far too much for what few sane and decent Republicans. True Trump is the logical culmination of GOP policies and dog whistle race baiting and misogyny over the last decade and a half or more, but now that the result of their own policies have become consolidated in Trump, thinking Republicans are view Trump with revulsion and rightly so.  Trump's suggestion yesterday that gun rights lunatics might need to assassinate Hillary Clinton and/or federal judges seems to have been the final straw for some, including former GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough who calls for the GOP to remove Trump in an op-ed in the Washington Post.  Here are excerpts:

The Muslim ban, the David Duke denial, the “Mexican” judge flap, the draft dodger denigrating John McCain’s military service, the son of privilege attacking an immigrant Gold Star mother and the constant revisionism and lying about past political positions taken are but a few of the lowlights that have punctuated Donald Trump’s chaotic chase for the presidency.

Any one of these offenses would have disqualified any other candidate for president. But the Republican nominee remained competitive against a historically weak Democratic nominee on the promise of bringing radical change and dramatic disruption to Washington.

That appears to be changing. Post-convention polls show Trump falling behind by double digits both nationally and in must-win swing states like Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Virginia.

And the political ride will only get rockier for Trump in the coming days afterhe suggested that one way to keep a conservative Supreme Court after Hillary Clinton got elected would be to assassinate her or federal judges. 

We are in unchartered waters but that does not mean that the way forward is not clear. It is.

1. The Secret Service should interview Donald Trump and ask him to explain his threatening comments.

1. Paul Ryan and every Republican leader should denounce in the strongest terms their GOP nominee suggesting conservatives could find the Supreme Court more favorable to their desires if his political rival was assassinated.

1. Paul Ryan and every Republican leader should revoke their endorsement of Donald Trump. At this point, what else could Trump do that would be worse than implying the positive impact of a political assassination?

1. The Republican Party needs to start examining quickly their options for removing the Republican nominee.

A bloody line has been crossed that cannot be ignored. At long last, Donald Trump has left the Republican Party few options but to act decisively and get this political train wreck off the tracks before something terrible happens.

New Survey Unscores the Insanity of the GOP Base

The results of a new Public Policy Polling survey confirm that the swamp fever gripping the Republican Party base is even worse than many would have liked to believe.  The GOP of my parents' generation or even of 25 years ago is gone and a near insane asylum has taken its place.  Now, ignorance is a virtue, bigotry is a virtue and many KKK members no doubt feel completely at home in the party.  If one has ever wondered how the civilization of the Roman Empire descended into the horrors of the Dark Ages, the decline of the GOP provides a glimpse in microcosm.  How does one even begin to try to reason with those who are so utterly detached Here are some of the survey findings:

Our new poll finds that Trump is benefiting from a GOP electorate that thinks Barack Obama is a Muslim and was born in another country, and that immigrant children should be deported. 66% of Trump's supporters believe that Obama is a Muslim to just 12% that grant he's a Christian. 61% think Obama was not born in the United States to only 21% who accept that he was. And 63% want to amend the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship, to only 20% who want to keep things the way they are. 

 

Trump's beliefs represent the consensus among the GOP electorate. 51% overall want to eliminate birthright citizenship. 54% think President Obama is a Muslim. And only 29% grant that President Obama was born in the United States. That's less than the 40% who think Canadian born Ted Cruz was born in the United States. 

 

Trump's supporters aren't alone in those attitudes though. Only among supporters of John Kasich (58/13), Jeb Bush (56/18), Chris Christie (59/33), and Marco Rubio (42/30) are there more people who think President Obama was born in the United States than that he wasn't. And when you look at whose supporters are more inclined to think that the President is a Christian than a Muslim the list shrinks to just Christie (55/29), Kasich (41/22), and Bush (29/22).

 

Bush's inability to appeal to the kind of people who hold these beliefs is what's keeping him from succeeding in the race- his overall favorability is 39/42, and with voters identifying themselves as 'very conservative' it's all the way down at 33/48.  

Jeb Bush Is Losing and The GOP Establishment Is to Blame

Yes, Jeb "Jebbie" Bush is a crappy candidate in my estimation (as a number of past posts have laid out), but in the bubble world of the GOP establishment, he was supposed to soar.    That plan to date has not played out and  Jebbie has been languishing in a distant second or even third place.  Meanwhile, loud mouth buffoon extraordinaire continues to surge.  If the GOP establishment wants to know why, it needs to look in the mirror.  It has in the past embraced and welcomed into the party the insane elements - i.e., Christofascists, open white supremacists, etc . - now viewing and following  Trump with adoration.  When you allow the insane to take over the grassroots of your political party, bad things are going to happen.  A piece in Salon throws the blame for Jebbie's losing effort at the feet of the GOP establishment.  Here are excerpts:

With polls showing Donald Trump in a better position than ever, and with the next presidential debate still nearly a month away, now appears to be the summer of the Republican Party donor class’s discontent.

