Stephen Colbert said it perfectly: Trump is living proof that karma doesn't exist.
19
The dirty secret is that elite Republicans have always had as much (or more) contempt for the demographic currently known as The Deplorables than aghast centrist/liberal Democrats. From the Southern Strategy forward, the GOP has viewed them as a gullible, easily excitable bovine herd. Ripe for ballot picking, given the appropriate cattle prod triggers. That the inmates are now running the asylum is the cruel punchline inflicted upon the entire world. Can they put this genie back in the bottle? (And can I possibly mix even more metaphors? ;-) Are we truly witnessing the death throes of the Republican Party? As much as I wish, I don't believe so. Demographically consigned to irrelevance - but never averse to jiggering elections - they will nonetheless power through this. And ruthlessly point blame elsewhere while also ushering in a collective amnesia. I can't help but think of the infamous "It Was All a Dream" episode of 'Dallas' with the Hail Mary pass the GOP is gonna attempt post-Trump.
18
It’s worth remembering that although Hillary Clinton received three million more votes in 2016 than her Republican opponent, the election was decided by the vast majority of people who chose not to vote for her.
There is a deep reservoir of passive acceptance in American politics, and it is inside this reservoir that the answers to America’s problems must be found.
However, nobody outside the reservoir can truly understand it, any more that a person escaped from a religious cult can truly understand the motives of those who stayed. The very fact of their escape gives them a perspective that cannot be shared with the people that remain inside. The squabblers inside the Republican party are not as representative of their supporters as they like to think. Nor, unfortunately, are most of the Democrats.
It’s possible that Mr. Alberta’s book addresses this, but past experience of this kind of writing makes me skeptical. I’m not rushing out to buy a copy.
9
@Global Charm. “It’s worth remembering that although Hillary Clinton received three million more votes in 2016 than her Republican opponent, the election was decided by the vast majority of people who chose not to vote for her.“
Say again? More people voted for her than voted for her opponent. And the election was decided by “the vast majority of people who chose not to vote for her?” The vast majority of people chose not to vote for Donald Trump. Yet he’s in the White House.
12
@NA Perhaps what @Global Charm meant was that millions of Americans did not vote because of their dislike of the choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Clinton suffered just enough from the stay-at-home non-voters to allow Trump to squeak through by carrying Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Clinton, after years and years of attacks by anti-Clintonites, suffered from 'if it's said enough times and for a long enough amount of time then some or most of it must be true' fallout.
Also, how much did anti-Clinton, pro-Trump activities by Russian-directed and encouraged entities on social media and on the campaign trails affect turnout negatively and benefit Trump?
For decades since Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign, Republicans have demonstrated a mastery of political campaign sound bites and messaging that Democrats still don't match. While Republicans have won the presidency as much, but no more, than the Democrats, the GOP captured statehouses, governorships and legislative majorities, far more than the Dems. Radical gerrymandering is a result. That results in more GOP majorities in both houses of Congress than they have had since at least the late-1940s and 1950s.
8
When I was a young boy, I heard JFK say:
"Ask not what the country can do for you,
Ask what you can do for your country"
Now, the "new Democrats" are saying:
"Ask not what you can do for the country,
Ask what the country can do for you"
Contrast these with the Republican version:
"We can get all we want from the country, If
we control the Government"
Which of these do you think is most "American?
1
@edgyroy
Either of the two major political group can get "all " it wanted so long as that group controlled the government. Each had done it with a sidelined and helpless opposition. GOP controlled government passed one item they've been salivating for so long - tax cut. The Donkeys passed one item when they controlled that government - Healthcare.
It goes on and on. But what's next?
3
Obama brought us the longest & slowest recovery from a recession EVER....Trump turbo charged it and created millions of jobs for the 95 million people who were unemployed or underemployed. Trump has given many hope, whereas as Obama wanted us to accept the 'new normal' - malaise & stagnation. There's a very good reason why Trump has a chance to renew his Presidency.
3
@Cathy: Almost any over revved engine will explode. Ours did in 2008 and it will again. And it will blow more than the financial system next time. And the road we ride on is crumbling... even now.
18
@Cathy
There are approximately 329 million Americans in total.
Approximately 210 million of working age.
95 million Americans owe their new found jobs and prosperity to Trump?
45 % of working Americans, 'turbo charged'.
Your hyperbolic numbers also tell a tale about Trump supporters.
So, thank you ...
19
@Cathy Obama inherited a terrible recession. Despite this, his administration was able to take the unemployment rate from 10% to 5%. Since the economy was strong when Trump took office, he has only been able to lower the unemployment rate by 1.2%. At this juncture, there are many signs, such as the yield curve, that indicate we're headed for another downturn. Trump's tariffs and his pressure on the Fed will most likely exacerbate the next recession. Which would be bad, except that if it happens before the 2020 election, it will doom our racist president.
