If you're a Republican, especially one running for reelection this year, that sucks for you. But if you survive, remember: The political establishment won't hold you responsible for the head of your ticket in the future. If we weren't sure of that before, we can be sure of it now. Here's why:
[Steve] Bannon is anti-establishment, regularly railing against Democrats and mainstream Republicans....With this move, Trump has made it clear, even to the willfully blind do-you-think-he-still-might-pivot? crowd, that he's not going to try to be nice to the GOP Establishment. And that gets the GOP off the hook.
During a 2013 panel discussion about the future of conservatism, he said that a center-right populist movement would increasingly hammer the progressive left and the institutional Republican Party....
The New York Times reported in 2014 that Mr. Bannon was close friends with one of the campaign managers of Representative David Brat, Republican of Virginia, who that year shocked the political world by defeating Representative Eric Cantor, the House majority leader. Mr. Bannon’s hiring by the Trump campaign is very likely to irk Republican leaders like Senator Mitch McConnell and the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan. Breitbart News has dedicated plenty of headlines to promoting the views of Paul Nehlen, who was defeated by Mr. Ryan in the Wisconsin primary this month.
Once the dust has settled after Election Day, no one will blame the GOP for Trump. Not only will it be said that he hijacked the nomination process, it will be pointed out that he broke free of the party before Labor Day, and never looked back.
What this means is that the party cowards who never fought him and the invertebrates who loathed him but endorsed him will get a free pass. The political establishment will overlook their cowardice and remember only the fact that he ran his campaign in a way that was hostile to (in their view) the still-noble Grand Old Party. They'll say Trump was in the party but never of it, as the Bannon hire made that abundantly clear. So they'll put the blame for his loss (and other GOP losses) on him and his team alone, not on a GOP electorate that rallied to him or party elitists who wouldn't put up a fight against him (and who countenanced Trumpish hatemongering and know-nothingism from many other candidates and conservative media organizations before Trump declared his candidacy).
The Bannon hire reinforces the notion that Trump is a free agent, not a Republican. That'll be a blessing to the GOP in the future -- one that the GOP doesn't deserve.
12 comments:
I see the point to this post.
What I fail to see is how the GOP rises up from the flames.
Trump will still be the nom until another nom displaces him, and since Trump never leaves a buck on the table, crow-barring his tiny fingers off the party will be an ordeal.
The folks Trump and Trumpism brought out of the GOP closet and into greater prominence both publicly and within the GOP -
the disordered gun-addled trashy offspring of the same folks WF Buckley consigned to the sidelines -
now have not just a voice but are occupying GOP offices and hallways, much like the Bundy crew occupied the Malheur NWR
(except I fail to see any fed authorities to raid and arrest their asses and start grinding them down with indictments and guilty pleas).
The Republican party will still be the party of choice for angry white males, scared white oldsters, evangelicals & fundies, bigots, racists, xenophobes, reactionaries, the NRA, the Chamber of Commerce, the Koch bros & their class of industrial oligarchs, the hedge funders, the Wall Street banksters, the Wall Street Journal, nitwits, half-wits (AND METHODISTS!) - but I just see shrinkage, not growth.
The post-Trump GOP is going to look like Beirut, or worse: BBBEEENNNGGGHHHAAAZZZIII!!!
What makes you assume Bannon isn't in contact with Assange?
I have sort of wondered today if Trump deliberately picked a very objectionable person to replace Manafort, because any degree of outrage people might feel is a small price to pay for eclipsing discussion that the guy got millions of dollars from a Putin client, for who knows what. With Trump already having shown signs of being a tool of the Russian dictator, press coverage of that is potentially a hundred times more explosive that picking some schmuck from Breitbart to pretend to run his campaign.
Concur with Feud.
Angry Trumpkins will still be the party's base, they'll still be pissed at the GOP Establishment, and they'll be looking for Trump 2.0. ("New Trump"?)
Those Goopers who held their noses and voted for Hitlery, well ...
... they might find that she's not as bad as they thought.
Especially the young and the college-edicated.
The Dems don't need to detach a lot of voters from the GOP to cement long-term majority status, and demographics will continue to trend against "white nationalists", or whatever they're called these days.
A lot depends on how Hitlery fares as president.
Which in turn depends on whether the DemonCraps take the House and Senate.
(And as always a lot depends on externalities.)
Just as long as we are clear that we are talking about the demise of the national GOP. The state and local GOPs are not going anywhere and, in fact, it is the Democratic Party that has been been devastated in two mid-term elections in a row, which, in turn, enabled even more extreme gerrymandering. So, since the HOR will remain a solid right-wing extremist majority even if Hilz wins and the Senate flips back to the Democrats expect to see nothing happening legislatively for at least the next two years.
Ken Right - What difference does it make? Trump will go down on his own merit.
This means Right wing discourse will be controlled by this guy and Alex Jones. Rush and Roger are being pushed aside by a newer, crazier generation. What's going to be left of the old GOP is not going to be able to pretend this never happened, this is going to be the new normal. I don't know where the Chamber of Commerce types are going to go.
So...all of this to cover up, hide, deflect from Komarade Manafort and Comrade Putin being in kahoots with each other...and the carefully laid plans of using the economic ties, to black mail Trump, into being a Putie Puppet...I typed that with my best Alex Jones voice...and if true, well,??? What is next?
Damn, defending someone I'm not going to vote for, again: what does Assange have to do with it, dog-fucker?
If Assange had anything that could hurt Clinton we would have seen it by now. None of what we have seen has hurt her, it's a safe bet what may be left won't hurt her. Far the more likely there's plenty to release about Russia Lover Dumpf uck.
Is that what you are KenRat, a Russia Lover? A commie pinko faggot?
The GOP will get a free pass, but we always knew that. People who vote Republican but despise Trump will be happy to have their party "back," even if that means voting for Ryan. I mean, these people were never going to vote Democrat anyway, so it doesn't really make a difference.
What we will find out, however, is just how large Trump's diehard fanbase is. Meaning that if the GOP regains nominal control of their party and nominates another cheesy white guy smile in 2020, it remains to be seen whether the alt-right (or whatever the fuck those fuckers call themselves) falls in line or revolts again.
Craziest part of all this is that the GOP will have learned nothing from this entire experience. They can't disassociate themselves from the Trump train without completely changing their belief system, because ideologically they're nearly identical; they just use different language.
HIRING BANNON IS ALSO A WAY FOR TRUMP TO GET HIS HANDS ON MILLIONS OF CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS....HE WILL PAY BANNON 50 PLUS MILLION DOLLARS AND BANNON WILL KICK BACK HALF OF IT AFTER THE ELECTION....TRUMP IS IN IT FOR THE MONEY. HE IS NOT NEARLY AS RICH AS HE LETS ON...HOW MANY BILLIONAIRS DO YOU KNOW WHO HOCK STEAKS AND WATER AND ALL THE OTHER LOW TRASH HE SELLS.
@barneyfife: Manafort wouldn't launder money for Trump, you're saying? Are you sure?
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