The GOP Is Finally Emerging From Trump Denialism: But is it too late?

The New Republic ^ | November 25, 2015 | Brian Beutler, senior editor

[2ndDivisionVet]

The contours of the outsider-as-favorite Republican primary began to take shape this summer, when the candidates without establishment support, led by Donald Trump, consolidated half of the vote in national polls.

The news for GOP elites has grown consistently worse since then. And only now, as those contours stretch far enough to squeeze the establishment entirely out of contention, are the party faithful emerging from their state of Trump denial. They’re beginning to reckon publicly with the calamity of this campaign, and are grasping to reassert control over the process. The only questions now are whether they’re too late, and whether they can defeat Trumpism without acknowledging and atoning for their complicity in his ascent.

A few months ago, Trump and his fellow outsiders were a clear threat to the party, but it took several of them—Trump, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina—to amass 50 percent support, with Trump contributing the lion’s share.

Today, they eclipse it easily. In some early-state polls, Trump and Ted Cruz alone enjoy the support of more than half of all likely voters, while the outsiders combined enjoy the support of more than two thirds of all respondents.

This presents the GOP with a new nightmare scenario. Earlier in the year, Republicans could take solace in the likelihood that the field of elected officials would winnow and that the party would coalesce around a single alternative to the insurgents as it did in 2008 and 2012. They were sure it would come down to a frontrunner against two or three formidable conservative challengers who were splitting the activist vote among themselves.

That winnowing hasn’t happened. And now, if and when it does, it’s conceivable that the combined forces of the party will only be able to marshal about one-third or less of the overall vote—not enough to guarantee victory even if Trump and Cruz battle it out beyond Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. And even that assumes supporters of candidates like Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie don’t defect to Cruz or Trump instead of Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush.

Whether motivated by this particular analysis or not, party elites are snapping to attention. John Kasich’s SuperPAC is promising a multi-million-dollar anti-Trump blitz. A more concerted effort, spearheaded by GOP operative Liz Mair, is called Trump Card LLC, and operates on the premise that “unless something dramatic and unconventional is done, Trump will be the Republican nominee and Hillary Clinton will become president.”

Prominent surrogates for leading candidates have embraced the notion, first propounded by liberals, that Trump is a “fascist.” But the principals they back won’t go near the term. Some, like Rubio and Cruz, won’t criticize Trump at all, and Cruz in particular is a Trump sycophant—“a big fan.” Which raises the question of whether a party that enables Trump and Trumpism can effectively root out either.

Michael Gerson, a former George W. Bush aide who now writes an opinion column for the Washington Post, acknowledged that “Trump has, so far, set the terms of the primary debate and dragged other candidates in the direction of ethnic and religious exclusion. One effect has been the legitimization of even more extreme views—signaling that it is okay to give voice to sentiments and attitudes that, in previous times, people would have been too embarrassed to share in public.”

With the denial fading, Gerson asks, “Is it possible, and morally permissible, for economic and foreign policy conservatives, and for Republicans motivated by their faith, to share a coalition with the advocates of an increasingly raw and repugnant nativism?”

The answer appears to be “yes.” As much as they want Trump vanquished, the problem for the other Republicans in the field is that they’ve all pledged to back the GOP nominee, no matter who wins. John McCain, a man of the party who nevertheless agreed to place Sarah Palin in line for the presidency, says he will support Trump if faced with a choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton.

That’s not the Breitbart crew talking. It’s the RNC, the entire primary field, and one of the party’s most recent presidential nominees. Which is why when writers like National Review’s Kevin Williamson lay the blame for Trump’s ascent at the feet of conservative movement jesters Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, and shrug that nothing can be done—“as a matter of culture, Trump is—unhappily—right where a great many conservatives are: angry, sputtering, lashing out. Trump may not last; Trumpism will.”—it rings hollow.

As much as they’ve awakened to the threat that Trumpism poses to their party, Republicans and the conservative intelligentsia lack the self-awareness—or perhaps the temerity—to acknowledge that though they now resent it, they’ve been courting it all along.

[kvanbrunt2]

thx that made sense

[dalereed]

It's good to see even that super liberal rag is just about thrown in the towel and are going to accept a Trump mendicancy!!!!!

[Balding_Eagle]

He should have been knocked out weeks ago by his brash mis-speaks.

There is a lot of talk about Trumps mis-speaks.

I've watched nearly every speech he's given, and a lot of interviews.

I'll readily admit I'm biased to the extreme in his favor, and thus possibly blind to those mis-speaks.

But what are those words he shouldn't have said?

I have only heard words that should have been said.

They never give an example, so what are a couple?

[Lopeover]

Andy Jackson? I’m thinking Teddy Roosevelt.

[Russ]

Trump just might throw a monkey wrench into the GOPe third party plans by naming one of them as his running mate. It worked for Reagan when he put Bush on his ticket and it would work this time, too. The VP position (other than presiding over the senate) is mostly ceremonial anyway.

[BigEdLB]

Maybe. Rick Perry or Scott Walker?

[Renegade]

Trmp is the BEST thing that has happened to the GOP Party of WIMPS in the last 35 years.

[Renegade]

Teddy Roosevelt was a PROGRESSIVE!

[rrrod]

Best election cycle ever! If Trump wins the nom all hell is going to break out LOL.

[cookcounty]

"Best election cycle ever! If Trump wins the nom all hell is going to break out LOL.

You sound happy about going to hell. Why don't you just say "God damn America."

The same people boasting about Donald's GOP poll numbers are the same people that have nothing intelligent to say about the polls for the general election in which Trump is getting hi lunch handed to him by Hillary. For every 4 votes Trump is getting in those polls, Carson, Cruz and Rubio are pulling 5. That's a huge difference. It isn't as if "people will get to know Trump" and change their minds. He's already extremely well-known to the People Magazine crowd (aka "the Swing Vote") and they find him entertainingly despicable.