Their favored candidate, Jeb Bush, has been (obsessively) tagged by Trump as a “low-energy person.” And Bush’s attempts to nab some of “The Donald’s” presumably invigorating xenophobia have been embarrassing, to say the least. For the CNBC-watching plutocrats who comprise “the establishment” of the Republican Party, the summer has been, if not quite a disaster, certainly a mess.

For the Very Serious People in U.S. punditry, however, the situation may be even worse. If you’re the kind of elite hot-taker who tries to understand Republicans by watching “Morning Joe” and reading George Will, Trump’s ascendancy undermines your entire political worldview. It seems to validate the liberal claim that GOP voters care more about whiteness than free markets. And it suggests that the Wall Street Republicans you rely on for insight into the GOP don’t have a clue.
[T]he truth is that Bush’s struggles — like Trump’s triumphs — are the product of conservative ideology itself.

Specifically, it’s the fault of Citizens United, and the tidal wave of outsider spending that it’s unleashed on American politics. If it weren’t for that essentially limitless outsider spending, there would likely be considerably fewer candidates in the GOP race. And if there were fewer candidates in the race, Bush would have an easier time joining together those Republicans who do not want to nominate Trump.

As things stand, Bush cannot distinguish himself from the rest of his “establishment”-friendly competitors, so he ends up looking like just one of the dozen-plus candidates who are not Donald Trump. Worse still, because Bush has already raised such an unfathomable amount of money for his super PAC, his inability to stand toe-to-toe with Trump makes him look in comparison not only drab but also weak. And there’s no one Republican voters hate more than the weak.

As my colleague Joan Walsh has been rightly noting for a while, “Jeb!” has been a straight-up bad candidate. He’s repeatedly done exactly what he shouldn’t. It has been 13 years since Bush last won an election, and one gets the sense that, when he wasn’t cashing checks from Lehman Brothers or hanging out with Michael Bloomberg, he spent the time forgetting everything he’d learned.

But it’s possible for two things to be true. Bush can be both a bad candidate and be wounded less by his own hand than by the results of conservatism itself. The men and women (but mostly men) in the Republican Party can rail against Bush to the Matt Bais of the world all they want. It won’t change the fact that when the Citizens United ruling was handed down and forever changed the rules of American politics, they were cheering as loud as anyone else.

The piece is on point so far as it goes, but it fails to look at the composition of the lunatics swarming to Trump - they are those who in my days in the GOP would have been viewed with disdain at best and barred from local city and county committees and caucuses.  Now, they are controlling them.   Just ask Eric Cantor what has become of the GOP grassroots. 

Republicans Remain Largely Silent in Face of Trump’s Bigotry and Misogyny

With Donald Trump spouting some crazy, racist or misogynist virtually every day, one would think Republicans would be up in arms protesting the batshitery.  But they are not.  Instead they remain largely silent and the reason for this is simple: Trump is spouting the beliefs of the swamp fever sickened GOP base.  To attack Trump would be to attack the Christofascis/Tea Party base of the party and few Republicans dare face the wrath of these hate and fear driven extremists.  Meanwhile, the GOP continues to alienate more of the rest of the country.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the phenomenon.  Here are excerpts:

Wednesday was Women’s Equality Day, the anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave American women the right to vote 95 years ago.  And how have Republicans marked this egalitarian milestone? Why, with another bimbo eruption, of course.

The perpetrator, as usual, was Donald Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, who, in his three-week-old feud with debate moderator Megyn Kelly, circulated a tweet late Monday once again referring to the Fox News star as a “bimbo.”

Fox News boss Roger Ailes, who had already had words with Trump over his sexist attacks on the anchor, fired back Tuesday with a statement saying Trump’s “surprise and unprovoked attack on Megyn Kelly during her show last night is as unacceptable as it is disturbing.” He went on to call Trump’s Twitter attack “crude and irresponsible.”

Trump’s response, at a press conference in Iowa: “It is a very small element in my life, Megyn Kelly. I don’t care about Megyn Kelly. No, I would not apologize. She should probably apologize to me, but I just don’t care.”  Right. The victim of Trump’s misogyny should apologize to him. 

[T]he character of the [other GOP presidential] candidates already has been revealed. Trump is acting like a sexist and a bigot — and the rest of the candidates are, with occasional exceptions, too timid to call him what he is.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus even praised the contribution made by Trump’s candidacy. “I think it’s a net positive for everybody,” he said in a radio interview.

A net positive? That’s an intriguing calculation, considering all the gross negatives:
Describing Mexican immigrants as rapists and thugs.
Kicking one of the nation’s leading Latino journalists, Jorge Ramos, out of a news conference, telling him, “Go back to Univision.”

