Tag: GOP in Trouble

Brooks: Angry at Republicans Who Gave Away Their Party’s ‘Sacred Inheritance’

Buck Banks

The Sanders people have 90 percent of the Democratic Party’s passion and 95 percent of the ideas. Most Sanders people are kind- and open-hearted, but there is a core that is corrupted by moral preening, an uncompromising absolutism and a paranoid unwillingness to play by the rules of civic life. … But the extremist fringe that threatens to take over the Democratic Party seems less menacing than the lunatic fringe that has already taken over the Republican one. … This week I left the arena here each night burning with indignation at Mike Pence. I almost don’t blame Trump. He is a morally untethered, spiritually vacuous man who appears haunted by multiple personality disorders. It is the ‘sane’ and ‘reasonable’ Republicans who deserve the shame — the ones who stood silently by, or worse, while Donald Trump gave away their party’s sacred inheritance.

— David Brooks

Flake: Anti-Hillary Chants Didn’t Help GOP Cause

Buck Banks

I had a bit of trouble with some of the chants, the ‘lock her up’ and what not. I don’t think that that, while it certainly appeals inside to that room, it doesn’t appeal much on the outside.

— Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), telling WGN-AM that chants of “lock her up” at the Republican National Convention hurt the party’s case against Hillary Clinton.

Trump Represents a Three-Decade Decline of the GOP

Buck Banks

Trumpism may have parallels in populist, nativist movements abroad, but it is also the culmination of a proud political party’s steady descent into a deeply destructive and dysfunctional state. … While that descent has been underway for a long time, it has accelerated its pace in recent years. We noted four years ago the dysfunction of the Republican Party, arguing that its obstructionism, anti-intellectualism, and attacks on American institutions were making responsible governance impossible. The rise of Trump completes the script, confirming our thesis in explicit fashion.

— Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann, on Vox.

Gingrich Advocates a New House Un-American Activities Committee

Buck Banks

Let me go a step further, because remember, San Bernardino, Fort Hood, and Orlando involve American citizens. We’re going to ultimately declare a war on Islamic supremacists and we’re going to say, if you pledge allegiance to ISIS, you are a traitor and you have lost your citizenship. And we’re going take much tougher positions. In the late 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt was faced with Nazi penetration in the United States. We originally created the House Un-American Activities Committee to go after Nazis. We passed several laws in 1938 and 1939 to go after Nazis and we made it illegal to help the Nazis. We’re going to presently have to go take the similar steps here.

— Newt Gingrich, in an interview on Fox News.

Trump Is Winning the ‘Third Major Revolution in the Republican Party Since WW II’

Buck Banks

“The minute-to-minute coverage of the 2016 presidential primaries threatens to obscure the larger story: While Sen. Bernie Sanders is pressing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to move further and faster down the progressive road, Donald Trump is waging and winning the third major revolution in the Republican Party since World War II. … Mr. Trump’s candidacy has showed that the cadre of genuine social conservatives is smaller than long assumed, that grass-roots Republican support for large military commitments in the Middle East has withered, and that the business community is politically homeless. … So it has come to this: A mercantilist isolationist is the odds-on favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination.

— William Galston, The Wall Street Journal