I am still waiting for someone to intelligently sketch out a path for Trump to improve enough to win the general election next fall.

If it's Trump against Hillary, she'll win in a landslide, unless she goes to jail, and the Obama administration will never prosecute her.

[rrrod]

nice try...now go drink some muslim vomit you idiot....you’re welcome.

[Lopeover]

Teddy Roosevelt beat the crony capitalists and their back room deals.

[Renegade]

But, he WAS a Progressive!

[Renegade]

Sound familiar? “In his landmark “New Nationalism” speech, delivered at Osawatomie, Kansas, in 1910, TR explained what this meant for property rights. In contrast to the Founders, who believed that the right to property was rooted in the natural right to the fruits of one’s labor, Roosevelt argued that the right to property could be justified only if it benefited the community, and the only way to benefit the community was to redistribute the wealth. “

[Lopeover]

Some reforms are beneficial in those times. And the Bull Moose Party as it was called, wasn’t communist/Marxist. Personally, I am glad he lead the way in putting forth regulations on food quality establishing the FDA. He loved the outdoors life, but was such a killer of animals I suspect Enironmentalists would loathe to claim him nowadays.

[Renegade]

I liked him also! Especially Speak softly and Carry a BIG stick!”Just sayin he was a progressive.

[Lopeover]

And I am saying it doesn’t have the meaning “progressive” has to day. But yes his party broke away from esrablidhment and were called progressives.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

If it's Trump against Hillary, she'll win in a landslide, unless she goes to jail, and the Obama administration will never prosecute her.

I think the answer to that question is, it’s early. Hillary is really dirty, and that cannot be hid under a bushel forever. Not only Benghazi, but also her sudden wealth.

As to the latter, there is - at least in a civics book sense, a way around the Obama Just Us department. Consider the following facts:

• “Liberals” are all in for CFR; Obama loves to whine about the Citizens United decision which limited McCain-Feingold, for example. And SCOTUS upheld it (5-4) on grounds that the loss of First Amendment freedom was (somehow) worth the so-called cleanliness of campaign finance it supposedly provides.

• Hillary announced that she and Bill were “dead broke” when they left the WH; now they command a quarter of a billion dollars. A lot of that money came from overseas, and some of it came from foreign governments.

• Article 1 Section 9:

  No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state

  Hillary was “holding an office of trust” under the US as senator (2003-2009) and Secretary of State (2009-2013). The Clintons were raking in the dough during that time and, launder it though they might, she was a principal in the partnership which is their marriage, and in the foundations which make those so-called charitable donations to their foundation nominally legit. It is transparently the case that “any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever” covers contributions to a foundation named after Clinton, which includes Hillary as a principal. And whether or not the foundation spent and spends its money on legit charitable operations is beside the point. Money contributed to the foundation cannot evade of any kind whatever. You cannot claim that McCain-Feingold is good law which needs to be better, and simultaneously claim that getting rich from foreign sources, some known to be foreign government sources, in view of seeking the office of President of the United States, is constitutionally legit.

• Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress

  Although traditionally (and in accord with Federal law which commits Congress to abide by the states’ choices in validating the results of the Electoral College), the people of each state vote for their state’s electors, constitutionally that is not even required at all. Thus, at a minimum, each state has control of the process by which the Electors are selected by the ballot, and SCOTUS has no writ to second guess questions of fairness even were it so inclined.

The conclusion is that each state has the authority, arguably the duty, to enforce against any presidential candidate the constitutional prohibition against accepting anything from foreign governments while being in federal employ. Each state should make it impractical, preferably impossible, for a violator to win its electoral votes. Each state should pass a law creating a cause of action against any presidential candidate, and in a civil suit prove by a mere preponderance of the evidence, that the candidate has been hoovering up illegitimate foreign money. The only penalty would be the inability to win the state’s electoral votes, which would be a civil penalty not requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Which Hillary Clinton has.

If that seems too onerous, you could penalize the miscreant by merely putting her line in the middle of the ballot while her opponent was on Line A. In which case no other candidate for any office would want to be on the same ticket with her . . .

[Luircin]

If you put THAT much trust in the polls, the most recent ones have Trump handily beating Hillary.

[windhover]

As the Grand Old Party emerged from the Whigs at a time of great national crisis; so we see an ,as yet unnamed, political reordering of the Body Politic going on at this moment of great national danger and upheaval. This has far less to do with Donald Trump as a politician and national rage, than an electorate that is in terror of losing control of their culture to enemies within and barbarians outside;but this time there are no gates. Americans have never felt this unprotected. I do not misspeak. Evan at the start of WW11 (which I remember) we were scared but fiercely determined to win, even when the outcome was unsure. The Civil War produce the unlikely candidacy of an uncultivated, shrill voiced, rude joke telling lawyer named Lincoln. The Depression and WW11 brought Roosevelt, and the ultimate disaster of Liberalism. Today after 83 years of liberalism, of our courts, our schools, the creation of ever expanding civil service,and a decadent popular culture , we now have a Marxist Socialist President, who has been “Fundamentally Changing America”.
The last 8 years have finally touched Americans as only the threat of losing your Nation and Culture can. Yes, It appears the “chickens have come home to roost” as they have for the electorate every 100 years or so. This has eluded our political pundits and campaign strategists. So It is far more than political anger and pay back involved. It has become a profound reshaping of the political order that will Elect Donald Trump President of the United States. As yet this political order has no name, and is now unlikely to be co-opted by either party. The Party that understands this first and joins it, will have the first opportunity to recognize and direct it.