Sunday, October 09, 2016

Trump the good Republican

Despite the melodramatic meltdown of the current GOP nominee, I still see Trump more as Republican continuity than any kind of aberration.

Digby reminds us of the Schwarzenegger 2001 precedent on treatment of women in This is not the first "star" politician who did this Hullabaloo 10/08/2016.

There was a bit of a thuggish atmosphere about the Schwarzenegger rallies, too, Although nothing on the level of Trump's White Power rallies. Here's what I mean, from my earliest blogging days: California Recall: Georgy Russell Protests (?) at Schwarzenegger Rally 10/06/2003; California Recall: Schwarzenegger in Pleasanton 10/06/2016.

Charlie Pierce in his distinctive way explains the Trumpian Continuity (America Has Been Waiting for Donald Trump Esquire Politics Blog 10/09/2016):

The campaign of El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago always has been a ridiculous campaign run by a ridiculous man who hijacked a ridiculous political party and now has rendered the entire American political system as ridiculous as the ferret he wears on his head. The ridiculous campaign, the ridiculous man, and the ridiculous political party cannot be considered separately. The ridiculousness of the political party, energized for decades by hayshakers, Bible-bangers, voodoo economists, jackleg preachers and the altogether crazy-assed elements of almost every political phylum, made it inevitable that a ridiculous man would run a ridiculous campaign one day. What very few people counted on was that the man and the campaign and the party would become so ridiculous that they would make everyone else ridiculous, too. Lord save us, he even managed to get the word "fuck" into the New York Fucking Times. Horseman, pass by! ...

... The Republican Party has been edging toward this catastrophe for 40 years, ever since it let goons like the late Terry Dolan help run its senatorial campaigns in the late 1970s. Dolan led to Lee Atwater, who led to Karl Rove and, altogether, they made Donald Trump not an aberration, but a culmination. It took into itself the debris of American apartheid. It allied itself with radicalized American Protestantism. It adopted a basic political philosophy of vandalism and nihilism. When confronted with an opportunity for human decency, such as in the case of Terri Schiavo, the party opted for cruelty. When presented an opportunity for political unity, such as in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, the party opted for the despicable in domestic politics and for the barbaric overseas. When handed an opportunity to change course, such as when the deregulated casino economy nearly destroyed the world in 2008, it doubled down on the basic economic philosophy that caused the wreckage in the first place. And when it became plain that the party was on the wrong side of history, such as the movement for marriage equality, it chose to work in the states through pestiferous god-botherers like Mike Pence, whose name Kelly Ayotte will write in for president.
My Utopian wish of the day is that every Democratic office-holder and Party official would for the next six months eliminate all forms of the word "bipartisan" from their vocabularies.

Nancy Pelosi, the actual San Francisco Democrat, was on Meet the Press this morning talking about how the House Republicans and Mike Pence supported the same awful policies on women's issues that Trump does and made her pitch for a House majority. But even she couldn't resist saying that one of the ways the Democrats are better than the Republicans is that the Democrats are more "bipartisan"!

The Republican Party is potentially facing a spectacular national meltdown. And the House Minority Leader from what must surely be about the safest Democratic Congressional district in the country (except maybe for Oakland-Berkeley) is promoting ... bipartisanship!

It boggles the mind.

But for the One Percent, Democrats promising Bipartisanship with an intransigent Republican Party is good news.

For everyone else, not so much.

No comments: