Bruce Bartlett, writing for Politico Magazine:
As a moderate Republican who voted for Obama, I should be Donald Trump’s natural enemy. Instead, I’m rooting for him….
Trump’s nomination would give what’s left of the sane wing of the GOP a chance to reassert control in the wake of his inevitable defeat, because it would prove beyond doubt that the existing conservative coalition cannot win the presidency.
I endorse Bartlett's championing of Trump. The sane wing's only hope of party recontrol is indeed a "historic thrashing" of the "yahoo" crowd, as Bartlett puts it. Yet that hope, while more suitable to moderates than extreme despair, I suppose, is a tragically faint one. The Republican Party's primordial muck is too deep; that sucking sound we hear is the pseudoconservative swamp ruthlessly engorging the party body and soul.
As I see it, the cardinal flaw in Bartlett's analysis — an error I myself have committed for approximately a decade now — resides in his proposition that a Trump- or Trump-like implosion would "prove beyond doubt" that yahooism is a loser. But prove to whom? The yahoos? Nothing of any sanity has ever proved anything "beyond doubt" to that crowd. That's what makes them yahoos. Instill them with reason and logic and some rudimentary human intelligence and, presto, one un-yahoos them. That, however, is an act reserved only for divine intervention, and miracles have been somewhat short of late.
Prove, perhaps, to Bartlett & Co. that the "existing conservative coalition" can't retake the presidency? The moderate Bartletts — the sane crowd — already know that. Prove to non-Republicans and anti-Republicans that the coalition is doomed? They, of course, are of less influence on the GOP than GOP moderates are. Prove electoral catastrophe, maybe, to the right-wing noise machine? — prove it to the Fox Newsers and Limbaughs and Savages? Their profits rely on attack, not defense; hence those profits are far more secure with a Democrat in the White House. Better to cheer on a sure, yahoo-exciting loser than be stuck with defending another President Bush.
Another flaw in Bartlett's analysis is almost equally rude. Today's conservative coalition can't win the White House with the yahoos, but it also can't win without them. It can't win without the yahoo-infiltrated militarists, libertarians, holy rollers and racists, and it can't even win without the pure yahoos of no particular ideological bent (except that of unmitigated rage). The yahoos are an electorally indispensable element of the conservative coalition. And when one faction is indispensable, it's invulnerable. It must be pampered — see, e.g., Reince Priebus' rediscovered respect for Donald Trump.
The only way to vanquish Trump in the short run is to outTrump Trump, which is now a strategy in full bloom. The yahoos are everywhere, and their name is "Republican." There are Trumpian yahoos, there are Huckabeean yahoos, there are Cruzian yahoos and Walkerian yahoos and assorted Carsonesque, Jindalesque and Perryesque yahoos. Together they spell G-O-P.
The only way to vanquish Trumpism in the long run? Embrace it for now, as Bruce Bartlett has done. Hand it the keys to the party, which the yahoos have already done. Then, four or eight years hence, perhaps launch another party — a genuinely conservative party? Because this pseudoconservative one lies in the lethal, inextricable grip of the mucked yahoos.
Realizing that all you have said is true I nevertheless agree with Bartlett. So they ditch the yahoos, just tell them to fuck off, then they are, as you say, fucked themselves. That's not all they need to do is it? They need to swing their party back to much more centrist positions for that is the only place where the votes they lose can be replaced. This is obvious. And it is something that might take a decade or more. The yahoos won't disappear either. They might go to a third party which will eventually evaporate and many will trickle back to their Republican home to begin the cycle again.
But I beg you to notice the other feature that must happen if the Republicans are to survive as a party. They must regain control of the party which means they cannot continue to allow amateur billionaire politicos to fund every noisy halfwit with presidential ambitions. I very strongly suspect that a core of the saner faction hidden in the Republican party are going to become allies in campaign finance reform.
Posted by: Peter G | July 28, 2015 at 09:20 AM
Please define "sane" in the context of today's republican party. People are acting like the crazy things these candidates say is some new phenomenon on the right in an effort to out-Trump Trump and get some attention of their own to get on the debate stage. Well I believe that Mike Huckabee would have made his oven remark regardless of whether Donald Trump was in the race or not. Trump is just an act. Remember this field of candidates has always been known as a clown car long before the Donald threw his oversized hat into the ring. And candidates still kept jumping into it.
Posted by: Anne J | July 28, 2015 at 09:25 AM
Never was a name more appropriate than Trump. We do not even have to say they must out-Trump Trump. They must trump Trump or else they will be euchred.
Posted by: Peter G | July 28, 2015 at 09:30 AM
An interesting quote via Redstate that capture their problem nicely: "Paul is trying to take the approach he took with the government shutdown in 2013 and show he can work with Republican leaders at a time the base is at war with the leaders and vice versa."
The piece itself purports to be an analysis of why Rand Paul is getting nowhere fast. It ignores the fact that all the putative nominees are getting nowhere fast. But the point I wish to highlight is the perception on the fringe (and the same thing applies on the left as well) is the belief that their ideological intensity makes them the "base" of anything. They aren't. That's why they can't remove the leadership they despise. They are a noisy and annoying minority with delusions of majority status.
As an aside I have always wondered who hates Obama more, the hard right or the extreme "progressive" left. I've been reading both for years and to be honest I can't tell the difference most times.
Posted by: Peter G | July 28, 2015 at 09:43 AM
Yeah, at some point the party needs to stop catering to the nutjobs. They're in mortal fear of their base right now, and it's a prison they created for themselves after decades of nurturing and egging on this kind of dumbassery, culminating in Obama's election and their encouragement of all manner of paranoid delusion in response to him.
They need to cut the cord, but are scared to do it. They should probably just let the wackjobs pick the nominee this time and lose big, since none of the clowns in the car is likely to beat Hillary anyway. The saner (relative term) elements could then have an opening to take control when the pieces need to be picked up. This cycle they're in now of putting a superficially or temperamentally moderate face on extremist crackpottery with nominees like McCain, Mittens, and maybe Jeb, is just prolonging their (and our) agony.
As noted, the nutjobs might go third party in defiance. Then again, they might not, since the GOP base tends to pine for a leader to mindlessly follow. And even if they do, they'll fail and dutifully wander back into the tent when they remember that the choice is between a flawed but credible GOP candidate and perpetual godless commie librul Dem presidents.
But at some point they Band-Aid has to come off. The longer they wait, the worse it gets.
Posted by: Turgidson | July 28, 2015 at 12:31 PM
I think the hard right hates Obama more, as they are sincerely in their demented belief that he really hates America and is busy destroying the country from within.
The hard left hates him too, but they don't impute such heinous motives upon him (except when the subject turns to the drone campaign). But they do think he's a lying corporate sellout warmonger. There's just a difference in degree as to the amount of evil they attribute to him. They'll admit through gritted teeth, for example, that the ACA has done some good things, before lashing out at the fact that it's not single payer. To them, Obama is a bitter disappointment, a fraud, but not a singularly evil character.
It must be exhausting to be so angry all the time.
Posted by: Turgidson | July 28, 2015 at 12:37 PM
You're probably right. Sometimes you see commenters who decant the anti-Obama cant on one thread and applaud on the next. Sometimes they get very angry at right wing attacks on Obama, feeling that the right wing hates Obama for all the wrong reasons. That plus they don't want to see anyone else whipping their dog. It's their privilege.
Posted by: Peter G | July 28, 2015 at 01:48 PM