23
dems question republicans for sticking together with trump when they should be doing the same thing stick together for results not all this infighting bickering respect your elders and have you questions accusations in private in person
and look at what the republicans are doing they are in office because they stick together
1
It's astounding that the most clear eyed, yet virulent, criticisms and analyses of Orange Julius Caesar have come from the right. Trump is the golem that they fabricated from orange clay, and now it has turned on them. Time to destroy your creation, Koch brothers, Mercers and others, before it destroys you as well.
8
When Democrats leave office, they say and support the same things they did when they were in office.
When Republicans leave office, they write tell all memoirs tearing apart the GOP, have death bed confessions, seek salvation in doing good works.
They know their party and platform is indefensible.
21
Listen to Russel Crowe's (one of the finest actors working today) comment on his research for portraying Roger Ailes (The Loudest Voice in the Room): the birth of where we are today in America is how Ailes understood that "...people really don't want to work at being informed. They just want to "feel" they're informed".
30
The new GOP, representing self-centered greed and the poorly educated.
9
I am avoiding Trump books like the plague, but this looks like something appropriate to read. I equate it to the forest for the trees.t
4
“Sometimes you have to light a prairie fire to win,” [Zac Moffatt] told Alberta. “But sometimes it comes back and burns your house down.”
Except Romney didn't win, and now your prairie fire is burning all our houses down. Way to go, GOP.
47
This is so disingenuous it reeks. Both sides in DC crave power above any principles etc. The left wants power to create the socialist paradise and have control over the imperfect citizens they would then rule. The right wants power to serve the interests of the money class. I prefer the money class running the country to a socialist tyranny.
7
@Douglas Sorry, Douglas, I do not get your logic here. What do you mean by socialism? Do you know what it really is compared to, say, communism?
Do you think it is right that someone who works full time cannot earn enough to support their families while the top 10% of society controls 90% of its assets and income? Is that what you think the Founders had in mind for our country? Do you think it is fair that we have the highest health care costs in the world and that those costs are increasing shifted on the backs of people who can least afford it? Do you believe in the fairy tale that all markets are perfect?
I do not believe our society should own the means of production, which is what a communist would argue for, but you would no doubt describe me as a socialist because I believe unregulated capitalism is not in the best interest of the people?
What do you really mean? Should we get rid of Medicare and Social Security, both of which are socialist concepts?
Really.
110
@Douglas And you do not equate the moneyed class as tyrannical–pure foolishness.
25
@Douglas
while I disagree that the left wants a socialist tyranny, unless you are wealthy you, too, will be trampled underfoot.
or, if you are white you will get by for a little while longer.
24
Excellent review, thank you. It is a sad story for us former republicans. The overall picture told by this book has already been reported, but this book adds interesing detail, and tragic clarity.
David Lindsay Jr. is the author of “The Tay Son Rebellion, Historical Fiction of Eighteenth Century Vietnam” and blogs about the environment and the world at InconvenientNews.net.
14
I pray, hope, and do everything I can so that none of what Trump, McConnell, their syncophants and appointed judges has wrought is sustainable.
25
@Jazzmandel: Watch the Full Frontal segment (from June, I think, and on YT) about why some running for prez should be running for the Senate. We need to get the rules-breaking, conscience-less McConnell OUT of power; we need a Dem majority in the Senate.
Looks like your sens. (Illinois) are safe; can you put any energy or $ into Indiana?
6
@Jazzmandel That all depends on what you mean by "sustainable." Supreme Court legacies can last for generations. The "separate but equal" doctrine established in the Plessy v Ferguson decision in 1896 was not overturned until 1954 by Brown v Board of Education. Millions of women who were not alive in 1972 when Roe v Wade was decided have never questioned free access to legal abortion. That may be about to change, casting doubt on the future of birth control for generations of women not yet born.
3
Want a clue about how it started? Read the chapter on George H W Bush in What It Takes.
10
An Appropriate title since our little Trump lied multiple times in his dreary and dismal inaugural address, as he told Americans the carnage stops now. Ha Ha another Trump Lie at the expense of 320 million Americans. The carnage has only begun, Carnage to our institution, carnage to our long established separation pf powers, carnage to our international reputation, our federal finances, carnage to our standings on human rights, the environment, labor, food safely. carnage to our good standings with allies and friends, and even carnage to the very religious institutions many Americans believe it.
Truly the mist destructive president in America's
history.
The author is right American Carnage with GOP blessings.
Americans must never forget the role of the GOP and Christian Fundamentalist in creating this monster and his constant carnage to out shared American values.
41
@GUANNA: I most heartily agree. The greedy, self serving, paternalistic, sycophantic, fascist, chauvinistic, Machiavellian machinations of the GOP since the time of Nixon are more astounding and frightening than nearly any historical atrocities since Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Their conniving workings could very easily end with the destruction of the United States they so fervently profess to love AND has set us all down the ecological drain for the foreseeable future. Mother Nature will be paid in full. Next stop: the Gulf of Mexico and all surrounding coastlines!
