Thursday, July 11, 2024

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL: TRUMP IS BAD -- BUT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS AWESOME!

The New York Times has just published a long editorial under the headline "Donald Trump Is Not Fit to Lead." The editorial is clearly the ed board's way of issuing this response to critics who've objected to the paper's endless discussion of Joe Biden's age: "There, we denounced Trump too -- are you satisfied now?" Henceforth, the ed board will tell these critics that it already checked that box, even as it continues its relentless criticism of Biden (and shifts its focus to attacking Biden's replacement, if there is one).

The ed board called for Biden to leave the race less than 24 hours after the June 27 debate; notably, this editorial doesn't say that Trump should step aside or be replaced as his party's nominee. That's defensible -- obviously, Trump isn't going anywhere, while Biden might be persuaded to step aside. But the ed board could have made the recommendation anyway, in the interests of parity.

But what's really striking about the editorial -- although it's not surprising at all, given the tone of mainstream media coverage since the Reagan era -- is the fact that its message is "Republicans have an awesome party, and it's really a shame that that Trump fellow came along to ruin it." Many Republicans are trotted out as examples of the party's awesomeness, though, notably -- although the editorial never notes it -- all are dead or estranged from the GOP.

According to the Times ed board, the Republican Party has long been a force for good:
For more than two decades, large majorities of Americans have said they are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, and the post-Covid era of stubborn inflation, high interest rates, social division and political stagnation has left many voters even more frustrated and despondent.

The Republican Party once pursued electoral power in service to solutions for such problems, to building “the shining city on a hill,” as Ronald Reagan liked to say. Its vision of the United States — embodied in principled public servants like George H.W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney — was rooted in the values of freedom, sacrifice, individual responsibility and the common good. The party’s conception of those values was reflected in its longstanding conservative policy agenda....
This is odd because later, in a section titled "The Rule of Law," we're told:
As divided as America is, people across the political spectrum generally recoil from rigged rules, favoritism, self-dealing and abuse of power.
And yet a Supreme Court controlled by Republican appointees has declared all of these things legal. And then we're told:
So much in the past two decades has tested these norms in our society — the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses, the failures that led to the 2008 financial crisis and the recession that followed, the pandemic and all the fractures and inequities that it revealed.
All of these things happened under Republican presidents, and only the pandemic happened under the president this editorial describes as uniquely dangerous. Yet according to the ed board, the GOP should still be seen as a party of values, vision, and responsible stewardship.

Over and over again, the editorial praises Republicans:
Republican presidents and presidential candidates have used their leadership at critical moments to set a tone for society to live up to. Mr. Reagan faced down totalitarianism in the 1980s, appointed the first woman to the Supreme Court and worked with Democrats on bipartisan tax and immigration reforms. George H.W. Bush signed the Americans With Disabilities Act and decisively defended an ally, Kuwait, against Iraqi aggression. George W. Bush, for all his failures after Sept. 11, did not stoke hate against or demonize Muslims or Islam.

As a candidate during the 2008 race, Mr. McCain spoke out when his fellow conservatives spread lies about his opponent, Barack Obama. Mr. Romney was willing to sacrifice his standing and influence in the party he once represented as a presidential nominee, by boldly calling out Mr. Trump’s failings and voting for his removal from office.

... When Mr. Trump wanted an end to Obamacare, a single Republican senator, Mr. McCain, saved it, preserving health care for millions of Americans. Mr. Trump demanded that James Comey, his F.B.I. director, pledge loyalty to him and end an investigation into a political ally; Mr. Comey refused.

... As Mr. Comey, a longtime Republican, wrote in a 2019 guest essay for Times Opinion, “Accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary to survive Mr. Trump and that adds up to something they will never recover from.” Very few who serve under him can avoid this fate “because Mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites,” Mr. Comey wrote.

... During the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump’s petty attacks on his opponents and their families led many Republicans to conclude that he lacked such character. Other Republicans, including those who supported the former president’s policies in office, say they can no longer in good conscience back him for the presidency. “It’s a job that requires the kind of character he just doesn’t have,” Paul Ryan, a former Republican House speaker, said of Mr. Trump in May.

... Bill Barr, whom Mr. Trump appointed as attorney general, said of him, “He will always put his own interest and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country’s interest.” ...

Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s vice president, has disavowed him. No other vice president in modern American history has done this. “I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” Mr. Pence has said. “And anyone who asked someone else to put them over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again.”
Not a single Democrat is cited in this editorial. I understand that that's the point -- the ed board members, if you asked them about this, would say, "We're making the point that even Trump's fellow Republicans know he's unfit" (though no Republican in good standing dares to say that). But this is also a sign that the Times ed board agrees with the Republican Party's decades-long campaign to "other" Democrats. Our politcal culture accepts the GOP's assertion that Democrats aren't really Americans -- that's why special counsels are always Republican, whether the investigated person is a Republican or a Democrat. (Everyone who's investigated needs to be investigated by a member of the "normal" party.) That's also why we're already hearing calls for a "unity ticket" if President Biden steps aside:


(On one of the most important issues to Democrats, I'll remind you that Liz Cheney had a 0% rating from NARAL in her last House term, and a 93% rating from the National Right to Life Committee. Yet she should be the running mate of one of the party's most forceful champions of reproductive rights because the alternative is a ticket with two Democrats.)

To sum up, the Times ed board rejects the notion that any Democrat can be a moral witness respected by all decent people (does no Democrat fit that bill? Barack Obama? Jimmy Carter?) while arguing that the Republican Party was a moral force for good until the Trump era, Abu Ghraib and the Lehman collapse notwithstanding. This thesis ignores the GOP forces that were poisoning our politics long before Trump entered politics: Fox News; religious, political, and conspiratorial talk radio; the Federalist Society; the Koch network. There are toxic figures who'll continue poisoning American politics for decades even if Trump dies tomorrow: Christopher Rufo, Chaya Raichik, Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, and many others. Independently of Trump, Republicans in red and purple states are drastically curtailing reproductive health care, terrorizing teachers and librarians, Christianizing public schools, demonizing trans people, kidnapping border crossers, banning mask-wearing even as COVID persists and bird flu looms, overriding local ordinances that raise minimum wages and regulate guns, and so on. This isn't Trumpism -- it's mainstream Republicanism. The party has been headed this way for many years.

So let's not give the Times ed board too much credit for this editorial. The paper still doesn't really understand the danger America is in.

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