Past Present Or Future, Republicans Still Doomed

If we refer to Conor Friedersdorf over at The Atlantic, he's already noting how the Republicans were screwed up long before trump took over, and that they're still going to have these problems once he's gone:

...Yes, Trump beat a big field to become president, he is more popular among GOP voters than any rival, many elected Republicans fear publicly crossing him at the moment, and he is influential in setting the tone in Washington. Still, the conclusion that he has taken over the Republican Party is overstated and premature.

Consider these counter-points:

First, Trump’s position is unusually shaky for a first-term president. His influence will take a huge hit if the GOP loses big in the 2018 midterms. And it could suffer if investigations into Trump or his associates expose a significant new scandal. Neither of those outcomes is assured. But both are very plausible.

Second, if Trump starts to seem like he’s hurting the GOP’s popularity more than he is helping it, he has no reserve of personal goodwill or substantive support for his ideas on which to fall back. Trump’s unpopularity was illustrated most colorfully by an unnamed GOP representative quoted by conservative commentator Erick Erickson. “I say a lot of shit on TV defending him,” the legislator said. “But honestly, I wish the motherfucker would just go away. We’re going to lose the House, lose the Senate, and lose a bunch of states because of him. All his supporters will blame us for what we have or have not done, but he hasn’t led. He wakes up in the morning, shits all over Twitter, shits all over us, shits all over his staff, then hits golf balls. Fuck him. Of course, I can’t say that in public or I’d get run out of town.” The unnamed congressman even declared of the president he has defended on television, “If we’re going to lose because of him, we might as well impeach the motherfucker.”

Just to interject here: It's noteworthy that this Republican elected official is honest enough to recognize how horrifying trump is as a person and as President Loser of the Popular Vote. It's also noteworthy that this coward doesn't have the balls to go public on this and make a stand to save his own Party, not because trump has that much power to punish him but because the GOP's Wingnut Base (the rabid voters AND the dogmatic SuperPAC donors) do have that power. The Republican Party cannot change because the ones who should change it - the elected officials - are afraid of the true powers controlling the GOP now: the deep-pocket ideologues like the Mercers and the Kochs and the Far Right Noise Machine - Fox, Breitbart, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter et al. - that profits from selling their brand of fearmongering and don't want it to change.

Third, the GOP establishment has so far accomplished much more than whatever is supposed to be replacing it. Asked what Trump has achieved, his defenders typically respond that he appointed a Supreme Court justice, passed tax cuts, and got rid of unnecessary regulations. It is easy to imagine Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio doing those same things. Trump’s achievements reflect GOP priorities going back decades, not anything new to his agenda...

Conor is right about this: The Republicans have accomplished what they needed to, regardless of whichever Republican is sitting in the Oval Office. They've got their terrible tax cuts for the rich, they're getting their deregulation agenda taken care of, they've got hopes to get their anti-abortion finally to where they can ruin poor women's lives forever. Paul Ryan is eagerly retiring now because other than nuking Social Security and Medicare (which he found out he's not able to nuke) he's done what he wanted to do. Ryan's dangling his own MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner over his shrine to Ayn Rand as we speak.

Fourth, there is no heir apparent to Trumpism, or even a deep stable of future presidential aspirants like the one that the Tea Party movement provided the GOP...

This is an interesting point, in that so far during the special elections between 2017 to the midterms this year, trump has been an utter disaster as a banner-carrier for the GOP. He's made three high-profile attempts in two different states - one of them Deep Red Alabama! - and has failed all three times to get "his" guy(s) elected.

However, I think Conor is wrong about "no heir apparent." There may not be a specific protege or acolyte in the trumpian mold that stands to rise up and claim the GOP leadership for himself. trump HAS done one thing and that's show exactly how a demagogic racist sonofabitch can campaign on such behavior and win the GOP nomination.

Nothing is going to stop the next trump Wannabe to step up to the mic and drop bombs on hated libruls and in such a way the fervent wingnut base will rise up and claim that Wannabe The Next St. Ronnie who will smite all Democrats and Keep American Great Angry Aging White Male.

Which is the doom of the Republican Party, because if that's all they've got - raging racist assholes - then that's all they'll have, which is not going to win over the growing non-White population of this nation.

But this is what they as a party have been building towards, ever since the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s shifted the dynamics of liberal-conservative alignments and made the Republicans more and more Conservative. Except that their pursuit of ideological purity turned into a closed dogmatic belief system - referring to Frum here - that ironically turned most of the Party - from voting base to elected leaders - into Anarchist Nihilists obsessed with destroying the existing order to build their flawed Utopia.

trump may have been the result, but they've been building towards this ever since Nixon's Southern Strategy, and right through Reagan's administration of deregulation and corruption, and into Newt's Contract On America (where a lot of pundits are now realizing was the Point of No Return for Republican assholery), straight through into Dubya's reign of error, right into McConnell's Damning pursuit of Obstruction Now Obstruction Forever.

Even if trump departs tomorrow, by resignation or by fleeing to a country without extradition, the GOP will simply reload for the next demagogue to come in and claim "I will do everything in my power to make liberals cry into their cappuccinos YEEHA!"

There's no Republican Party to save because this is now a group of people who DO NOT WANT TO BE SAVED. They think they're already flawless perfect jewels in God's Mighty Plan. They not only will refuse to get into the lifeboats, they'll eagerly smash everything with fire axes to make sure nobody else gets on them either.

We are so very royally fucked.