6
How does abandoning environmental policies and a huge tax cut for a few uber-wealthy donors help poor, or even middle-income exurban whites?
I suppose they are racist (as the book opines) and perhaps that and stupidity go hand in hand.
38
@Almighty Dollar: For one thing, GOPs continue to buy into the trickle-down myth; also, it seems that those who vote GOP these days are so ... impaired in crucial ways (common sense; compassion) that they're willing to pay higher taxes because those for-the-rich tax cuts mean less money for Big Gubmint -- but they refuse to make the connection between Gubmint spending and the police and firefighters who keep them safe, the crumbling infrastructure that endangers them, etc.
There's a cut-off-nose-spite-face to this, which seems to go hand in hand with longstanding GOP refusal to acknowledge the complexity of humans, of their challenges and problems, of the societies they create. Very easy to bluster, "No handouts to anyone! If you don't work, you pay the consequences!"; not so easy to face reality -- that everyone is vulnerable to a chain of events that can destroy health and make productive life impossible.
Dems are willing to face complexity; GOPs are not -- and the result is ruinous, and inhumane, policies.
5
“American Carnage” tells the degrading story of the ultimate devil’s bargain.
More accurately devil's should be devils'
18
Gosh, it sounds like a treatise on Repub mindset after they won fair and square and considers why they chose to support Trump.
This is tiresome. Did they really win?
Republicans are the Cheaters-at-all-costs party. The evidence is overwhelming. They even own the easily-hacked voting machines, for Pete's sake. Not even adding up voter suppression, false ads and gerrymandering.
Can we have the press focus on our broken system and not let up until we see these criminals in jail?
32
@lechrist
Excellent point. In Michigan, republicans stopped the legal recount. The rapist “won” by 10,000 votes. Fishy.
12
The hypocrisy of the republican party brought to the surface. They favor power, rather than America. Sad.
24
What the last 40 years of American politics has taught us about Conservatives is that they are as a group irreligious hypocrites.
In the wake of Trump, the label stands for nothing.
28
The Republican Party has indeed made a devil's bargain, and 3,000 years of moral understanding make it clear where that road ends. Party loyalists delude themselves. They have power today, but their house will be desolate tomorrow. It is inevitable. But do Democrats represent the moral alternative, or are they just more squeamish about the means of retaining power? If so, America is finished.
7
@CallahanStudio: Progressive Dems represent a moral alternative; the centrists Dems -- GOP-lite -- do not / did not.
Dems are willing to acknowledge and engage with the profound messiness of life; GOPs are not. That's a mega-significant difference.
(As in: "We're working toward Utopia but we're not there yet, so we'll build a social safety net for those who fell thru the cracks" vs "If you don't work, then pay the consequences!" but with zero willingness to acknowledge that X can't work because of circs beyond X's control, such as a treatable health problem that spiraled out of control bc X couldn't afford healthcare bc of the GOP's refuse to acknowledge it as a basic human right, not to mention the GOP's refusal to see the economic pragmatism of making everyone healthy so they *can* work.)
2
An intriguing review. Also interesting are so many of the comments, many of which say something like "millions of us Republicans voted for Trump and we're fine people."
11
I hope this book deals with the cave-ins of Republican stalwarts like my good Ohio senator Rob Portman, who boycotted the GOP convention in Cleveland only to fall (mostly) into line with a president whose amoral behavior he once deplored. To those few of us who still like to think of ourselves as "independents," the tribalism of Portman and other "good Republicans" (for whom I have voted) is baffling.
34
Problem: the GOP will do anything and stand behind anyone as long as it helps satisfy their donors in the 1% and Wall Street.
Solution: Bernie Sanders
12
@Baba The solution is Democratic control of Congress and the many state legislatures and governorships now in Republican hands.
2
I am concerned that the actions and goals of today's "conservatives" and Republicans/Trumpians are not in any way confronting the onrushing future we are facing on this planet right now.
Their denial that our climate is rapidly changing and their determined effort to block all attempts to deal with that fact threatens our future and that of the entire world as ever increasing cataclysmic climate events trigger mass migrations and dislocations.
Their denial that our society is changing with unprecedented speed due to the explosion of new technologies leaves us open to huge dislocations among the poor and middle class in the very near future. Robotics and artificial intelligence are eliminating jobs which will never be replaced , yet Republicans /Trumpians refuse to even acknowledge that fact let alone offer meaningful ways to mitigate the damage or anticipate the change.
Their denial that hacking on the internet and the manipulation of social media are serious threats to our elections and our political system opens us up to ongoing damage and manipulation by criminals and foreign governments.
While the story of how we got to this moment in our history certainly needs telling, it is more important by far to stop these fools immediately.
Every day they damage this nation and impede our ability to deal with the future. Not only are they not preparing for the future, they are determinedly driving us backward into the past.
Vote accordingly in 2020.
31
The book and the review are a little soft.
The GOP sold what little soul it had for the prospect of Trump.
Now the USA and all its citizens, save those lacking in morals or ethics, will suffer as the downward spiral has begun.
A godless bargain by, as it turns out, godless 'believers'.
20
"...conservatives gleefully used her tweets to bring up how Argentina under the Peróns became a haven for Nazi war criminals."
So was America. In fact, we were deporting them as recently as 20 years ago.
"Trump tapped into and exploited a bigotry that had already been seething, bubbling up to the surface during the Obama administration. "
Specifically, a mass neurosis in white America over the election of a black president.
“We went from wanting people who were experienced and qualified to wanting people who would throw bombs and blow things up.”
Newt Gingrich was doing that back in the 1980s, proving there is a direct link through multiple administrations to get where we are today with Trump.
71
@Paul "A mass neurosis in white America over the election of a black president"? So how do you explain the Obama/Trump voters (enough of them in the Rust Belt to have swung the election for Trump)?
Hint: A visionary President proclaiming "No black America, no white America" was eclipsed by a brand of "progressive" race-baiting that spoke of "a mass neurosis in white America" -- and that, in turn, drove all-too-many decent people (OBAMA voters!) into the arms of Trump.
3
@Mitchell
The legendary Obama Trump voter did not think McCain or Romney sufficiently white nationalist so he basically cast a protest vote for the black guy.
You and the MSM give the Obama-Trump voter WAY to much credit incorrectly thinking he/she was the most open minded when in fact he/she was the most virulent.
2
@Paul Such virulent "white nationalists" that they voted for Obama? Are you serious, or is that satire?
2
"it’s a fascinating look at a Republican Party that initially scoffed at the incursion of a philandering reality-TV star with zero political experience and now readily accommodates him."
Give me and the millions of GOP voters who voted Trump a break.
If the NYT is this clueless about who Trump really is.... then y'all will get the same shock of 2016 when he triumphs in 2020. The utter, breathtaking cluelessness of the mainstream media and the Democrats was one of the key reasons why Trump won in 2016. I knew Trump would win in November 2016 way back in May 2016, when I saw him crushing it during the primaries. Many thousands thronging his rallies.... while the Dems choked. Back then, I was "old school GOP". I didn't vote for him in the PA primary, in fact, I didn't even like him. Yup, a "Never Trumper". I finally did vote for him in November. Lesser of two evils (thank you, Hillary!)
Never Trumper more. I am a transformed, climb over broken glass Trump supporter. I am financially supporting his re-election campaign. Something I haven't done in many years. Why? Well, a hearty thank you to the clueless NYT and mainstream media with their inane, insane, non-stop bashing of this President. And of course, Mr. Trump has done exactly what he promised!
And there are many, many more of us.
Thank you, thank you, thank you clueless mainstream media! You are doing do so much to HELP President Trump get re-elected!
Thank you, New York Times. PLEASE continue your cluelessness!
7
@Mark, Trump has done exactly what he promised? I guess you are referring to the fact that all Americans now have low cost health care? Or maybe you mean that we all got big tax cuts while people like Trump saw their taxes increase? Or maybe you are referring to how Trump has prevented North Korea and Iran from getting nuclear missiles? Or all of the trade treaties Trump has successfully negotiated with our neighbors? Please don't tell me that Trump is responsible for the economic surge that started in Obama's second year.
Let's face it, the only thing he has done that he promised is to act unlike any previous President (or anyone you would let children come near). I guess how Trump acts is more important to you than the consequences of his actions.
55
@Mark So the reason you're a fervent Trump supporter now is because the media bashes him,and because he did what he said he would do when you were against him?
17
@Mark
Problem is, even with both of your foresight,
He lost. Bigly.
16
I'm pretty sure Karl Rove doesn't know any smart people...
9
The unseen and unmentioned elephant in the room is the influence of Russia and other foreign entities. Trump's team colluded openly with Russia because many GOP leaders had fallen sway to the interests of global corporations and the interests of foreign powers; it was the GOP norm. For example, McConnell brazenly violated the Constitution in stopping appointments and legislation that represented the majority interests of the American people while his NRA/Russia and China relationships funded his interminable Senate tyranny.
Another factor not addressed is the fundamental corruption of GOP politicians in illicit and often illegal sexual behavior and financial corruption. Yes, some Democrats have been corrupted, but nothing like the vast sweep of Republican self-serving financial deals, misogyny, and pedophilia.
50
We can only hope it doesn't burn the country down...
19
My anger, New York Times, against the Republican party is deep and implacable.
They knew better. They knew a LOT better.
