Fear, Anger, and Hate Fuel the GOP
Let the caterwauling begin by the GOP. They’re still working towards the 5th stage - acceptance of Trump as their nominee. Some wont do so until November, but we’re seeing it get ugly.
Frankly, the GOP needs this. They have spent the better part of the past decade promoting anger, fear, hate, and obstructionism as the core to their policy. Take any major policy - okay, let’s focus on Obamacare. The GOP hates it with a white hot intensity even though the core features are all right wing think tank inventions (Heritage came up with the individual mandate and only came around to claim it unconstitutional once Obama co-opted it to try and woo Republicans to get on board with the plan).
They’ve spent every year since 2009 trying to repeal it, pushing countless court cases with dangerous interpretations of law to do so. The Supreme Court managed to uphold the law, though it also gave states an opt-out, which meant millions fewer Americans are insured as a result of the law.
The GOP has had years to identify, promote, and score an alternative bill and has failed to do so. They have no plan to replace Obamacare, only to repeal it.
And all those failed efforts have only gotten the base even more angry and full of hate (even though it’s a vote against self-interest).
On and on it goes.
But this election has brought out all the right wing extremists. Anti Semitism. Racism. Bigotry. Homophobia. Islamophobia. Xenophobia. Nativism.
All of it is coalescing around Trump, though Cruz and Rubio are each bringing their own brand of hate (call it hate-lite, but it is hate nonetheless).
Conservatives like those over at National Review (NRO) are wringing their hands over Trump but it’s more about style than substance given NRO’s own history promoting racists and hatemongers on their site. Lest we forget, NRO hired and grudgingly fired the likes of John Derbyshire and Robert Weissberg.
Of course, others are starting to notice the hornets nest of hate that Trump’s kicked over, as anyone who questions Trump’s racist statements or tries to hold him accountable are hit with tweets about how they’re promoting a multicultural agenda, are traitors to the race, are Jew-lovers, etc. In other words, all the white supremacists, hate mongers, Neo Nazis, racists (yeah, I’m repeating myself, but it is important enough to repeat) are coming out to defend Trump even though these statements are undeniably and factually true. This is not opinion here.
For instance:
All day, this garbage https://t.co/pWOgWj2myd
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 29, 2016
Trump approvingly quotes fascists. He approvingly quotes racists and white supremacists (whose Twitter handles are giveaways that they are racists or white supremacists). He goes out of his way to do so. His campaign rallies are stocked with bigots straight out of central casting.
His policies are racist and full of hate - and it traces back to the opening days of his campaign - attacking Megyn Kelly was misogynistic, followed up with the anti-Muslim and anti-Mexican policies (claiming Mexico is shipping rapists and murderers to the US, that Muslims must be banned from entry to the US, including Muslim-Americans, etc.)
It’s 2016, and we’re watching a party in thrall with a proto-fascist hatemonger.
The GOP has been dancing around this for years, and only now did former GOP nominee for the President, Mitt Romney come forward to offer up a critique of Trump. The problem is that if the GOP wanted to stop Trump, they should have stopped pandering with the anger, hate, and nonstop obstructionism over the past 7 years.
They should have stopped supporting candidates who are obstructionists whose only idea of government is to burn it down and screw all Americans in the process except the 1% who would benefit from lower taxes.
They should have considered this kind of speech the moment Trump declared himself a candidate.
Instead, they revealed that the problem isn’t substantive, but stylistic. After all, Trump’s policies aren’t far removed from the other GOP candidates - tax policy is the same - shifting tax burdens from rich to everyone else, anti-Muslim xenophobia, race-baiting, and pandering to those who feel disenfranchised because others now have the same exact rights that they do (see gay marriage, women, etc.).
Romney giving this speech now does nothing except give Trump the ability to further rally the core GOP voters to his cause.
Even if former Presidents George W. Bush and his dad, President George HW Bush came out against Trump now, it’d be too late.
The time to have done that was years ago, when the GOP determined that their sole mission was to capitalize on anti-Obama hate.
Now? It’s only going to tear the party a new one.
That’s the GOP for you. And the GOP alternatives are only different in name only - the promote the same outcomes only that they’ve packaged it more slickly.