How will the DEGOP “establishment” react to the Trump nomination?
The word establishment above is enclosed in quotes, because like “narwhals” I don’t know if the “DEGOP establishment” is a real thing. In the past I’ve used, “Charlie Copeland, Dave Burris, and Ken Simpler” to personify the term establishment, but who knows? Rather than a rhetorical device, I may have accidentally hit the bulls-eye and actually named the DEGOP establishment’s last remaining members? That would be weird.
But, questions of cryptozoology aside, supposing “the DEGOP establishment” is a real thing, and that there are more than three remaining members, I can’t help wondering how they will react when Donald Trump becomes their party’s presidential candidate. My sense is that they will meekly fall in line and discover that Trump is actually pretty good. It will take some rationalizing, and McGyver like defusing of some cognitive dissonance, but Republicans are well practiced at living with the nonsensical as if it was sensical. How else can they still be in favor of tax cuts as an economic policy, right?
Anyway, it seems David Brooks has also been wondering what is going happen to the last remaining sober, reasonable Republicans. First he outlines the problem:
Very few presidents are so terrible that they genuinely endanger their own nation, but Trump and Cruz would go there and beyond. Trump is a solipsistic branding genius whose “policies” have no contact with Planet Earth and who would be incapable of organizing a coalition, domestic or foreign.
Cruz would be as universally off-putting as he has been in all his workplaces. He’s always been good at tearing things down but incompetent when it comes to putting things together.
Then he comes up with a long-shot solution:
There’s a silent majority of hopeful, practical, programmatic Republicans […] Please don’t go quietly and pathetically into the night.
Will they put up a fight, or will they go quietly into the night? I know what side I’ll be betting on.
Any support for the GOP nominee will be a declaration of their own racism, bigotry and fascism. Any support of Trump will signal your personal desire to eliminate all Muslims and Mexicans and other non-white peoples living in America.
I’d be amused if it wasn’t for the lingering fear that one of those idiots could actually become president. I know, it’s a long shot, but W. was reelected when it didn’t seem possible for many on the left to fathom it. While part of me is cheering this on because I think either Democrat could easily win, part of me wants for it least to be a competition between people who won’t destroy our country if they win.
MikeM- -I am so down with that sentiment. The Partisan in me wants to destroy Trump (or Cruz) in general – but the American in me doesn’t want people like that even that close to the levers of power.
It’s possible GOP will back either Trump/Cruz because they could not fathom Sanders/HRC being that close to the levers of power.
That’s exactly the type of nonsensical rationalization I was talking about.
My favorite diatribe from the GOP talking heads goes something like this:
Interviewer: Do you agree with the policies Mr. Trump is proposing?
GOP: Frankly we find some of them to be the most offensive ideas ever proposed, they don’t reflect the American values our service men and women fight and die to protect every single day. His policy proposals are simply Un-American.
Interviewer: Given that, should Trump become the Republican nominee, will you support him as he runs for the presidency?
GOP: We will support the Republican nominee no matter who it is.
Remember when the RNC made all the candidates pledge to support the Republican nominee? LOL
Right, it’s like supporting HRC because she has a better chance of winning even though you like Sanders better.
Reductio ad absurdum.