Morning Reading - Trump And The Republicans

As the slow- rolling disaster that is the regime of neo- fascist nitwit Donald "Rump" Trump picks up speed as it heads toward its ultimate fate, some thoughts on where we are right now (our emphasis throughout):

Conservative Paul Wehner on the Crackpot- in- Chief:

“We have as president a man who is erratic, vindictive, volatile, obsessive, a chronic liar, and prone to believe in conspiracy theories,” said conservative commentator Peter Wehner, who was the top policy strategist in George W. Bush’s White House. “And you can count on the fact that there will be more to come, since when people like Donald Trump gain power they become less, not more, restrained.” 

Who or what's feeding the lunacy?

Stephen K. Bannon, the White House chief strategist who once ran Breitbart, has spoken with Trump at length about his view that the “deep state” is a direct threat to his presidency. 

Advisers pointed to Bannon’s frequent closed-door guidance on the topic and Trump’s agreement as a fundamental way of understanding the president’s behavior and his willingness to confront the intelligence community — and said that when Bannon spoke recently about the “deconstruction of the administrative state,” he was also alluding to his aim of rupturing the intelligence community and its influence on the U.S. national security and ­foreign policy consensus.

But, it's not just Rump. Paul Krugman on a party unfit to govern:

"[T]he broader Republican quagmire — the party’s failure so far to make significant progress toward any of its policy promises — isn’t just about Mr. Trump’s inadequacies. The whole party, it turns out, has been faking it for years. Its leaders’ rhetoric was empty; they have no idea how to turn their slogans into actual legislation, because they’ve never bothered to understand how anything important works." 

David Letterman offers his thoughts:

“We don’t need more confirmation that there’s something wrong with Donald Trump,” he said. “Let’s instead find ways to rebuild what is rational. And the Democrats, goddamn it, get a little backbone, get a little spine.” 

It will take courage -- heretofore unseen -- in our political leadership to move this process through to its conclusion. We can do our part as citizens to bolster the resolve of our elected officials to "do your job," to save our country from the darkness that's unfolding around us. But, remember, in the end it's about organizing, registering and voting. The problem goes beyond Rump; the problem is that power has been vested in a political party that has no plan except to afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable -- and so far, fortunately, they can't even figure out how to do that efficiently.

(Image: The General Chaos goes down.)

"A Steep Electoral Price Must Be Paid" By The Republican Party

E.J. Dionne, Jr., has an epic takedown of some of the people that gave us neo- fascist misogynist demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump (as always, the entire piece is a good read):

What is truly shocking is that Donald Trump’s Republican enablers are shocked. [snip] 

... Only political opportunism allowed leading Republicans — from House Speaker Paul D. Ryan to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on down — to pretend that Trump was an acceptable presidential nominee. 

Indeed, it should offend and enrage Mexican Americans, African Americans, American Muslims and everyone else Trump has attacked that none of these prior offenses had turned the Republican establishment away. 

Birtherism? No problem. The verbal assaults on the Gold Star Khan family? Bad, but not enough to justify rescinding endorsements. Mexicans as “rapists”? This was just “that Mexican thing,” explained Mike Pence. The trashing of a former Miss Universe for gaining weight? We can get by that, too, they decided.  

Maybe the Republicans who are now oh-so-outraged and are pulling their endorsements have done their political calculations. They figured that they could write off African Americans, Muslims and Latinos, but could not possibly offend all women, too. Perhaps they remembered the things they have said about “family values” and the importance of “character” and realized they just couldn’t roll with this one.  [snip] 

As for character, the brave and good Republicans of the Never Trump movement have been citing chapter and verse about what a horrific man this is — someone who walked away from his debts, often failed to pay the people who worked for him, demeaned John McCain because he was a prisoner of war, and gleefully gave his opponents belittling nicknames.  [snip]

There must be accountability here for an entire party that was complicit in the rise of Donald Trump and tried desperately to pretend that he was fit for our nation’s highest office. 

The Never Trump movement tried to block Trump, but its champions were resisted by the GOP hierarchy. Priebus actively pushed back against efforts to derail Trump at the national convention. The supply-siders were bought off with his tax cuts. The congressional leadership just wanted to hold the House and Senate and were willing to prop Trump up to minimize the damage he could cause. 

This is the most shameful episode in the history of the party that gave our nation Abraham Lincoln. A steep electoral price must be paid to jolt Republicans into a period of reform, renewal and, yes, repentance.  (our emphasis)

Well, of course, those Republican enablers aren't shocked that they've nominated a monster. They were furiously whistling past the graveyard in the hope that somehow, someway there wouldn't be a catastrophic recording or video or tax return, and that they could throw up enough misdirecting chaff to get through November 8. As Dionne says, it was only political opportunism that led these lemmings to enable this "thing" to be their party's standard bearer. They saw a frothing base of "poorly educated" (h/t Rump) people, whose anger had been successfully misdirected at people who weren't like them, that could still be harnessed for one more win at the polls.  But, as Rump's poll numbers dropped over the past 2 weeks, it has now become easier to abandon him in the hopes of now saving as many of those same Republican lemmings as possible.

What's missing here?  The seminal role of a right- wing media that has been sowing the seeds for Rump for the past 40 years, stoking the racism, sexism, xenophobia, and sense of grievance and loss in a population looking for excuses and someone to blame for every ding or misfortune, real or perceived, that ever happened in their lives.

As far as an electoral pounding that would "jolt Republicans into a period of reform, renewal and, yes, repentance," we can confidently predict, based on past performance (see "Republican autopsy, circa 2012"), that that epiphany will never, ever happen -- just ask Reince "Prepuce" Priebus.

BONUS:  Frequent blind squirrel Dana Milbank has gone to the trouble of listing the many disqualifying remarks Rump's made about women, remarks that Rump's Republican enablers were surely aware of at the time.

BONUS II:  If a price is to be paid by Republicans, the frothing Republican base can't be expected to join in.  It's up to the rest of us.

BONUS III:  Stormtrumpers stick with their boy.

BONUS IV:  D.R. Tucker agrees, there'll be no "reform" or "renewal" for this collection of deplorables known as the Republican Party.

BONUS V:  Charles P. Pierce on Rump as the culmination of 40 years of Republicanism.

Sunday Reflection

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Post-Apocalypse Rethuglican Paranoid Syndrome

"He's [Obama] trying to destroy the Republican party, not to get good policies." -- Rep. Raul Labrador (Tea Party-IDiot).  Actually, Republicans are doing a damn good job of destroying the Republican Party without any help from Democrats or Obama.

“So [Obama’s] looking to immigration, he’s looking to carbon taxes and other stuff in the future. If he can split the Republicans in the House, essentially, he regains control of the two houses of Congress and he might be able to enact his agenda. I think that’s what he’s up to." --  right-wing Obama Derangement Syndrome sufferer Charles "Kraphammer" Krauthammer.  Obama might be "up to" enacting his agenda.  Hmmm.  What a curious thing for a twice-elected president to do, Inspector Kraphammer!

Look for more of this "them and us", "hang together or hang separately" messaging coming out of parts of the fractured New Confederate/ Rethuglican/ Stupid Party.  You can almost smell the desperation.