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“The process by which the Republican Party went from shunning Trump to embracing him and his authoritarian, anti-democratic rhetoric happened steadily and stunningly. Trump’s second rise to power is a metaphor for everything that is wrong with the Republican Party. Trump didn’t reclaim the Republican Party by force. Instead, party leaders handed it to him out of cynical convenience and pure cowardice.”
“The concept of strength is the axis on which Republican politics has long rotated. Every Republican political campaign is about portraying the GOPer as strong and the Democrat as weak. This is why so much hay was made of Michael Dukakis’s tank photo op. Republicans worked hard to undermine John Kerry’s military service, and pushed false narratives about the health and cognitive abilities of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. … The type of strength and how it is used is irrelevant. When strength at all costs is emphasized at the expense of empathy, compassion, and morals, Putin can become the ideal leader for a morally bankrupt political party.”
“In the end, the State of the Union is just a speech. The impact is often overstated and the politics over-analyzed. But the speech given by the President last night tells me he and his team understand the cause of their political problems and have a plan to address them.”