I cannot (deep down) stifle the suspicion: these guys really don't STAND for anything at all. Maybe they did once. But now--?
Correction: They are--militantly--
(1) anti-abortion
(2) anti-gay.
I give them that. But that (back in 2016) was pretty thin gruel. Especially when you add something else to the mix:
These guys really and truly love rich people. Have we not seen that over these last two and half years? Their precious darlings. We gotta take good CARE of these guys--they're the only rich people we have.
And by rich people (of course) I mean--
--SUPER-rich people. Billionaires and such. The Koch brothers.
People who (by a singular coincidence) contribute heavily to Republican candidates all over this fair land.
And Mr. Donald J. Trump came along--
--and (like the big bad wolf) he "blew the house down." He kicked in the door. He said things even REPUBLICANS were unwilling to say. He stoked the fears--hatreds--resentments of millions.
"And, ladies and gentlemen," muttered the big names of the GOP--
"--we have a WINNER.
"An odious and disreputable winner--
"--but a winner nonetheless."
And so the party that really (down deep) stood for nothing anyway--
--caved in. Embraced that winner's disdainful hand--
--and here we are.
God help us all!
59
@Susan Fitzwater: They stand for unfathomable and putrid self-interest: They wanted their SC justices and their tax cuts, so they supported whoever was going to get 'em those things.
Evil. Inhuman.
3
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a very long way from being an Evita clone, but Trump does keep reminding me of Mussolini.
143
@Henry
All this blather about socialism and communism when Trump and his 'party' received untold aid in his 'election', the irony of it all...
4
The thing is that the demographic doom the Republicans saw in 2000 is still approaching. Ocasio-Cortez and Ian Pressley were elected because of demographic changes that overwhelmed white male politicians. You can see it Ted Cruze's narrow victory over Beto Orourke in Texas. White evangelicals are a shrinking voter cohort that will not be able to maintain their political clout much longer. We are now in a race between the Republican efforts to maintain power through gerrymandering voter suppression and stacking the courts with right wing extremist judges and the rising tide of millennial and minority voters. While the outcome is far from sure because the Republicans are so creative at coming up with new ways hang onto power, the 2018 election especially with the shift of women voters gives us some hope that Republicans may not succeed in holding onto power. Ironically Trump's obnoxious behavior in office may have accelerated the Republican party's decline.
50
@JS
And there's the shameless republican tactic of reapportioning federal funding to republican strongholds away from democratic districts as a way to garner more votes. See: U.S. Census Citizenship Question.
5
@JS: Ayanna Pressley, but yes. there have definitely been some demographics going on here in Boston. About time, too.
1
He may believe Jesus forgives him, but I sure as heck don't. The republican party leaders knew all along they were courting bigots, misogynists, conspiracy whack-jobs, and all manner of ignorance in order to win elections, because their policies were unpopular with the majority of the country. They pandered to the very basest of human instinct, and it's paying off big time. Karl Rove was always a craven miscreant, but he thought he was above the likes of Sarah Palin? I guess you have to add self delusional to his resume'.
77
@JP please what Cheney & Rumsfeld got away with . . . they started a trend we are paying for now. As Noam Chomsky stated in an interview, the powers that be are not politicians. They use the likes of Trump to get the votes they need to control us.
I have to remain optimistic that things will get better when we all get out to vote or I would be suicidal.
19
This quote: ' “Pence’s talent for bootlicking” is “obscene.”'
Just insert the name of any Republican and the statement will still be true.
122
I have a good friend who had been a lifelong, principled and clear-thinking conservative and Republican, but one with a good heart buried beneath the brainwashing he received from his parents and choice of reading materials. Today he embodies the transformation of the Republican Party as described in this review and as I've witnessed.
He once upon a time disliked Trump, though not as the complete abomination our president is in my eyes. But he has made his peace with Trump. He did so not through some unprincipled, Faustian bargain but through simple willful blindness. It's amazing how easy it is for some to reconcile themselves to idiocy, immorality and even evil by ignoring such behavior or dismissing news of it as the product of ideological bias, or as Trump calls such information: "fake news".
Of course it helps that the idiotic and/or untruthful words spew from our president's and spokespersons' mouths and his Twitter account on a daily basis. Paradoxically, the more he lies and demonstrates his unfitness for the office of POTUS, the less his misbehavior seems to matter to my friend. I try to tell him that by keeping a man like that in office or reelecting him, we are signaling to the world that America has lost its moral bearings; that we cannot be trusted; and that we deserve only the kind of respect a braggart and bully get--meaning none except that based on a fear of our military power. And this once principled and good-hearted American is fine with that.
88
@Jamie Nichols
Like you, I am incredulous at some friends' accommodation of the President's behavior, and more importantly, his inane, reckless policy decisions.
