Time to salute Robert Kagan. I do not share his ideology but I can recognize a patriot writing in Trump is the GOP’s Frankenstein Monster. Read it all, savor the historical allusions, but here’s the takeaway:
We are supposed to believe that Trump’s legion of “angry” people are angry about wage stagnation. No, they are angry about all the things Republicans have told them to be angry about these past 7½ years, and it has been Trump’s good fortune to be the guy to sweep them up and become their standard-bearer. He is the Napoleon who has harvested the fruit of the revolution.
There has been much second-guessing lately. Why didn’t party leaders stand up and try to stop Trump earlier, while there was still time? But how could they have? Trump was feeding off forces in the party they had helped nurture and that they hoped to ride into power. Some of those Republican leaders and pundits now calling for a counterrevolution against Trump were not so long ago welcoming his contribution to the debate. The politicians running against him and now facing oblivion were loath to attack him before because they feared alienating his supporters. Instead, they attacked one another, clawing at each other’s faces as they one by one slipped over the cliff. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie got his last deadly lick in just before he plummeted — at Trump? No, at Rubio. (And now, as his final service to party and nation, he has endorsed Trump.) Jeb Bush spent millions upon millions in his hopeless race, but against whom? Not Trump.
So what to do now? The Republicans’ creation will soon be let loose on the land, leaving to others the job the party failed to carry out. For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be.
We need more like this.
PS. Has the GOP rehabilitated David Frum yet?
The problem isn’t Trump, its BOTH parties.
The GOP effectively put forth nobody (despite the appearance of legions running). Out of all the long-term Congressional possibilities, the only two willing to run were a first-term outcast who nobody in Congress likes anyway because he dislikes them, and a brown-nosing first-term Student Council style candidate that is clearly flipping his wig these days because someone called him a poopy-head.
The Governors don’t matter. The GOP establishment has no control over them, and they have no chance anyway. Kasich might make a good VP, but there’s nobody in that field that has any worth at all.
On the Dem side, they COMPLETELY gave up for fear of what Bill Clinton would unleash on them if they opposed his wife. There’s qualified Dems in Congress with decades of experience, yet NONE of them would challenge Hillary and piss off Bill. (We’ll get to Bernie) Bill Clinton still controls the party and he’s not going to even give them the CHANCE to do what they did to Hillary last time around, when she won, but lost the nomination.
(As an aside, somebody needs to do a complete review of what will legally happen if Hillary is actually both a candidate/Nominee and under indictment for major felonies like violations of the Espionage Act, and running a Pay-for-play State Dept., among other major crimes. Can a felon even BE President – what with security clearances and all? Can the Party refuse her the ticket at the last moment and effectively do a last minute write in? Or do the States, most of which are Republican in Governance have final say in this…? This is GOING to matter, whistling past the graveyard or not. This is either going to be Obama’s Watergate, or she will be under a major indictment for her actions – and I think we know what Obama will pick there…)
So into the complete and utter vacuum of the Parties, ride Trump and Sanders. Trump is there because people like celebrity. They LOVE outspoken celebrity. Who cares what that guy Kasich has to say when you have Trump “firing” Rubio and making him practically cry on stage! Seriously, Trump is just the celebrity placeholder for America’s need for famous people being bad. It could just as well have been any other celebrity willing to publicly call people out. He’s getting the votes because he’s famous. That’s IT. The biggest fear of a Trump Presidency is not him doing something stupid, but him getting quickly bored with the job and quitting six months in.
Then there’s Sanders. A Socialist who doesn’t seem to actually understand what Socialism even is, based on what he calls Socialism and what he calls not-Socialism. He’s a crackpot, whose constituency either understands it as vaguely as he does, or who are too young to remember reality when Communism was still King in half the world. He’s the leftovers you get when everyone else has been forbidden to run by their Party heads. He’s running only because nobody can stop him (just like Trump). And he’s only getting beat so far because of Bill’s awesome power to wield the Democratic power-base against him.
This is the election featuring only people who can’t really be President. You have a celebrity running against party outcasts -vs- A confused old man and someone who has a good chance of running part of her campaign while under indictment for multiple major felonies (and who MAYBE, wouldn’t be allowed to keep the job, even if she won it).
The BAD part is that, like it or not, one of these cretins WILL be President. While Congress will not cooperate with any of them, and their Presidency will have no meaningful effect legislatively, the chances are good that there will be a number of SCUTUS and Fed Court nominee positions to deal with. Since the Parties now rule through the Courts instead of Congress, this matters. There just is no good way out this time.
This election is over already if getting good government is your goal. The only Government we’re getting out of this is one that will not upset the money cart being driven by the Washington establishment of both parties. This election tells you how seriously they REALLY take elections – not at all, so long as they stay in place.