The GOP establishment, still in denial

I'll give Peter Wehner some credit. This Reagan and double-Bush adviser writes in a NYT op-ed that GOP frontrunner Donald Trump is — these are Wehner's words — ignorant, emotionally unstable, demagogic, solipsistic, vindictive, legendarily narcissistic, as well as "disdainful of knowledge," "indifferent to facts," "untroubled by his benightedness," "erratic," "inconsistent" and, I think we got the point, "unprincipled."

Those are facts, and even for not indifferently laying them out I give Mr. Wehner little credit. Facts are facts. That for which I do give him immense credit is writing this: "I will not vote for Donald Trump if he wins the Republican nomination."

That declarative statement would seem to compellingly follow across the establishment board, would it not? — given that the entirety of the establishment brotherhood agrees that Trump is ignorant, emotionally unstable, etc., etc., and thus wholly unworthy of the White House? One would think yes, absolutely, no question.

Yet elite GOP yokel after elite GOP yokel — Jeb Bush comes relentlessly to mind — has pledged to support the nominated, erratic ignorance and consistent instability of Donald Trump. Last night, on "Hardball," former GOP governor and RNC chairman Haley Barbour said that's what he'll do — given that receiving unclassified documents in one's personal email system is far worse than Trump's "virulent combination" of flimflammery, as Wehner also puts it. Could the abject hollowness of "Country First" be any more vivid?

At least Peter Wehner says, Enough is enough. For that, I'll give him credit. Briskly subtracted from the balance sheet however is that Wehner, in an ahistorical and hideously delusional fog, also asserts that Trumpism is the product solely of Republican "antecedents" such as "Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaigns," "Sarah Palin’s rise in the party," and "the reckless rhetoric of some on the right like Ann Coulter."

True as those antecedents are, Wehner cannot or rather will not see that Trumpism is the far weightier product of Boss Gipper's supply-sided fantasies and fiscally likeminded W.'s militarily muscular witlessness. Ann Coulter didn't spawn Donald Trump; decades of mutating "establishment" recklessness did.

I also thank Mr. Wehner for brandishing — in the "liberal, left-wing" New York Times! to borrow some CruzSpeak — his unimpeachable opposition to Trump. For now the Donald has one more establishment figure to target as he goes about his populist pillaging of what's left of the Grand Old Party, which, years ago, itself abandoned its old-school principles.  

 

Comments

[Peter G]

Let us contemplate this bold statement from Mr Wehner's piece: "No major presidential candidate has ever been quite as disdainful of knowledge, as indifferent to facts, as untroubled by his benightedness." Sure there was and he was elected twice. I believe his brother is rumored to be running for the same office.

[Bob]

Wehner deserves to be nominated for the David Brooks Republican Ass Covering Award. If the GOP wants to keep any credibility at all it had better start covering its wizened white posterior by disclaiming Trump with all possible alacrity. Wehner is also something of a political opinion prestidigitator. He's just so darned indignant about the leading Republican No Good So And So he won't vote for him and will tell the world in the pages of the NYT. He will also not vote for Hillary Clinton, for he considers her an implied equal as an "ethical wreck".

Bullshit. Clinton is a mediocre, solidly centrist Democratic politician. Her mediocrity is so obvious that even people who should like her don't trust her. She is inauthentic and grating. However, she has never ripped off investors or played angry demagogue to racists and other bigots. Any sexual misbehavior she's associated with is not her own. Why should she be featured in Wehner's harangue?

[Turgidson]

Tribalism runs deep.

It's a similar impulse to the one I find among my (few) GOP-leaning acquaintances who have expressed dismay at the party's demented insanity. No matter how bad it gets, the Democrats are "even worse." Attempts to suss out how Democrats are "worse" are met with defensiveness, deflection and/or mention of some comparatively trivial incident involving a Democrat saying or doing something scandalous.

I think that deep down, the not-totally-batshit (but still vile and contemptible) GOP hacks like Wehner, Brooks, Gerson, Matthew Dowd, David Frum, and Ron "Severe Dementia" Fournier know that a Hillary Clinton presidency would suit them just fine. She'd govern from the center, probably be hemmed in from passing any big liberal bills by the Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver-led House, and be fairly business friendly. Now that Bill Clinton's presidency is long-over and their deranged, blinding hatred of him has found other outlets, they look back on his presidency and realize it was OK - basically a Democratic version of Eisenhower.

But hating Hillary and trying to bring her down is so deeply ingrained in their consciousness at this point that they loyally soldier on, comparing the email/Benghazi nothingburgers to Trump's protofascist batshittery as if they're equally ugly. They may even believe it, given their reflexive Hillary-hate. And besides, Democrats are always "even worse." Always.

[Neon Vincent]

You can go back to another Republican President, who was also elected twice. In this case, the son of his VP was also elected twice and another son is now running for the same office.

[Neon Vincent]

Fine, Wehner can stay home on election day or vote for the Libertarian candidate, should he (or maybe she) be on the ballot in his state in November. Either way, he's wouldn't be voting for Trump.

[Bob]

I can sort of understand that feeling in people my age, but not yours. The Democratic "solid South" was full of Civil War and federal government resenting extremists. LBJ turned Vietnam into a fiasco. There were lots of liberal Republicans. But in most ways the parties have completely changed sides over the past 40 years or so. Maybe some people your age get it from their parents if not from the propaganda outlets.

[Turgidson]

Yeah, I think parents are a source for some of these folks. For some others, I think it began as contrarianism - being surrounded by liberals in school and wanting to stand out - and became something they actually believed.

For one of these people, I managed to more or less coax him into acknowledging that his preferred policy outcomes were remarkably similar to the Democratic Party's current position on almost all of the issues of the day.

Didn't matter.

The Democrats being "even worse" was something he just KNEW. In his bones. He voted libertarian in that election. Despite not having any ideological common ground with them beyond legalizing drugs and not giving a shit about gay marriage.

[Bob]

And he'd get to keep his two-faced integrity by not voting for Hillary, who should be in a supermax prison according to a lot of wingnuts.

[Bob]

The Republicans *are* a lot better at propaganda. The Reagan flaks and speech writers used variations on the line "in your heart you know he's right" that they got from Goldwater's campaign slogan. I can remember once thinking about St. Ronald, yeah maybe he's OK, while totally sober. It wore off fast, but was unsettling. He struck me as not overly bright from the beginning.