Throughout the 2012 presidential campaign season, I thought the G.O.P. primary was about as crazy as it could be. I mean, what can be crazier than a field that included Michele “HPV vaccine-retarded” Bachmann, Herman “9-9-9” Cain, Rick “Oops” Perry, Newt “Poor kids as school janitors” Gingrich, Rick “Ewwww” Santorum , and crazy ol’ Ron “Social Security is unconstitutional” Paul?
Boy…did I underestimate Republicans, and their God-given talents to indulge in The Crazy.
I won’t rehash The Crazy to date—there’s been just too much. This week, though, The Crazy seems to have reached some kind of boiling point after Donald Trump proposed banning Muslims from entering the U.S. Since then, he has doubled down, and even had a spokesperson callously state, on national TV, “So what? They’re Muslim.” This arguably isn’t his craziest, his most racist or even his most outrageously unconstitutional proposal. But it combines elements of crazy, racist, and unconstitutional, and distills them down to a pseudo-policy proposal that is easy to understand. It’s done two things.
First, it has “legitimized” open expression of bigotry and racism for a big chunk of the G.O.P. Trump has “let down” the dog whistle and made it okay for many Republicans to unleash their inner-racist at full volume. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham admits that about 40% of the G.O.P. are racist. Trump’s liberation of closet racists in the G.O.P. has actually helped his poll numbers in some early primary states, and he maintains a sizable lead in the first national poll taken since the policy was announced.
Second, it has created a sense of panic among the G.O.P. establishment over a “nightmare scenario” of Trump or Cruz. Trump would, apparently, end the G.O.P. as we know it. So in the past 24 hours, there have been reports that the G.O.P. leadership is making contingency plans for a brokered convention. This has further fueled speculation that there is a secret plan to nominate Mitt Romney. Ben Carson is so outraged (and has so misunderstood the brokered convention plans), that he is threatening to leave the G.O.P. Crazy.
And a Trump supporter speaks. https://t.co/HE6kvaEjU1
— deray mckesson (@deray) December 10, 2015
[I mean, things have gotten so freaking crazy that Sen. Ted Cruz has taken one last swallow, gotten off his knees and boldly (well…in a private meeting) questions Trump’s judgment. Trump, in turn, dares and then double-dares Cruz to take his best shot and orders him back to his knees.]
The Crazy has been working well for Trump (and Cruz and Carson to a lesser extent) in the primary. As a general election strategy, peddling fear and bigotry seems like a sure-losing strategy. It will take boatloads of money to help American’s forget this crazy primary before November. And even that may not be enough.
All they really ever had was their gownups. As far back as Nixon, the thing the GOP had going for them was the perception that somewhere behind a curtain stood a group of Nelson Rockefeller types who would prevent things from going too far. Someone to yank the leash. In recovering from Goldwater that idea would become one of the keys to the Republican brand.
Thanks to Trump, it’s Lord of the Flies time for the Republicans from here on out.
The ranting woman in the video is Rep. Susan DeLemus, a notorious Republican legislator and birther from New Hampshire who tried to keep President Obama off that state’s ballot in 2012 alleging his birth certificate is fake and he’s not a citizen. The fact nuts like her can get elected to public office is a testament to how many Republican voters are loose screws.
Bob Dole comes out and says Obama is a good guy and Trump and Cruz creeps to put it nicely (I’m sure he feels the same about Fuckabee and the others, but the list of people there is too long to call them all out for what they are).
Let’s hope there is some hope for the GOP.
Seems like the Teabaggers really brought this Party down.
Democrats seem to be a lot happier with their Party and government. But the Republicams seem to hate their Party and Govetnment. I wonder why? It can’t be that they are sick of their own bullshit? Can it be?
Even a far right France politician doesn’t have good words for Trump. This is what happens lunatics start to run the asylum.
They either wake up or forget about ever being in Power. Or if they ever get any power they’ll bring this Country down.
“First, it has “legitimized” open expression of bigotry and racism for a big chunk of the G.O.P. ”
I don’t know about that. Their stance on the Gays pretty much “legitimized” open expression of bigotry. It’s not like you ever hear the mainstream person come out say that what is said about gay people every day for the last eight years is pretty outrageous. Tell me that it isn’t acceptable and mainstream for the right wing to get away with tarnishing gay people.
Three presidential candidates attend a fund raiser where some pastor goes on a rant for 10 minutes about the bad gays and calls for their execution. And not many people talking about it. Not a peep. If the pastor were talking like that about blacks, Jews, Asians, Muslims, atheists, Mormons, etc, etc, etc. it would have been news.
That lady needs some of the medication that Puffy should be taking.
Seems like her husband, if she has one, has been dropping his ball sack right between her eyes.
The problem isn’t Republican candidates. The problem isn’t even the Republican electorate.
The problem is nearly half of the American citizenry finds the xenophobic imperialist and economically retarded ideas of the Republican field worth considering at all.
The arc of history may be long and bend toward justice, but sometimes tension improperly relieved causes historic catastrophic snaps.
Wherein Anand Giridharadas, by calling it “anxiety and longing” and a “less muzzled debate”, explains to us how Trump supporters really, really, really, neeeeeeed to think and feel incredibly racist shit.
I’m so fucking over this.
Here’s a thought: Instead of hand-wringing about the deep cultural forces at work here, why don’t we all just grow the fuck up and agree that shitting all over a fellow human being because they “aren’t exactly like you” is not gonna be okay anymore ever.
@3
“Bob Dole comes out and says Obama is a good guy and Trump and Cruz creeps to put it nicely (I’m sure he feels the same about Fuckabee and the others, but the list of people there is too long to call them all out for what they are).”
I always thought Dole would have made a great president. I think he was a much better choice than Clinton in ’96….not that Clinton was terrible, but I think Dole would have been better.
I would happily choose Clinton OR Dole over ANY of the shitty candidates running now…that goes for both parties.
“I always thought Dole would have made a great president.”
Dole would have made a fine president, possibly a great one. No diss on Clinton, I voted for him twice, but there might be an alternate time-line in a parallel universe where America is a better place and the world safer today for Bob Dole having won that election.
What is happening in Republican presidential politics can happen on the Democratic side as well, and may be playing out there just differently, The parties made a decision to be more democratic and for the conventions not to be brokered events. Which still could lead to there being a lot of ballots. Like over 100 when the Republicans went for Al Smith. Not very exciting TV, but the parties had the power, and candidates had to toe the line to be nominated.
It could be a long and nasty Republican primary season and gee it might actually matter who goes from Washington state to the convention. California’s primary may matter. The establishment may have to swallow having Trump as their candidate or Cruz as the conventions aren’t brokered, and the necessary tools aren’t there. They would have to bring back the brokered convention and reinvent the beast. Even then no one could become the nominee if they hadn’t participated in a primary or caucus and come out with delegates. Sorry there are no such things as wild card candidates.
The Republicans are in the news and that may help them in the long wrong.
And yes all this craziness and fun could happen on the Democratic side. If there is much truth in collusion between Hillary Clinton, and the current Chair of the party and others acting to benefit her candidacy in certain ways such as limiting the number of debates and who can participate is arguable worse than the political democratic process happening on and too the Republican’s.
Remember the founders of the United States didn’t entirely trust the people, didn’t like factions, and wrote a Constitution that guarded against the excesses of too much democracy or so they hoped.