[A]s the Trump outrages continue, they tend to be met more by eye-rolls and a Trump-will-be-Trump acceptance — and less by condemnation. After this week’s bimbo episode, a Washington Post search for responses by the candidates as of late Wednesday found only George Pataki (yes, he’s still in the race) weighing in, saying Trump was “over the line” and displaying a “demeaning attitude towards women.”

The way to combat Trump’s bigotry and misogyny is to denounce it as loudly as he spews it. 

GOP Fringe - i.e. the Tea Party - Blame Voter Fraud and "Uncle Toms" for Mississippi Loss

Rather than face the reality that a majority of Americans view them as not only insane, but also frightening, Tea Party forces are claiming that Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel lost his primary challenge to incumbent Senator Thad Cochran due to "voter fraud" and "Uncle Tom" blacks who chose to vote in the GOP primary.  Truth be told, McDaniel is not short of an extremist who would have brought yet more insanity to the Congressional GOP.  Thankfully, enough Mississippi residents recognized McDaniel's toxicity and went to the polls to support Cochran.  Talking Points Memo looks at the spittle flecked rants coming from the Tea Party lunatics.  Here are highlights:

Some conservatives aren't happy that their preferred candidate, state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R) lost to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) in the runoff of the GOP primary for U.S. Senate in Mississippi. Many tea party types are openly speculating foul play and that Democrats and black voters were involved. Take Rush Limbaugh who wondered if Cochran's campaign slogan in Mississippi over the last few days was "Uncle Toms for Thad."

"I wonder what the campaign slogan was in Mississippi the past few days, 'Uncle Toms for Thad'? Because I thought it was the worst thing you could do as an African American, vote for a Republican. The worst thing you could do," Limbaugh said on Wednesday. "But somehow they were made to believe that voting for old Thad would be fine and dandy. And why? Because they were told Thad's done a lot for black people in Mississippi. Must be the first time they were told that."

Cochran's turnaround victory in the race on Tuesday was immediately met with criticism by McDaniel and tea partiers over his strategy of reaching out to not only Republicans but also Democrats and African-Americans, a move that dismayed tea partiers but isn't illegal under Mississippi's open primary laws. 

Matt Drudge, for instance, posted a link to a New York Times story with the line "Black vote used." Another link on Drudge said "The flier 'that got Cochran elected'..." and linked to a National Review blog post on Wednesday reporting that a flyer that had allegedly been circulated in heavily black precincts of Mississippi that was titled: "The Tea Party intends to prevent blacks from voting on Tuesday."

Sarah Palin on Wednesday said there should be some kind of investigation of voting behavior because something clearly was fishy.  

[C]onservatives have also thrown out the idea of leaving the GOP party all together. Amy Kremer, a conservative political operative who formerly led the Tea Party Express warned that if Cochran won, the GOP would be "done." 

Erickson wrote. "In essence, tea party activists are the RINOs. A Republican Party campaigning on making the Senate “conservative,” used liberal Democrats to preserve an incumbent Republican and defeat a conservative. The actual conservatives are the outsiders with the GOP establishment doing all it could to preserve its power at the expense of its principles."

But Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who is often considered a tea party favorite, suggested that such reactions might be overblown. "I'm for more people voting, not less people voting," Paul told reporters Wednesday, according to the Washington Post.

The Tea Party - most of which is also Christofascist - is a swamp fever that must be broken if the GOP is to ever regain its sanity.  Killing the Frankenstein monster will be very difficult.

Minnesota Congressional Nominee for Congress to Block Teaching of Evolution

If you want to see just how severe the swamp fever afflicting the Republican Party has become look no farther than Aaron Miller (pictured above), the Minnesota Republican Party’s nominee for the 1st Congressional District, who stated this week that he wanted to run for Congress "because learning about evolution made his daughter cry, and he wanted to make sure that schools were not forced to teach it."  Frighteningly, Miller makes Michele Bachmann look at least somewhat sane.  The GOP's race to embrace ignorance truly seems to know few limits.  Meanwhile, I cannot help but asking myself what the hell is in the water in Minnesota?  The Raw Story has details.  Here are excerpts:

Aaron Miller, the Minnesota Republican Party’s nominee for the 1st Congressional District, said this week that he wanted to win because learning about evolution made his daughter cry, and he wanted to make sure that schools were not forced to teach it. 

The Mankato Free Press reported last month that Miller told a story to a Republican county convention about how his daughter became “very upset because she had to learn about evolution at school.”

Miller claimed that even the teacher expressed agreement with the daughter, but said that the evolution lesson was a requirement. The candidate refused to provide any other details at the time.

“There’s a war on our values by the government,” he insisted. “We should decide what is taught in our schools, not Washington, D.C.”

Over the weekend, Miller was officially named the Republican nominee, and he took the opportunity to repeat the anti-evolution story.

“He also called for more religious freedoms,” the Free Press noted. “He repeated his story about his daughter returning home from school in tears because evolution was being taught in her class. He said the teacher admitted to not believing in the scientific theory to his daughter but told her that the government forced him to teach the lesson.”  Again, he declined to provide the details necessary for reporters to verify the story.

The candidate later said that the federal government should not have a role in school curriculum.

Not surprisingly, Miller is backed by the Tea Party.  I increasingly think that a prerequisite for Tea Party membership is a lobotomy.

Right Wingers and Homophobes Go Nuts Over Mark Herring's Justified Decision to Drop Defense of Gay Marriage Ban

At time it is difficult to describe the intensity of the swamp fever and hate that now infect the Republican Party base in Virginia and elsewhere.  If one wants to see how the rise of Hitler and the Holocaust occurred in Germany in the 1930's, look no further than the base of the Republican Party of Virginia 2014.  The reaction of the Christofascists/Tea Party to Attorney General Mark Herring's decision to cease defending Virginia's gay marriage bans continues to give new meaning to the term batshitery.  Never mind that (i) Mark Herring IS upholding the U.S. Constitution which trumps the Virginia Constitution. and (ii) both Ken Cuccinelli and Jerry Kilgore set the precedent for not defending laws they deemed unconstitutional (in Kilgore's case, like Herring, the refusal involved a provision of the Virginia Constitution) .  Blue Virginia has compiled some of the insanity that now is deemed rational discourse within the GOP base in Virginia.  Blue Virginia has assembled examples of this sick insanity.  Note the totally untrue claims of election fraud and attacks on Northern Virginia, one of Virginia's economic dynamos that pays far more than its share in supporting Virginia's budget.  Note: the spelling errors set out below are from the far right commentators.  Here are excerpts:

As you're probably aware, the far-right, theocratic, and otherwise cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs wing of the Virginia Republican Party is in full meltdown mode over Attorney General Mark Herring's gay marriage announcement the other day. Case in point: Ken Cuccinelli's Facebook page, and specifically the comments in reaction to his posting of the image to the far right (appropriately enough) of this post. Check out a few examples of the insanity below, not to mention the utter idiocy (e.g., English grammar totally optional and typos mandatory, such as spelling "liar" as "lier;" "riddled" as "riddeled;" "election" as "Ellection;" "Presidential" as "Presidental;" "break" as "brake;" etc.; etc.) and anti-LGBT hysteria. Craaaaaaaazy!

Allegations of Democrats Stealing the Election via "Voter Fraud," etc.
*"i knew this was going to happen the moment i saw how the elections were riddeled with voter fraud. they wish to push their anti gun, pro abortion and pro gay agenda as quickly as possible."
*"I would not be surprised if these elections were rigged. Obama, was not elected with majority."
*"We MUST clean up VOTER FRAUD=NOW, BEFORE the Upcomeing Nov. 2014 Election's, & the 2016 Presidental Ellection!!! NOW!"
*"if we do not stand to liberals and their affinity to brake the law and cause voter fraud we will have a divided and destroyed United States."
*"Thank God Glenn Beck exposed the fraud between Libertarians and the Democrats."
*"DC has taken over our state and I think the election here in NOV. was all about FRAUD !!!!!"

Northern Virginia Needs to Go!
*"Man, what a sad time for VA. It sickens me to see such a great state turning into one of the liberal petri dishes of the north. NOVA just needs to be given to DC."
*"If Fairfax would join DC and leave Virginia we would be a much different state ... large percent of people in N VA are imports and bring the NJ NY mindset with them ....."
*"Can the Commonwelth rid Themselves of Fairfax and Arlington counties then we would be Red Again need to start a remove Northern VA from the rest of VA."
*"Take Arlington and separate it from the rest of the state and give Arlington to DC. Problem solved."

Don't Ask Me How, but It Relates to Obama!!!
*"Well, now Obama has his own little puppet AG."
*"There's an agenda going on here and apparently only some of us see it. I didn't vote for Obama or any democrats in Va. I find it hard to believe after the first 4 years went bad, Obama was elected again."
*"Those oaths used to mean something, until Obama took office."
*"So help me Obama."
*"If he doesn't support the constitution SOMEONE better bring him up on treason charges and let let him destroy our state like Obama is destroying our country and no one is stopping him."
*"Herring is an obamazombie. He is a disgrace and should be impeached immediately..."
*"Didn't Obama take the same oath???"
*"He swears to support the laws he likes- just like Eric Holder and Obama!"
*"Youll be Obamas enemy for taking that oath"

As I have said before, to be a Republican nowadays, one needs to either be consumed by greed, have had a lobotomy, be an active member of the KKK or some other white supremacy group, or a religious extremist extraordinaire.  I am increasingly embarrassed that I was ever a Republican.