But there's one behavior I see in many of the President's supporters that still, to this day, mystifies me. It's this: if you say anything about Trump that is not positive, they will immediately come to his defense. Sometimes, I will point-blank ask if they think, for example, that he is smarter than the FBI (re: intelligence), or smarter than the economists (re: trade wars), or smarter than the Chinese (re: deal-making), or smarter than the scientists (global warming). They will NEVER take the bait and agree that they think that! But they act as if they're unwitting cheer-leaders for this man. It baffles me.
58
@Jamie Nichols
I also have a good hearted friend who supports Trump. When I confronted her with his (Trumps) self confessed sexual assault (grabbing) she said, " He said he could do it, not that he had done it."
How do you deal with that?
19
@Jamie Nichols, sadly, we all know people like you describe. I'm just thankful I'm not married to one!
13
So here's a quote from this article: "Republicans have scored some goodies they have long craved — the gutting of environmental regulations, a raft of judicial appointments and an enormous tax cut."
How is the gutting of environmental regulations good for Republicans, their children, their grandchildren, and their future generations?
How are judicial appointments, if meant to ban abortions and equal rights, good for Republican's wives, daughters, sisters, nieces, aunts, grandmothers?
How is an enormous tax cut that benefits a few help Republicans, their children, and future generations when the deficit comes due?
Methinks Republicans are so short-sighted, that they don't care about their families and future generations. They only care about the here and now.
68
@Charlie Fieselman,
By "Republicans", the author means the rich and the corporations. This is a different category from the millions of people who vote for the Republican party.
18
@Charlie Fieselman: "Goodies they have long craved". Those goodies hardly ever turn out to be good for you. (Trust me on that one.)
1
Missing from this account is the key role played by a few bonkers billionaires: the Mercers, Murdochs, Spencers, DeVos, Kochs, etc who have bought and paid for the GOP and run an amazingly successful propaganda machine that controls the minds of nearly half of the electorate glued to fake news and inflaming rhetoric.
104
Alberta - (“despite my straying from the path, He loves me and forgives me”)
Sounds like a combination of wishful thinking and patronizing rationalization. Like anyone who's worked for the Republicans, good luck when you get to those Pearly Gates.
33
The race issue really belongs to the power and control over peoples who are viewed as not belonging to the cultures who’s expansion dominated our history: the English, French, Spanish and German.
3
Re: the last statement in this article.
Alberta is devious, and subversive. He wont call what he sees: Republicans burning the house down. Alberta is not authentic, he is apologizing in anodyne terms and offering an antiseptic, and eventually meaningless description masquerading as analysis.
Bah humbug.
The notion that something fundamental has changed among republicans that make them crave Trump, is nonsense. They crave Trump, but nothing has changed.
The desire to control everything and everyone, and ensure that they enjoy imagined and real privileges in a system that works for them only - has sustained among republicans. They have used every tool of the trade; organized religion, radio and TV, other forms of propaganda including network marketing. Now to open race baiting to capitalize on the festering fear among republicans that blacks and browns are raining on their parade and right to defile whom they see fit.
While today's Trump voter may well seem benign, they are conceptually indistinct from jihadis with an explosive device strapped to themselves while clutching a flamethrower. Both want a reality in which they enjoy total power, and will happily burn the house down in pursuit of that pure end. Republican voters consistently vote for candidates who promise to not compromise, but subdue the ones they don't like.
Of course Rove has a problem; Trump is not his, or the traditional republican establishment's (word that rhymes with rich).
18
Let's look at history:
1930s: republicans attack FDR as a commie and socialist, and some in the business community plot to overthrow him
1940s: republicans get Congress after World War II and pass a right-wing agenda that elects Harry Truman
1950s: republicans attack Ike as a lefty and attack the New Deal, and reach out to racists to try to win them away from Democrats
1960s: Goldwater republicans attack the media as their enemy, fight civil rights, and attract southern Democrats who don't like that their party has walked into the bright sunshine of human rights; Nixon uses a veiled version of George Wallace, the southern strategy, to help win
1970s: Watergate + Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney try to destroy congressional oversight
1980s: Iran-Contra and a tax policy that is nothing but welfare for the rich
1990s: oppose Bill Clinton on the grounds that he's anti-American, impeach him under the leadership of two different speakers having extramarital affairs
2000s: compassionate conservatism leads us to killing 4,400 Americans in Iraq after lying us into a war they justify by using 9/11, which happened because they ignored intelligence estimates
2010s: oppose everything proposed by a president because he's African American
Sarah Palin started it? Oh, please.
158
@Michael Green I find it a little disturbing that you mention only the Americans killed in Iraq. What about the countless Iraqi lives that were destroyed?
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@sasha58 I agree and should have added that. At the same time, Americans also have to face the fact that Iraqis aren't the only people who have died in wars that we could have avoided, or avoided starting, so I didn't want to wander too far into that horrible area, too.
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@Michael Green
I thought the reviewer's point was Palin was unqualified as well as a bomb-thrower, which opened the door for trump.
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From this review, you'd think Big Money was just a sideshow to American politics between 1992 and 2016. It was, in fact, the main feature
The reviewer unnecessarily inserts into this piece several value judgments that have nothing to do with the book, so far as I can tell. Trump has not (yet) gratuitously started an unwinnable war, failed to address the worst economic carnage since the Great Depression, or even sold out the entire government to political donors. So, why demonize Trump ?
Obama's actions barely helped the economic recovery -- it was all pre-existing policies of Treasury and the Federal Reserve -- and he extended the Bush 43 tax cuts, failed to eliminate the egregious giveaway of "carried interest", and kowtowed to the jobs-killing trade-deal policies beloved by the Kochs and the Chamber of Commerce. Bill Clinton was no liberal, he was a proud servant of Big Money.
Over (33%) of American manufacturing jobs were destroyed in 2000-2010. Should we build statues for that?
This reviewer shapes her comments as if we all think the Clinton-Bush 43 - Obama administrations were "normal" and "inoffensive." It ain't so. We'd have to go back to Fillmore-Pierce-Buchanan to find a three-peat of such inept and damaging US presidents.
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@mitchell: I'm afraid that if your standards are so high that you don't see any difference between Obama and Trump, then frankly, I'm sorry, but I don't think we will ever come close to gaining your approval. From a perspective a little closer to the surface here, Obama was probably one of the best we've had - probably slightly better than JFK, not a monster like Johnson. Not an FDR, but he didn't have everything FDR had to work with.
Well, anyway, we can hope to come up with somebody much much better, but there the trouble is what you sort of referred to -- it isn't really the president as an individual who accomplishes things, there has to be a context...
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It is the party for those in possession of an authoritarian personality brought about by any combination of upbringing, regional culture, or social status anxiety (either racial or gender). They bend to 'higher-power' reflexively...Vice Presidents and Congresspeople alike.
The GOP tent is still open to diverse membership, so long as those members, whatever their apparent background, share a fondness for a rigid, fascistic (call it what it is) hierarchy. That can be its own kind of 'Big Tent' which for Trump in 2016 included 10% of the Black vote, 30% of the Asian, 30% of the Hispanic and 53% of the male vote.
It is antithetical to the guiding principals of our country, but a lot of folks want others to be in charge of the decision-making. They want to punish those they see as below them and worship those who claim to be their betters. They want a world defined by severely enforced rules, not one tolerant of messy freedoms.
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@Seattle"They want to punish those they see as below them and worship those who claim to be their betters"?
Seems like there's plenty of that going around on both sides, in this war between the bullies and the snobs.
The ultimate quote about Trump fans : " He's not hurting the right people ". That says it all. Make America HATE Again.
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How scary the party of Abraham Lincoln has become. For the first time in my long life I am afraid of what is happening in our country. We no longer have a smart sensible leader in the White House. We have a bigoted money hungry lout and his hand picked advisers including his children whom I don't recall having any governmental training. We have a vice president who is the leader's chief flunky and a bigot, of course. And, I also must add, a senate that is led by their noses to follow a man who has no moral character that is obvious. Can we fall any further?
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@joyce, Yes we can. We haven't hit bottom yet, I'm afraid. I believe Trump will be re-elected.
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The Republican Party of Lincoln disappeared long ago. What now calls itself the Republican Party isn't even the party of Ike or Nixon. Mitch McConell embodies the stake that is being driven into the heart of the America that we once knew. Trump is just the village idiot to move the anti-middle class agenda forward.
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For a long time now, long long before Trump, I've been thinking that taking it to the Christians could be key to unlocking the Republican juggernaut on America.
All my life, as a liberal, I have been voting for peace and justice. All we have had is war, jail stuffing, and increasing inequality.
Brought to us by the Christians and their GOP.
Oh, you are Christian and not republican.
Why are you hanging out with fascists?\
I haven't looked at a Bible in decades but I remember warnings about the company you keep.
For the love of the living Lord, forsake ALL institutional Christianity - even if it is liberal. It is time.
Armageddon of the religion is upon us. For the sake of the emancipation of humanity, the old time religions must go.
For the sake of the living loving Lord.
Identify your core values and hang on tight. Change is accelerating. End of the world - beginning of the new.
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One wonders why there is still a Republican Party and why the members of the party allowed Trump to be a part of it.
Two Supreme Court Judges have selected and one of whom is accused of sexual misconduct. There was only one of that type before and now there are two of them.
The electoral college is a perversity and both the parties are to blame for allowing this provision to continue. This undemocratic provision allows the election of an important official like the President by a small group that does not represent the vast majority of the country.
Religious people do not necessarily have ethics or morality as they use third world poor to convert them and spread the gospel of Jesus. They are no better than the fanatics who sin in the name of religion. They are responsible to some extent for this ungodly president's election
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> sometimes it comes back and burns your house down <
And the country, but who among them ever cared about *that*?
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The GOP has existed only for it’s own sake for some time now. Any “policies” that it held were unrealistic, irrelevant, and hypocritical. As such any “thinking” members reverted to “get off my lawn” grievance. Over time this attitude has attracted an entire zoo of grievance groups, most notably “white grievance”. This, of course, can’t last. The party will die in it’s present form, but the thrashing of it’s death throes will cause damage.
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Do we really have to hash this out again? Is it really that hard to grasp?
Republicans’ racist, intolerance and greed. Choose the order you think that goes in. That’s all.
And they are STILL dug in. They smell what “trump” is up to and they LOVE it.
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The reviewers review is a good example of why I always skip over the NYT writers column, I should have skipped this one too.
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Were these Establishment Republicans really so naive to believe that they could simultaneously amplify tea party populist rage + racism and control it? How many times in history does the world have to suffer from the arrogance of those who believe the ends justify the means?
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The “establishment” Republicans are out, and the bonkers faction of billionaires out for Oligarchy are creating chaos to open the door for themselves.
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Yes and forever
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The house IS burning, the question is will anyone in the Rpublican party unblock the exits?
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The GOP has become the party that hates "them" more than it loves democracy.
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Why is it that Republicans out of power are the most candid? We know that members of their party in Congress think the same and abhor Trump and the direction the Republican Party has taken - but where is their courage?
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@Rick Morris
Conservatives tend to have authoritarian tendencies. The root of authoritarianism is fear. They are scared of losing their careers, their identities, and their beliefs. It really should surprise no one Republicans are reacting they way they are.
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Working only from this review, my questions are:
1. will office holding Republicans read this book and see themselves?
2. will they change? Tillis and Budd are very much in line with Trump and Tillis caved when shown a party opponent, so if these men are willing to do anything to stay in office we need more republicans who are sick at heart about our current political party's Machiavellian ways.
In a state gerrymandered to a fair thee well, now allowed by the Supreme Court, if you are a "woke" republican, who do not believe the ends justify the means, the hope is to see reform within the party but Mark Meadows, McConnell & Berger etc show us there is a long night ahead. Voting the Democratic ticket is one way to break the absolute power that has corrupted values.
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@Liese I laughed when I read '"woke" Republican.'
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@ASD32: former Republicans, more like.
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The hard core of the Republican Party in modern times was birthed by the civil rights legislation of 1964. Minorities and women were given legal protection for voting, access to education and the professions.
The solid Democratic South became the solid Republican South and the "Southern Strategy" of Reagan became the overall plan for Republicans from then on.
Toss in Roe v Wade and civil protection for gays and now stir in the Evangelicals and conservative Catholics into the Republican hard core.
After Reagan there was not one Republican candidate that met the expectations of this hard core for racism, misogyny, xenophobia and homophobia.
They had been waiting for Trump for decades. His candidacy and election should not have been a shock to the Republican establishment.
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@Edward B. Blau
The "Southern Strategy" was birthed out of Lyndon Johnson's civil rights legislation, and was in fact predicted by Johnson, who knew full well the consequences of his legislative initiatives.
Further, the "Southern Strategy" was first effected by Richard Nixon (and got Nixon elected), not Reagan (Although Lee Atwater, a Republican political strategist who emerged with Reagan, is most credited with articulating the "Strategy." Atwater came to rue the consequences of the "Strategy," and asked forgiveness for it on his deathbed. But the "Strategy" would have likely happened, Atwater or no Atwater. The "Strategy" was all the Republicans had. Republicans were certainly losing the demographics. Hence "American Carnage.").
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When the Republican whip Eric Cantor lost his primary in 2014, the party had to have known they weren't driving the right wing disinformation bus they helped create anymore. Then imagine how surprised GOP grandees must have been to discover that Russians had gained significant influence over the party's messaging. It's something they had to have known LONG before the Mueller report and probably well before Trump's selection as nominee.
Schadenfreude...
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I assume this book just points out that these people have no moral backbone or integrity?
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At bottom, the Republican Party is still the Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street.
The goodies they wanted––the stripping of environmental regs; judicial appointments; a gigantic tax cut––are all economic. The judges are put in place to preserve Citizens United and otherwise assist corporations in strip-mining the country.
Roe v. Wade is a bone for downmarket loyal supporters.
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@Taz - Quite right. The GOP elite don’t care one way or another about abortion, as long as they can send their daughters to Paris, or wherever, for a shopping spree and brief clinic visit. And most of them don’t care about immigration, they already sent most of the low pay jobs overseas. That leaves trade policy as a problem with Trump, and they figure they can blunt most of that. They see it as an acceptable price to pay for anti- regulation Justices, high end tax cuts, and doing nothing about global warming.
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