There are those, like Jeb Bush, who say that Donald Trump is a Democratic plant, an operative sent from the Clinton Machine to disrupt the Republican Primary. If that is the case, it is the most ingenious idea and plan to ever be considered and implemented in the history of politics, in this country and in all countries, for all time. In fact, if that conspiracy theory is true, then we should just install Bill and Hillary as Emperors for Life, because they will have deserved it. Just kidding.
The theory that Trump is a plant prevails among some because he is making the Republican look and sound bad. And if all he were doing was running and saying the bigoted and fascist things he says without any support, and with all the “true” Republicans candidates and officials disagreeing with him and denouncing him, I would agree.
But that is not what is happening, is it? Trump averages around 25%-35% support in the Republican Primary. Why?
Donald Trump is standing on a platform of hate that the Republican Party built for him.
— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) December 8, 2015
Because the GOP as a party has been cultivating white resentment, racism and hate for years, if not decades, since the Civil Rights movement in the 60’s. As Harry Reid says, the Republican Party has built a platform of hate, discrimination and resentment, so they cannot now be upset that Trump is using that platform. Republicans cannot now act surprised that some of the Republican primary vote is comprised of outright racists and bigots.
Donald Trump is not a plant. He is a gift.
For decades, liberals and Democrats have said that the Republican Party, or at the very least, a very significant portion of the party, is comprised of racists, bigots, and fascists. Liberals have finally been proven right. Because of Donald Trump. That is one of the reasons why he is a gift.
On the left, the view that Republicans allowed the conservative grassroots to turn their party into a political action committee for white ressentiment has evolved over the years from an argument into a creed. Since at least 2012, liberals have been warning (at times mockingly, but never disingenuously) that by indulging and at times fanning the hostilities and procedural extremism of this part of their coalition, Republicans were letting expediency get the better of them.
When large swaths of the conservative movement resisted the notion that the GOP needed to widen its appeal to minorities, and could win by appealing to a broader base of whites, it was liberals who warned that these voters would drag the party into a racial abyss.
Trump is the fulfillment of that prophecy. Better than any Republican candidate in recent memory, he intuits the mood of the disaffected Republican electorate. Or rather, because he’s almost entirely uninterested in straddling party factions, he gives voice to their paranoia and racism without massaging it the way the pretenders to his lead do. It’s possible to imagine a more traditional politician, like Ted Cruz, taking up Trump’s mantle without ever making Reince Priebus or House Speaker Paul Ryan angry, but their platforms would look practically identical.
Donald Trump is a gift because, finally, the Establishment of the GOP can no longer bullshit. Either they embrace the racism, bigotry and fascism of Donald Trump, or they don’t. Finally, the media is seeing the racism, bigotry and fascism for what it really is, rather than pretending that “both sides do it.” So either they embrace it, and embrace Trump, or they reject it, reject Trump, and tell his racist and fascist followers to go elsewhere.
Are they doing that yet?
No. Most definitely not.
Oh, sure, Speaker Ryan “boldly” denounced Donald Trump, saying that Trump’s racism and fascism was not conservatism. But then he said, paraphrasing here, that he will be sure to support the racist and fascist Trump should he be the nominee.
The Establishment is still trying to have its cake and eat it too. It is still trying to bullshit. To walk that fine line where they appear respectable while still conning the fascists and racists into supporting them.
The White House yesterday had much fun painting the entire Republican party into a corner. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that Trump is “disqualified” to be president based on comments about banning Muslims from entering the United States. And then he went further.
Said Ernest: “I think the question for other candidates for president is simply this, do they have the courage of their convictions to simply stand up to Mr. Trump’s supporters and say that they’re going to side with the constitution over Mr. Trump even if Mr. Trump is the Republican nominee?”
He added: “If they don’t have that much courage, if they are so cowed by Mr. Trump and his supporters that they are not willing to stand by the values enshrined in the constitution, than they have no business serving the president of United States themselves.”
Exactly.
Aside from Lindsay Graham, there are no Republicans out there willing to divorce Trump and his supporters. They cannot bring themselves to say “Trump and his followers can go fuck themselves because I will not vote for him if he is our nominee.”
They cannot do it because they know that Donald Trump is the perfect representation of the Republican Party to ever exist. Think about it. Frank Vyan Walton at Daily Kos:
Loud. Brash. Rude. Pig Ignorant. Neo-Fascist. Billionaire Skinflint. Racist as a mack truck with Confederate mud flaps. Generally these would be considered character flaws and completely disqualifying traits for someone who aspired to run a Dairy Queen, let alone the free world and the most powerful economy and military on earth. Not so with Donald John Trump.
He regurgitates bigoted conspiracy theories and lies like he has them on a permanent loop, yet his supporters do not recoil, they do not feel embarrassed, or shamed by many, many, many gaffes and outright lies that come flying out of his bilious pie-hole at just under sub light speed.
His fans feel validated by him. They feel that they finally and at long last have found the perfect candidate for them. One who “tells it like it is,” and gives a completely unrepentant verbalization to every paranoid delusion generated by the voices in their own heads.Donald Trump is the candidate for unrestrained GOP id. He’s exactly the candidate that the GOP has needed to run for many years, and he’s exactly the candidate that country needs to see finally go down in golden flames before it begins to break the fever swamp dreams that have bogged our politics down to a dead stop for just as long.
Donald Trump is the Republican Party. But Republicans are too cowardly either to admit or deny it.
But that matters not, because we can do that for them:
