An interesting article you write here that made me rethink the opinion I had after watching Judy Woodruff interview him on her news show. He is an artful and deceitful person who almost had me convinced of his sincerity until I read your column, thank you very much.
What I find most disturbing is the thought that I have lately entertained, that the so called Republicans who doggedly continue to support Trump are not a member of a political party anymore but, rather, follow the definition of a "cult", folks who typically are immune to reason but simply adhere to the whims of their leader, sometimes to the point of self destruction. How do we break up or even destroy this cult with logic and reason? That part keeps me awake at night.
Please, refrain to referring to the so called "evangelicals" as Christians. My mother was a Christian, these people are far, far from it.
Thank you for your attention.
I have given modest contributions to both Weld and Delaney---hoping for sanity in both political parties.
He will never be one of my top choices, but Walsh does deserve credit for apologizing for things he said while being a paid provocateur (radio political shockjock). Trump continues to say far worst.
1
Your right. Both Walsh and Trump are cut from the same cloth. Let us hope that the Democrats can strike the match that lets both of them go up in flames.
Protty comprehensive take-down; thanks.
Plus, Walsh said, on PBS, that he is "pro-life" in all cases. Rape, incest, no problema. The Man Decides, the woman doesn't count.
In my definition, not "pro-life" at all, but that's a whole separate story...
The Idiocracy cometh.
1
Attacking Walsh diminishes and dilutes the political effect of his attacks on Trump.
Smarter to just air his views to show that even hard nosed conservatives find his performance horrific.
The same "rancid cloth" is the Republican Party since Reagan (if not earlier). Over the years, the Republican party has consistently exalted the Executive Branch, done everything it could to violate Separation of Powers, and - in general - engaged in lawless and unethical behavior, including race-baiting, when it served their purposes. Bush the First - acting with the advice of then (and now once again) Attorney General Barr thwarted the Iran-Contra investigation by pardoning Reagan administration officials while the criminal prosecutions were still ramping up. Bush the Second oversaw domestic spying and torture programs. Republicans championed anti-union, big money, and dark money politics, and became a party of multiple fringe element causes. A very high percentage of Republicans still support Trump, and almost all Republican Congress members are silent in the face of his conduct. You don't like Walsh or Trump? Leave the Republican party, but don't pretend to me (or anyone else) that this isn't the direction the Republicans have been heading for decades or that Trump and Walsh are somehow anomalies in the Republican Party. They're completely on brand.
4
The leopard has changed his spots? Really! Walsh admitted he helped create Trump and now Dr Frankenstein wants to take down the monster he created? Joe Walsh has seen the light and is now ready to repent? If anybody falls for the new Walsh I have a bridge i want to sell them. I think Walsh just missed the spotlight and is trying to get his 15 minutes of fame.
2
Whether the means justify the ends or vice-versa, we need a spoiler who can help us derail the destruction of our democracy.
Whether that person is as equally amoral, incompetent and unqualified as Walsh or 'The Mooch,' or possesses the morality, competence and other necessary qualifications of Weld, Kasich or someone else who has yet to appear, we must undo what has been done to us. The outrage must be transformed into the courage to act. Now.
2
Good for Joe Walsh!
His campaign theme is that Trump is unfit for the presidency. The more republicans that run against Trump the more the voters will be inclined to vote for a democrat.
I, for one, applaud Joe for running. He is providing a patriotic service for his country.
5
Given that we've got corporate ownership of the entire mainstream media playing field, where the so-called left and right police their own "liberal" and "conservative" end zones, respectively, of course we're gonna read here that Joe Walsh and Donald Trump "are cut from the same rancid cloth." So for this statement to make any sense whatsoever, we must also read somewhere here that Peter Wehner and his senior fellows at the Ethics and Public Policy Center are cut from the same rancid cloth.
Joe Walsh seems unlikely to be an improvement over Trump. He does serve to reinforce our view of the republican party as racist, hypocritical, homophobic, misogynistic,... But, I hold out hope that not all republicans are those things.
What we need is someone like Bernie Sanders, who is willing to talk to conservatives and not talk down to them as many are tempted to do. We need to find a way to educate people who do not want to be educated. We need to find a way to restore confidence in a government Trump and the GOP in-general like to insult.
We need to ask ourselves why people at Trump rallies wear T-shirts that say "I would rather be Russian than a Democrat."
Until we can reach those people on their level they will vote for someone who promises the impossible: to slash taxes, increase benefits, increase defense spending, and balance the budget.
@RN....I can’t believe that people are taking this so seriously.
Of course Joe is the same as Trump although he is not insane.
The point is that Joe knows he won’t win. He is trying to do something for his country.
He can’t help but realize that his running will help the democrats because he is running on Trumps unfitness for office.
Regardless of Joes own problems, he’s doing a patriotic thing for America!
4
@Michael Kittle
I know people who voted for Bush Jr because they thought he would be the easiest to beat.
What we need is someone who we could accept as a decent candidate for the office - not a bunch of crazies who we hope are going to lose.
i saw this person interviewed by Judy Woodruff on PBS last night. His excuse for all his racist rants, etc seemed to be "Hey, I was a Conservative Talk Show Host -that's what was expected". GEEE - what an improvement over what we have now. The guy came across as just as wacky as Trump, albeit his ability to put together a cogent sentence is certainly better than Trump's. He may be offering some apologies - but don't believe it. He has already revealed who he is, and he is just as mean, racist and radical as Trump is.
2
well, I hate to break it to you but the Republican Party was rancid at least since Nixon's Southern Strategy, and Reagan's presidential campaign announcement in Philadelphia, MS, and the "white hands" ad, and Willie Horton. And lest we forget, W's campaign's slur on John McCain for his adopted African daughter. Add to that, immigrant-bashing, gay bashing, union-bashing, and a pro-capital, anti-worker tilt and... you get the picture.
The GOP has been race-baiting and fear-mongering for generations. Walsh and Trump are the spawn of seed sown over 60 years.
10
Walsh's opportunism is laughable. The money he raises in this silly campaign can be used for him in future political endeavors. Perhaps he can pay back the people he stiffed when he was evicted or the money he owes for child support.
3
Tax cuts for the rich.
Befriending dictators.
Austerity in recession.
Plundering the planet.
A liar in the Whitehouse.
Wage freezes for the poor.
Guns, guns and more guns.
Blind obedience to the NRA.
Tariffs, attacking free trade.
Overt racism/sexism/...ism.
Attacking our longtime allies.
Taking healthcare from millions.
Jailing the poor (aka the war on drugs).
Blow up the budget/increase the debt when the economy is strong.
Private companies profiting from the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Denying basic healthcare/toothpaste/soap/blankets/clean clothing/showers to refugee children in detention.
You and the rest of the GOP deserve Trump and Walsh, you created them, and their words, deeds, policies and actions will be your legacy and place in history.
8
@Martin
Everything you say is true but it would be good to see the Republican Party divided from within. Let Walsh take on Trump. Let them slug it out on a national stage so all can see the GOP for what it is. Trump is not unique. The Trump base needs to know this. They wanted ugly. They got it.
2
Are Joe Walsh and Trump 'cut from the same cloth' as you say.
Or more accurately, 'molded from the same material?'
2
That they personify the modern Republican Part is not accidental - the GOP has in it's DNA receptors inclined to the historical lowest.
3
I like the idea that you, Mr Wehner, use the word "rancid" to reference Donald Trump.
Everything about DJT is "rancid."
1
At first I thought he was talking about Joe Walsh the musician.
These loud-mouthed Republicans like Trump, Walsh, Gowdy, Jordan, Limbaugh, Pirro, Carlson and Hannity etc are like a wasp nest on a hot summer day. No one knows why they are buzzing, ready to sting. Their nest is intact, undisturbed but they are angry and swarming and wanting to sting.
The rule is to give them a wide berth and they will be harmless. But these folks are travelling far from the nest on airwaves making it so decent people get hurt and stung. Loud, blustering, buzzing angry wasps.
Someone needs to knock that nest down, fumigate, so we can live civilly again.
4
Republicans are funny. They love playing the "what about Obama/Clinton" game when they don't even realize the implication. What they are implying is whatever Obama or the Clintons did - be it increasing the deficit or using a personal email server or having sexual relations with an intern - are all bad things. However, because Obama and the Clintons did it, it's OK for Trump and any Republicans to do the same thing. How does that make any sense? If cheating on your wife is a bad thing, isn't still bad for Trump? Or does Bill's cheating somehow absolve Trump of his illicit affairs?
But, the truth of the matter is we are SOOOO far beyond "whataaboutism". It is very clear now that Republicans never cared for anything they claimed were the pillars of their beliefs. Moral standards? No. We don't care about that anymore. The deficit? As long as we get a tax cut, it's OK to add trillions to the deficit. Sanctity of human life? As long as they are a fetus in the womb, that life is precious and must be defended at all costs. Yet, as soon as that life is born, god forbid if it's from an illegal immigrant because that infant child needs to be separated from their mother and locked up in cages. Because that's how Jesus would've wanted us to behave, right?
The hypocrisy of the Republican party is shocking in its breadth and scope.
5
Joe Walsh is just sane Trump or something like it.
Walsh and Weld are about as relevant as, say, Gillibrand.
My better angels must be on vacation right now. I'm thinking I might enjoy watching Republicans rather than Democrats eat their own for a change.
I'm imagining Trump and Walsh taking each other on like two WWE champions in a political arena roped off to keep the screaming and booing fans at bay. Or not. Maybe let em on stage like Jerry Springer would have done.
Isn't that what we are watching every single day with Trump shadow boxing his way on the world stage? Excep he's all alone out there. No one wants to stoop that low. So, why not give him an opponent in that ring who is his equal in every sense of the word.
Put it all out there in living color on HBO or sell it to the highest bidder. Why not? Would this not be the epitome of America's fascination with Ultimate! EXTREME! tests of strength in everything?
This is what the world sees right now. Might as well own it and make a buck on it.
3
Joe Walsh is an Alex Jones-Donald Trump wannabe. To all the people that think that once Trump someday is gone that the Republican Party will return to the normalcy of Romneys, Bushes, McCains and Doles, I say you are dead wrong. What comes after Trump in the Republican Party will be far worse than Trump by evidence of Joe Walsh.
Yes, Trump will be gone someday, but the Republican Party is nowhere near the bottom, yet. And, it is going to get a lot worse. Joe Walsh is absolutely terrible, and the GOP is loaded with Joe Walsh's and Iowa Rep Steven King's, etc., and these will be the new leaders of the GOP.
What I don’t understand is why people like Mr. Wehner feel the need to continue supporting a Republican. The party’s current base is standing behind a lying, rude, crude, self obsessed, bigot ignoramus. The most reasoned among them historically have championed economic theories proven backward many times over and policies that have hurt the economy and the well being of the entire planet.
If you thought they broke the mold when they made Trump, you were wrong! Anyone for a third party ticket with Joe Walsh and Mooch?
A sure sign of the times in which we’re suffering. This guy as the great, traditional republican hope.
1
" ... the president’s rhetoric is pathologically dishonest, dehumanizing, cruel, crude, racist and misogynistic ... the rhetoric Mr. Walsh has long deployed is racist, bigoted, vicious, threatening and dishonest ... " So dishonest and racist are the common threads, but we can choose between "dehumanizing, cruel, crude, and misogynistic" and "bigoted, vicious, and threatening". Good to know.
Why would anyone crazy enough to like Trump prefer Walsh? If's Trump's brand of madness is what you like, Walsh can't match it, hard and pathetically as he might try.
With little respect to Walsh, I suspect the Sandy Hook parents neither wanted or needed their "fifteen minutes" of fame, but I'm sure they wish they had back the five minutes of massacre during which Adam Lanza murdered their children.
"We live in a time of acute bitterness and acrimony, where people’s first (and second and third) impulse is to brutalize, insult, embarrass and demean those who hold different views. The purpose of language, as they see it, isn’t to clarify or enlighten or reason together. It is to inflict the maximum pain possible on other human beings."
Well Peter - considering the circumstances - I rue that there seems to be a peculiar softness - a reticence to "call a spade a spade" - in contemporary - particularly American - political culture. Many - it seems to me - deserve - at least - rhetorical violence. Given that the Republican party has been dominated by neo-liberalism and Movement (or libertarian) conservatism since the election of your hero Reagan - for instance - I have to wonder how someone such as yourself could not know it would eventually lead to the election of someone like Donald Trump and drive the US and Western civilisation into a ditch as it has.
"Government is not the solution to the problem - it is the problem" was transparently an anti-democratic, anti-American statement - so your regret at the present state of American democracy seems precious at best. And if you want to speak of "pain", how about we consider the rather lethal violence perpetuated against the American public since 1980 due to Republican policies as reflected in your country's declining life expectancy figures. Your surprise that a brutalised people could vote for someone like Trump astounds me.
3
At this point, I can no longer believe that there is any Republican in office, anywhere in this great nation, who puts Country before Party.
It is a pity, because I would like a choice on election day between real ideas about the real issues that face us. Of course, that is not likely to happen.
5
The Republican Party as it now stands needs complete annihilation through the electoral process. Overwhelming defeat on every front is the only thing that will clean out the system.
After utter destruction, a new Republican Party can arise that is slightly right of center. Kind of like a slightly more conservative Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden.
Specifically? We need a two party system where both sides are fully committed to fighting climate change, where both sides stand united with Europe. Where both sides understand that trade wars don't work, that some form of universal health care is a national right, and that some form of college education leading to a useful degree is essential to push this planet in a positive way towards the 22nd century.
Right now the Republican Party is fully corrosive. Fully corrupt. Fully wedded to making the billionaires richer at the expense of all of us.
19
We should not be surprised (shocked) when the Republican party en masse tries to 'explain' why they supported Trump's villainous nature and deeds, when he's no longer in power. Hopefully the worst of them will also be flushed out of power.
It will take a very long time, if ever, the America most of us grew up with can be put back together from the damages of not just Trump season, but the Republican party since 1980.
5
Call this choice between Walsh & Trump the lesser of two evils and don't even consider the righteousness of William
Weld as a possibility since sanity has left the room three years ago with nary a chance for its return in the near future.
If these two sons of different mothers (as well as The Mooch) do anything worthwhile for the rest of their lives, it will be to cancel themselves and their opponents, they inadvertently will save what's still left of our democracy.
Vote.
1
Walsh will be forgotten by next week.
2
The only plausible Republican challenger to trump would be a Senator or a very successful business guy.
There are any number of people who are one or the other. There are a few people who are both.
However, nobody serious will challenge Trump in the GOP primaries.
1
Am I the only one who assumes Walsh is simply playing Trump at his own game? Raising the stakes to get the biggest possible payout of 'get lost' money? Isn't this where Michael Cohen would normally step in?
Because it's pretty obvious now, that behind the Republican smoke and mirrors, it's all about the money, right on down the line.
2
There used to be responsible Republicans, but the "Southern Strategy" of Richard Nixon, brought bigots into a party that once supported civil rights. Then the Koch Bros. funded the extreme right wing, voter suppression tactics and made the Republican Party what it is today. I doubt that the Peter Wehners of this world can regain possession of the party. Moderate Republicans will find it hard to win primaries and are leaving politics in droves.
7
Mr. Walsh is proof of the old saying that even a broken clock is right twice a day. He and Trump both have no pace in a society with any pretense to basic decency.
4
Kook versus Kook.
6
I believe the Walsh candidacy is simply a republican ploy to present a more crazy and extreme contrast to Trump, making Trump comparatively more palatable to those who may begin to doubt if they can keep supporting the republican ticket.
7
When challenged on the PBS News Hour last night for his racist positions as a pundit Joe Walsh really didn't have a good defense, but claimed that he was trying to fit in in to the ranting conservative atmosphere and in his own halting way apologized for it. He seems like an alcoholic realizing his obsessive behavior now denounces his former life. But whether this is true or not is anyone's guess as back sliding is easy and making points in a GOP still consumed with that dialogue may require him to do so.
In any case , I had to give him points for courage in saying what he did knowing that he would be slammed by his hypocritical former colleagues. Would I vote for him? Never on your life as he seems erratic as the man he now denounces , our con man in chief. Perhaps his tactics are meant for a time in the future when republicans see their error. If so it is an error on his part to think that the GOP will disavow their sainted Trump.
3
There are some acts and some words from which a person cannot redeem themselves. They can try to make amends, make whatever depth of apologies seem sincere and appropriate but, having done so, they do not fully cleanse themselves of their pasts. Supporting Hitler would be in this category. Mocking, insulting, denigrating parents who in the desperate days of grief at having their children murdered like sheep at a slaughterhouse would be another.
I am old fashioned. I believe public service and public office should be for people who, in the main, have conducted their lives with decency and respect for others, especially in public forums that help to set the tone for society. From what I have read, it seems Joe Walsh is a man who has nothing more in his being than a feverish desire for self promotion and whatever status that can confer. Indeed, this describes the current occupant of the White House as well.
15
There are former Republicans like Joe Scarborough and Bret Stephens who have always behaved much more civilly than Joe Walsh or Donald Trump. Their party left them behind.
Unfortunately, too few of them are questioning the conservative positions they held back when they were still loyal Republicans. They should question them.
For instance, this would be a good time for them to reflect on their misguided support for austerity and tight budgets during the financial crisis.
It would also be a good time to think about a lot of other issues. Like whether it is really such a great idea to wage a counterproductive war on drugs, to encourage private companies to profit off the incarceration of hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens, to let civilians own military-grade weapons, or to deprive millions of us of basic health care.
They should question many of their other positions and policies as well. But they aren't questioning them. They're still hoping that some day soon, their illusory kinder gentler conservatism will prevail in America.
They want to be civil, but they're holding on to ideas that have seriously negative implications for millions of their fellow citizens. In the end, how civil is that?
240
@Ken best comment of the day.
16
@Ken Well done. There's more of course, like promoting the regarding of providing medicines and health care from the perspective of wealth creation or "the profit motive" first-and-foremost. Basically a lot of politics and policies that scream that "Rich Americans getting richer is the only thing that matters. The general health, wealth, mental well-being and wisdom of Americans counts for nothing."
Peter also needs to account for how the anthropogenic global warming denialism of the Republican Party pre-Trump caused him no concern. In my youth I could not have imagined that the "leader of the free world", the "land of the free, the home of the brave" - the nation that put men on the moon - would not be leading the fight to combat a peril to human civilisation and existence, recognised by the international scientific community.
20
And there's the problem exactly, Ken. "Civility" for them means walking away or staying silent (or in Grabbing-My-Musket Walsh's case, making an obviously-dud run to primary the loser) while the crazies do the actual damage. I'm firmly convinced that—just as with cops—the ones who stay silent exist solely to give the crazy-and-evil a foothold, and comfort us with feel-good PR.
4
I heard Walsh speak a few days ago and he sounds as good speaking against Trump as Beto does. It would be good to see Walsh blast Trump in a Primary, and maybe run as a third party candidate to siphon off some Trump voters.
28
@Horace. It would be better if Tom Steyer, a hedge fund founder that made his fortune investing in Australian coal and private prisons ran as a third party candidate.
2
@Horace
Nobody should run as a third party candidate. Trump supporters are loyal to the cult. Democrats want to vote for a Democrat. The only people who will vote third party will be moderate swing voters in about a dozen states who will use it to say they didn't vote for Trump so they don't share the responsibility for him. Democrats will only get them if they don't have an easy cop-out in a third party (how Democrats got those 40 House seats in suburban districts in 2018). Tom Nichols explained this superbly in his Washington Post op-ed today. If you don't believe me, think Jill Stein in 2016 who got more votes in those 3 midwestern states that tipped the Electoral College than Trump's lead over Hillary Clinton. Think also Ralph Nader in 2000 in FL. The only path to 270 EC votes is a binary choice.
11
@Horace. Just as he had an epiphany, of sorts, I hope he gets through to some of the proverbial base and enlightens enough to make them turn away from the horror in the wh.
joe walsh, eh? life's been good to him so far, as the song goes. glad to see that might be changing. and can we throw in his opponent (president trump), as well, please?! lucky i'm sane after all we've been through....
1
It would appear that they are two of a kind, but at least Walsh can compose a coherent sentence, has functioning neurons (albeit evil ones) and has no, as far as we know, committed anywhere near as many offenses to society as Donald Trump.
I would never vote for either of them, no matter how affable Walsh is. That would be like trading hot coals for boiling oil. I hope he gives Trump a good run for his money though. We must defeat him at any cost.
3
And yet, these are the two candidates, and the TYPE of candidates, that columnists like Mr. Wehner and other political commentators, love to give all their attention to. As do all the major (and minor) news organizations, including this one. It goes far beyond "coverage" - it's clicks and sensationalism, to the point that anyone close to intellectually curious or intelligent finds it difficult to distinguish these commentators and news organizations from grocery store checkout rags and writers.
Sensationalism sells - the lowlife politicians know it, the ones with integrity try to avoid it...and it seems to be similar with our news sources. And the citizenry suffers.
4
If you are going to generalize about the rancid, putrid and utterly foul nature of American politics, confine it to the rancid, putrid and utterly foul nature of the Republican party. The Democratic party has its problems but it did not follow the racist, divisive Southern Strategy that Nixon and Reagan rode to the presidency and the rest of the Republican party happily went along with for the past 50 years. Folks like Joe Walsh are the rule, not the exception, within the Republican party.
4
Joe Walsh is simply Trump lite. He doesn't have the bank account and perhaps his mental pathology is minutely less alarming, but the only box he checks is "Not Trump" and that's not enough.
5
In retrospect, his position on arming preschoolers was a brilliant way to siphon off NRA support for Trump. This man is, as Tom Cotton would say, "sly like a fox".
2
I think this is typical republican strategy. Republicans literally build election strategy the same was WWE builds a narrative for a pro wrestling match. Make the president look more legitimate by pitting him against another wackadoodle. Trump cannot fashion ideas or look good against democrats, since he cannot make sentences more complex than a second grade topic sentence (The economy is doing very tremendously, and things will end very badly). Liven up the base with a good old fashioned celebrity cage match, and wind up the crowds on adrenaline and soap opera narratives. After all, look at the campaign finance and political machinations of Vince McMahon, and look at our president in the WWE hall of fame. The fact is, you CAN make stuff like this up after all. What a zoo!
3
While I don’t follow Joe Walsh on social media, I have read many of his tweets. They say all the correct things for someone like myself, things to gratify a liberal’s heart. But so do George Conway’s remarks. Despite both men “telling it like it is” about Trump, I remain very suspicious of their motivations.
It does not take very much perspective to view Trump as he actually is, as both these men say they do. But very likely many in the Republican Party would say the same things in private too, and they have their own ulterior motives for not making their feelings public. Walsh and Conway appear to have their ulterior motives for letting it all hang out. If they can wound Trump, so be it, but I am not jumping on their bandwagon.
1
I agree. I agree. I agree. Vote for Weld in the primaries. At least I wouldn't have to hold my nose. (if I could vote, that is.)
My first choice in 2020 would have been John Kasich. The GOP chose to offer DT. At least Hillary was talking policy and not spending most of her time pitting various groups against one another.
3
In many ways, I think the former Trump Republicans have the clearest voices and understanding of Trump. They can put him within a context that is foreign to many of us.
Personally, I appreciate each and every one of them including Mr. Walsh. Yes, I accept his apologies about his previous actions and words. Similarly, I think Michael Cohen exemplified someone who has learned from his mistakes. Once the idol with his head of gold and feet of clay is exposed, he topples.
What matters is the future. Part of that future must be facing lies and replacing them with truth. Truth comes from seeing the inside, hearing the private backroom conferences, exposing falsities. Those on the inside can do this. Others simply profit from these insider views, repeat or create new lies, and go on to exploit them on Fox or in future campaigns (i.e., Sarah Sanders).
More whistle blowers need to come out and do the right thing. They should release compromising documents and testify to lies or contacts with Russia or criminal acts.
Redemption is a good thing. There were many fine Republican candidates in the primary including Jeb Bush and Kasich. But far too many of them embraced Trump afterwards despite horrific insults not just of themselves but of their closest family members.
So, welcome to democracy. If you want it to continue, vote against Trump and all Republicans who have collaborated with him. Country over Party.
Walsh has been equally racist and horrible as Trump. Why would anyone think he's an alternative? Go home.
1
For Republicans, Joe Walsh is a fantastic choice in the 2020 general election. He will faithfully serve the .1 percent, but not nominate a "Pizza Man" to be on the Federal Reserve Board. Unlike " Michigan Man Of the Year," he will not sell America to the Russians. Joe Walsh will suppress the votes of black and brown people, but not speak of "Fine People" walking with neo nazis. He will champion all the "great" racist, anti-science, war on woman policies of the Republicans, but pretend to be doing something else. He will undermine our Democracy but will not draw attention to it. My plea is to Republicans patriots: Please vote for Joe Walsh and split the GOP ticket.
2
To paraphrase Hyman Roth in the Godfather Part II, Joe Walsh is small potatoes. Sure, he's a compilation of the worst human attributes, but then so is Trump, only on a far grander scale.
Walsh will not win the nomination, of course, but if he dings Trump here and there it can only help in November 2020.
54
@Sparky
Agreed. Watched Walsh on Nicolle Wallace's show and was truly relieved that at least somebody in the Republican Party, who used to support Trump, is saying the truth and saying it loudly. That can only help in getting Trump defeated in 2020. Bring it on, Mr. Walsh!
@Sparky
Everyone also thought Trump wouldn't win the nomination.
And we all know how that worked out.
1
@Sparky That's the argument that Walsh's conservative supporters make: he may be deeply flawed, but he serves a useful purpose -- damaging Donald Trump. I understand that argument; I just don't find it persuasive.
For one thing, I don't see Walsh as doing real, sustained damage to Trump. A ding here and there won't matter, especially with a man who sustains more dings in a week than most political figures sustain in a lifetime. If Donald Trump loses the 2020 election, it won't be because of anything Joe Walsh said or did.
But whether I'm right about that or not, embracing Walsh erodes the credibility of anti-Trump conservatives. Embracing a man who was a proto-Trump -- whose viscous approach to politics helped pave the path that led to Trump -- in order to bring down Trump, strikes me as unwise and unnecessary, especially with a fine alternative to Trump, William Weld, already in the arena. I don't want Joe Walsh morally defining the conservative anti-Trump movement.
A friend of mine, in speaking about anti-Trump conservatives who are rallying behind Joe Walsh, said it reminds him of a verse from II Kings 18:21: "Egypt is a broken reed that will pierce the hand of he who leans on it.”
3
There is only one way to defeat Trump--vote D. Whoever it is. If you say you detest Trump but then don't vote or vote for a third-party candidate, you really don't care about the future of America.
11
I feel the GOP has yet to pay a price for their obscene demonization and slandering of Barack Obama as he tried to clean up the gigantic mess they left this country in after 2008. Men like Walsh and I am sure you as well Mr. Wehner had nothing good to say about Obama and the Democrats and blocked over 500 bills introduced by the Obama administration to move the country forward after the last Republican debacle. Walsh is a prime example of a Tea party liar, racist, bigot and slanderer, same as Trump or for that matter any member of the Republican party, a criminal organization masquerading as a political party. There are NO good Republicans. We don't want the Republican Party reformed, revitalized, or reconstituted. We want it ended and thrown on the ash heap of history where it has long belonged, and its criminal leadership behind bars for their 40 year long assault on our democracy.
11
So they attack Joe Walsh for his rhetoric, yet give Trump a pass? To quote Alanis Morissette ... "Isn't it ironic, don't you think?"
2
Never Trumper? Maybe never on Sunday!
1
this seems absurd, and I think you're missing the point here:
"I understand why some conservative critics of Mr. Trump are promoting Mr. Walsh’s candidacy; they see him as a means to inflict injury on the president, including as a way to psychologically “trigger” him. But rallying around Mr. Walsh, even if only for the purposes of weakening and disorienting Mr. Trump, strikes me as unwise, particularly with a far more responsible person like the former Massachusetts governor William Weld already in the race."
There is no overlap between Trump and Weld at all. Weld supported Obama, enacted gun control laws, and is publicly pro-choice. His candidacy has no implications for Trump's support.
The whole point with Walsh is that he is cut from the same cloth (at least, superficially). If you actually want Trump to lose, it's a strategic positive if someone that trump supporters also might like starts saying trump is a morally bankrupt idiot.
Re: "...Would I speak out against the former Tea Party congressman, now that he was running against Trump? Here goes..."
It's my understanding that any president who has a primary challenger during the re-election-effort, is (politically), doomed!
Mr. Trump has Mr. Weld, as well as Mr. Walsh...challenging him!
BTW: It's ALSO my understanding: Mr. Walsh was deemed, negligent in his child-support payments from years ago', or some, such!
If that report is correct, I'm curious:
Which part of the often, described - often, neglected Republican morality_spectrum, (sarcastically labelled: 'family_values', L.O.L.!), allows a parent to be such an (alleged) deadbeat??
2
"There's a word for what Trump supporters are doing here: hypocrisy."
With respect, we're long since past hypocrisy for Trump supporters, and, frankly, the whole GOP. Hypocrisy is a momentary blindness, applying inconsistent standards to friends and adversaries. What we have here is acting/arguing in bad faith.
4
The amazon is burning to the ground and we have mule facing off with a burro. Rich.
2
Say what you will about tMr. Walsh. I have always admired his guitar playing.
2
It seems to be a GOP candidate for the presidency, one must be a coarse spewer of hate. How different from Lincoln.
2
To paraphrase: Any enemy of Trump is a friend of mine.
1
Dear Republicans,
You’re party is doomed. In the immortal words of Lindsey Graham, “If we nominate Trump, it will be the end of the Republican Party and we will deserve it!”
Republican strategy has been hate, fear and lies for decades....all this toxicity created the political climate of the Trump era! Good riddance!
6
Evidently no one on the right cares a wit about hypocrisy. Or lying. Or decency. Without these, there ain't much left to have any basis for morality. And those on the right who are afraid to call out the vices of the transgressors -- the entire lot of them - are nothing but weak-kneed cowards.
4
"We live in a time of acute bitterness and acrimony, where people’s first (and second and third) impulse is to brutalize, insult, embarrass and demean those who hold different views. The purpose of language, as they see it, isn’t to clarify or enlighten or reason together. It is to inflict the maximum pain possible on other human beings."
This is so true, so horrible, so exhausting, and so disheartening. Thanks for stating it so well.
4
I can only see positive in a "Trump Mirror" like Joe Walsh challenging Trump. Republicans will despise his opposition, but wait, He's Just Like Trump! Could that revelation loosen a few coconuts from the Trump Tree?
The few Trump challengers and declining polls may preclude a massive dam break soon. Republicans man your lifeboats!
1
Trump appears to have a cult following, not a normal political following. This may explain why his supporters want critics to call out Walsh but not Trump for the same nasty stuff. I think Trump has now become so central to the lives of his supporters that they cannot do anything that would jeopardize losing Trump as their leader. His support is irrational and for his supporters he is beyond criticism which makes this a really dangerous situation.
3
Any republican challenging Trump in a primary is good news for the democrats . THey can attack Trump on so many levels that are an affront to traditional republicans as the GOP has become cult party with republican politicians terrified of Trump's nasty tweets . More damaging info may becoming out about Trump which may make Romney and others step in over the political corpse of Trump.
1
Sure sounds like that “strongly pro-Trump political pundit” who challenged you to criticize Walsh is feeling insecure about his or her support for Trump. It fits my suspicions that a lot of more educated pro-Trumpers feel secretly ashamed for their support of Trump and desperately want others to back them up. Great column. I hope you update us on what this pundit has to say about your riposte.
1
The Republican Party has been a source of shame, and at the root of America’s decline, since the ”Grand Old Party” made the right wing extremist Barry Goldwater its ‘standard bearer’ in the 1960s. What has it done since?
We had what was the low point of our post WW II political history with Richard Nixon and Watergate.
Then we had the turning point in our history, when Ronald Reagan sold The Big Lie: ‘tax cuts will pay for themselves’ — which was right wing code for ‘if we choke off the flow of tax revenues, we can strangle government regulation and social programs and run roughshod over the vast majority of Americans.’ That started us on the road of wealth and income inequality that poisons America today, along with its rotting infrastructure, unaffordable education, health and child care, housing crisis and all the other challenges that go unfunded for want of tax revenue.
Then along came the two Bushes. The second one — elected by a minority of the voters — started a war that has cost countless lives, trillions of dollars, and accomplished nothing but create chaos and misery in the Middle East, now the source of waves of refugees whom ‘conservatives’ in America and Europe now revile.
Then there’s the repeated government shutdowns; the religious fanatics; the old school racists like Steve King... and the reductio ad absurdum of Republican know-nothingism, Donald J. Trump, who cheapens and damages everything he touches.
The ‘party of Lincoln’? That’s a sick joke.
3
Instead of wasting (and pixels) on the racist Joe Walsh, how about giving some attention to a *true* and *moderate* alternative to Trump? William Weld announced in April that he would oppose Trump in the primaries, but he's received scant attention in the New York Times, either in the news pages or in the op-eds.
5
Trump's policies are cut taxes for the rich, cut environmental regulations, threaten Roe v Wade, support Gerrymandering, and appoint conservative judges.
No different from what Republicans have been doing since Reagan and the culture wars.
And now Mr. Wehner is against it?
And it is no wonder that Mitch McConnell doesn't complain.
2
Your last two paragraphs are pure poetry. Thank you for this essay.
3
Trump has Times' readers knotted up like pretzels.
He has them rooting for someone they despise.
1
Joe Walsh, your 30 seconds are up. But, by all means, do your best to splinter the right wing vote.
14
Gee, Mr. Wehner, can you tell me what you were saying when Reagan talked about "welfare queens, " and Bush 1 did his Willie Horton schtick?
I ask because I suspect you thought those approaches were fine, although they were simply steps down the same path that got us to Trump.
So, Mr Wehner, can you direct me to your comments which took issue with those Reagan and Bush utterances? If not, then your comments pointing out the hypocrisy and evil of Trump and Walsh should be directed towards the guy you see in the mirror.
10
@DaveB
Also throw in the Reagan and W Bush increases in the deficits.
Joe Walsh likes to play to the crowd, first it was as a tea partier, now as a Never Trumper. He has basically admitted that everything he said as a tea party congressman was theater to incite the crazy time hater base. The Republican base always believes that someone is trying to take something from them. The Republican Party has never been a party to help anyone. The Republican Party was and is against social security, medicare, civil rights legislation and Obamacare. So enough with the old fashion moderate Republicans. By the way, I voted for Bill Weld for governor of Massachusetts and he was just an empty suit.
3
Everyone ought to read Thomas B. Edsall’s 8/28 column. It describes the changed composition of the Republican Party, which has become largely a bastion of high income, low education white people. Mr. Edsall shows how these voters have turned to Trump precisely because they fear losing the white privellige that has allowed people without a college degree to succeed economically. They fear the information revolution because they see themselves as disadvantaged due to their lack of advanced education, and they fear competition from other low education groups, which they perceive as being largely minority in composition.
I’m not familiar with Mr. Walsh’s views, but it is clear from Mr. Wehner’s article that he appeals to much the same audience that find Trump’s rhetoric appealing. Whether Mr. Walsh’s candidacy does or does not harm Trump’s re-election chances is, at this point, conjectural. The more important issue is that the Democratic Party urgently needs to shape its primary campaign to produce a candidate who unequivocally eases this race-based fear of replacement by advocating for greater economic opportunity for all Americans.
The obvious villain in this campaign should be corporate greed that siphons an inordinate share of wealth away from the middle class. A Democratic campaign that accomplishes that without scaring the daylights out of the moneyed class and provoking a frenzied over-reaction is what is needed to not only get rid of Trump, but improve our economy.
4
Have republicans ever pondered that their roster of candidates is so consistently pathetic because their entire platform is such? No remotely intelligent or reasonable person would be able to defend or agree with their politics or policies.
5
This guy needs to go away. He should not be getting the kind of publicity his so-called supporters are paying for. He is a Joe Arpaio clone. These losers pretend to run for office because they are broke and are soliciting money to help them survive. People who fall for this scam fall under the old adage "A fool and his money...".
5
As soon as the Times reminded us Walsh "in 2016 wrote on Twitter: “On November 9th, if [the loser, well,] loses, I’m grabbing my musket. You in?”"[1], Walsh's claims of sanity relative to him went permanently down the window. If I say anything like that about a presidential candidate—even one as roundly malcompetent as the loser, let alone Clinton—I'll be having a talk with the Secret Service in lieu of lunch.
Walsh might've hoped to make now-President Clinton DOA, but alas, his own political hopes are instead. We already have Sane alternatives to both loser and Walsh, like Bernie.
Go VOTE!
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/25/us/politics/joe-walsh-president.html
4
Joe Walsh and his grandstanding screaming and yelling on the nightly news was more than enough.A class clown armed with bile and acid attacks on any and all who dared not agree with his twisted visions.Don't go away mad Walsh,just go away.
3
So does making the political discourse kinder and gentler mean that your side goes back to wink wink nudge nudge racist dog whistles while we call you on it and you express shock, shock that we should so misinterpet your words? Face it, the republican party is the party of racism and wealth just as we have depicted it, whether it is St Reagan making a phone call to the taper in chief, or Donnie all but giggling when his mob threatens to shoot Mexicans. Your party has no choice but to embrace the racist, ignorant mob either subtly or overtly because it would otherwise cease to exist. Donnie and mini Donnie can enjoy their dance. Were your political party not destroying the future for my child and grandchild, I would be thoroughly amused.
Sleep tight in the bed that you made and dream your dreams of fine and decent republican folk.
1
I say to my fellow Democrats, support Joe Walsh and his efforts to primary our feckless, criminal president. Walsh and Trump are cut from the same cloth and attract the same voters -- the white, rich, male, misogynistic, over 60 crowd who left their humanity in the toilet years ago. I don't know if Walsh is sincere in his apologies. I don't care. I just want our country to return to decency, the rule of law, and learning from our mistakes. One more thing. If you're reading this Joe Walsh, you owe Barak Obama a huge apology for your rude "you lie" interruption of his State of the Union.
2
Excellent piece. The irony of this vile man, who has dirtied the air in Northern Illinois for too long, calling Trump a "bigot" is unbelievable. Joe Walsh is simply Trump with better hair.
14
Walsh is just building his radio audience by this gambit. Free PR
3
He has no chance. Next.
1
Joe Walsh is like the pot calling the kettle.... He is as intemperate as Trump. His temerity is boundless. His lust for the spot light is Trump-like. Two,peas in a pod, so to speak does not make for an enlightened electorate. He is gasoline on the fire.
Pointing out that he has been contrite on occasion does not make him in any way qualified. He is no more a conservative than TRUMP. He is simply another narcissist seeking attention. This is like putting out a Forrest fire by starting a fire elsewhere.
He argued years ago that he did not pay over $100,000 in child support because he needed and used the money for his one Congressional campaign. To him that made sense. He is hot wired just like the person he wants to run against in primaries. Pathetic.
2
Walsh is most useful in underlining the cowardice of the GOP leaders. He may have said some vile and stupid things, but since he isn't going to take office, that is irrelevant. The truthful portrait he paints of an utterly unfit, incompetent, morally vacuous President is like The King's Clothes every day. "Republicans-with-a-scintilla-of-courage" was a wide open lane. What politician doesn't take that?
Cool rant, but you can't shame the shameless, Mr. Wehner. You're claiming Trump is some kind of mutant mistake, while still remaining in the party of Mitch McConnell, who, if not an actual traitor for shutting down all legislation and stealing a SCOTUS pick, is an inch away from it. This is the company you keep. Do YOU have the capacity for shame?
8
@Clearheaded
Just to be clear and fair, Wehner has left the Republican Party.
See: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/i-left-gop-because-trump/581965/
At last, a rather honest republican. And I thought that they had become extinct.
Mr. Wehner, you said "... people’s first (and second and third) impulse is to brutalize, insult, embarrass and demean those who hold different views. " You're wrong.
Most of us don't have that impulse. Most of us are uncomfortable with people who have that impulse and with people who act on that impulse. Many of us are shocked by it. Many of us are amused by it.
But don't assume most people are like that just because we see it in public figures. For most of us, we feel ashamed when we have an impulse like that and we certainly wouldn't act on it. Most of us are striving for to be on a higher plane of existence.
We are doing something about it here in Atlanta. I encourage others to do something similar.
https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/polite-conversations-about-racism-and-other-hard-issues/QOEiyk3DH5kmQhexDbswOK/
https://www.civicdinners.com/
5
Another apt poster boy for the GOP.
2
We watched Judy Woodruff eviscerate the rancid Joe Walsh on the PBS News Hour yesterday evening. Why responsible media gives free air time to people of his ilk is unfathomable; we already know how harmful they are. Her probing questions revealed that: Walsh, like Alex Jones, denies Sandy Hook, like Rush Limbaugh, called President Obama a Muslim and foreign born, like religious zealots, denies a woman's right-to-chose in matters of incestuous rape and potential harm, in short; he is delusional.
Republicans do line-up behind their standard bearers in the most submissive ways.
4
Republicans will back anyone who has not been consumed by the woke PC culture including politicians that ride cage free unicorns across carbon neutral rainbows. Heck even some of my republican friends would back a democrat if they all were not on nutty train to a socialist utopia.
Aside from all mentioned in this article, Walsh is not qualifide to be President.
1
It's one thing to be a Never Trumper and a vigorous critic of Joe Walsh, but the question on every Democrat's mind is: Where have people like you been for the past 30 years?
Where were you when Gingrich and others irresponsibly shut down the government?
Where were you when the GOP was pushing discredited libertarian economic policies like the Trump tax cut for the rich?
Where were you when McConnell dishonored a Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court by ignoring his constitutionally invested powers as president?
Where were you when Karl Rove smeared McCain in South Carolina, claiming he'd fathered a black child? Or during the swift-boating of John Kerry?
Where were you in 2008 when McConnell and Eric Cantor told GOP leaders in Congress that their job was not to govern but only to win seats? To acquire POWER???
And where have you been on gun control? Do you have any idea how many innocent people -- many of them CHILDREN, like at Sandy Hook and many a high school! -- have perished at the hand of assault-style weapon-loving murderers? It's not okay to claim Sandy Hook was a hoax, but it's okay to carry water for the NRA, perhaps one of the most despicable organizations in America?
And where are you on Republican demonizing of immigrants, gays, and anyone who is different or Other? On orphaning and caging children?
And why -- WHY have you not quit the GOP now that it is increasingly resembling a fascist, undemocratic political party?
9
Rock guitarist Joe Walsh is more popular than this guy will ever hope to be.
5
Walsh et alles are what gave rise to Trump....but of course Republicanism in general is the first cause.
The GOP is and has been a disease.
Voting is the cure. Vote Blue no matter who!
4
I think the best thing for people to do is to speak the plain truth. Walsh is a heartless racist in bed with the NRA. Whether he would be in any sense a better president than Deranged Donald is impossible to know in advance. (Pray God we never find out.)
There is no reason to say anything good about him or support him whatsoever.
1
One discerning and astute political junkie could easily say that Joe Walsh begat the current occupant in the White House or that he vomited out the same or.......take your pick. They are all apt.
This just illustrates for all the world to see what the GOP truly is.
That one of their own, the odious and monumentally inconsequential Joe Walsh could mount a primary challenge to the chosen one.
It is impossible for the GOP to sink any lower than the fetid, wretched open sewer in which they reside.
1
This guy is a total sleeze, and the sad thing is, he'd probably be a better president than the current White House occupant.
(and no, that is not any kind of endorsement).
The GOP will have two whackos running and i can’t wait to hear the name calling unfit , illegitimate President and so on. Isn’t there any normal calm rich GOP supporters out there who look Presidential. I believe there are not. Sad political party.
Whether you like or dislike Walsch most important is his style will appeal to a small fraction of Republican voters and hopefully will cause them not to vote for DJT...or maybe "he is The Chosen" to save us from the spiral into a kingdom...not
Anyone who thinks that Joe Walsh is all that different from Trump should go back and read his twitter account. It's full of racist comments.
1
Mr. Wehner,
The Republican party has been on the wrong moral side of every issue in my 70 years.
Your Republican ilk have created Trump.
You were a Republican who supported Newt Gingrich and his band of anarchists.
You have no moral ground on this issue.
You and your Republican party created these two moral abominations.
7
Word.
3
All the negatives about trump and he still has a majority of republican support tells me everything about republicans: racists who hate America
They should all become extinct at the earliest opportunity; alas, where is the dinosaur killing asteroid when it’s needed most?
1
Trump and Walsh are the various faces of the GOP. You are not, Mr. Wehner. Racist, bigoted, vicious, threatening and dishonest is what your party is now, almost across the board. You need to jump ship.
1
This is, and always will be, about how much money the Joe Walsh’s can make from angry rhetoric.
Walsh rose to a commercial gravy train on the blood soaked coat tails of the Tea Party and then Trump.
The funds from those consumers has all been tapped by Fox Noise and this is solely his way of extending his compensation from a shifting consumer rage.
Call him out for the economic arsonist he is, stop giving him the new followers he desperately needs to fuel his ego, and let his income evaporate into the dung if history where it belongs.
Walsh's "change" is in marketing only.
He is a RepubliCON. Expect nothing more than a show.
If he had truly "changed" such deep-rooted hatefulness in such a short amount of time, he would no longer be a Republicon.
If you think Walsh is truthful, I have a South Florida condo on the beach that has lobby swimming twice a day for sale - real cheap!
3
What Mr. Wehner fails to understand is that Trumps and Walsh are natural bookends to the Republican Party. The variation goes from Trump’s evil, stupid, and remorseless on one end to Walsh’s evil, uninformed, and barely remorseful. There is nothing else there. You will not find intelligence or virtue anywhere in the GOP. Decent people must look elsewhere.
2
So, one morning Peter Wehner wakes up and finds the political party he has defended for years for it's commitment to Principle and Morality consists almost entirely of pseudo-Christian, pseudo-patriotic, pseudo-conservative, opportunistic, race-baiting, hypocritical, cowardly, unprincipled, lying, moral relativists.
Better late than never, I suppose.
2
You're all a bunch of clowns with a different clown costume. I haven't seen a decent, reserved, kindly republican candidate or pundit in years.
2
A DNC hire no doubt ... check the money flow to this one
Clever move, Mr. Walsh! Seems like your “career” as a Congressman and radio host did not quite get you up there, where - in your mind - you belong. So this stunt, that brings your name to front page news, worked. And what now? Do you think anything you can tell us or the world about Trumps unfitness is new to a person with a little bit of brain left? Or do you expect the republican party to drop this buffoon from the oval office and instead rally behind yourself? So, basically this is just another of your ego trips, isn’t it?
Well, be my guest. Personally, I will welcome anyone who manages to hurt Trump or pull the mask off this psychopathic narcissist. That doesn’t mean you are qualified. It only means fighting fire with fire. And then, hopefully, both fires will die.
Once you open the door to someone like Donald Trump it can't be closed again. Like George W. Bush, Trump is just a preview of something far worse that will inevitably come crawling out of the GOP gutter. And I'm being polite.
Just imagine if Trump was smart, rather then the pathetic idiot we all know him to be, how much more damage he could have done so far.
Then again, there is still plenty of time for him to start another GOP war of convenience somewhere in order to bolster his poll number in an attempt to stay out of prison. Remember the GOP rallying cry as Bush approached his second election? "You don't change captains in the middle of the voyage!" - Even if that captain is directly responsible for sinking the entire ship.
Joe Walsh would simply be Trump II. Another asinine idiot, only with less personal charm than his predecessor. But even he would not as bad as what they might come up with eventually.
Donald Trump has undoubtedly caused an entire generation of damage to this country. But, unlike a GOP contender of the future, he hasn't completely destroyed it. But, because of him, it is now a much more likely possibility when looking ahead.
The election, and support, of Donald Trump has shown, beyond any possible doubt, that the modern GOP is an utterly spineless and morally degenerate group of individuals who will stop at nothing in order to increase their stranglehold on the American people for their own personal aggrandizement.
1
Walsh is detestable and has no chance. I wouldn't vote for him. But I will enjoy anything that annoys or wounds the monster in the White House. And then I will vote for whomever wins the Democratic nomination.
1
Joe Walsh - "Your 15 minutes is up.”
1
You, and many others, SHOULD speak out against this LIAR. He's a Tea Party creep/racist/nationalist/right-wing extremist. He made no believable apology, and he never will. (Did he have his fingers crossed behind his back?) He would be just as bad as tRump, maybe worse--HE'S actually intelligent. Don't be fooled by the Reds. Don't be fooled by this professional liar. There's a reason why he's no longer in Congress.
2
Republicans have always been fabulous in their tolerance of hypocrisy. Now, the chickens have come home to roost. The huge hypocrites are angry that the ultimate hypocrites are appealing to the run of the mill hypocrites to attack the disloyal huge hypocrite, Walsh, who is challenging the King of All Hypocrites - Trump. What a degradation of America they represent. All of them.
1
Most of today's barely literate con artists and hustlers, like Charlie KIrk, Candace Owens and Tomi Lahren, claim they left the Dem plantation. This racketeer just thinks he stumbled on a new con.
Walsh's top pick for VP running mate should be Steve King (R-IA). A perfect match up to include true racist, misogynistic, anti-environmental, wacko Christian bona-fides needed to please the Republican base.
2
For all of Mr. Walsh's odious comments and views, he represents what this president's Republican Party has become over the last few years. His Tea Party roots burgeoned when Barack Obama was president, and like the president, Walsh enthusiastically embraced the birther smear that the GOP promoted.
Unlike Justin Amash, who left the GOP for the right reasons, Walsh wants the attention and a higher right wing news media profile. He's not challenging the president because he loves America. Like Joe (You lie!!) Wilson, Walsh is an angry, vindictive man, a vile racist who hated the country's first black president.
Any human being who scorns the parents of children who were murdered in school deserves nothing but contempt. Walsh is a Republican turncoat, nothing more.
3
I hope Trump takes the bait. They’ll both look foolish.
Mitt Romney, your country needs you.
@T
ummm ok, I wouldn't go that far....
1
Yeah, the guy who thinks half his fellow citizens are losers and who sits quietly voting with Trump and his GOP cult while the world burns.
On their death beds George Corley Wallace and Harvey Leroy Atwater reportedly both sought forgiveness and redemption from a lifetime of white supremacist prejudiced partisan political biased color aka race bigotry.
My African Methodist Episcopal Christian Protestant faith teaches me that it is never too late while alive and breathing to apologize and ask for forgiveness.
Two thieves were with Jesus Christ at Golgotha. One mocked Jesus and asked the 'Son of God' to call upon his Father to whisk them away. While the other asked Jesus to remember him when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus told him that he would be with him in Paradise.
Yet at the end the 'human' Christ plaintively called out wondering why 'his Father had forsaken him. In the Garden at Gethsemane Jesus asked if he could avoid the Cross. And Jesus left his Church to his second most flawed and doubting disciple. While only the Three Mary 's were present at the Cross, the Empty Tomb and the resurrected Christ.
Don't know if Joe Walsh is a Christian or a heathen hedonist pagan.
See Matthew 25:31-46
2
I say mean nasty things since I want to practice my right of free speech. Does not mean I believe them. Thats a classic Walsh dodge. A Trump dodge, "Some people are saying Obama is a gay muslim", thats what some people say.
These two guys would be wonderful to watch a "debate'-Dumb and dumber on the stage.
1
Peter Wehner’s assessment of Joe Walsh and of the wackiness of supporting Walsh in a primary run against Donald Trump, a man as cruel, self-absorbed, misogynist and racist as Walsh, is obviously correct.
The Republican Party, which the nation now has to endure, already made its deal with the devil when it enthusiastically embraced Donald Trump. We Democrats will never forgive the G.O.P. for its lack of patriotism for supporting Trump, so what the Party does about Walsh is irrelevant for us.
There is, however, one important lesson about the Walsh discussion, and it is evidentiary. The fact that some Republicans want to use Joe Walsh as a strawman, because they apparently are terrified to speak critically about and directly to Donald Trump, speaks volumes about political cowardice and hypocrisy.
3
And since we are at it, let's remember that Mr. Wehner his own self was a huge supporter of all of the misfeasances and malfeasances of the disastrous 8 years of Bush/Cheney. He elides this with every essay, but look back at his support of the Iraq War and its lies, torture, politicization of the DOJ, the enhanced surveillance state, etc. He also supported McCain/Palin, which offered a Walsh-like figure in a dress as VP. Pundit heal thyself.
2
Right on to this. Thank you, Peter Wehner.
1
This person, Peter Wehner, is someone I could warm to--and I have some leftist sympathies, although I don't think I'm purely one thing or the other. The important thing, to me, is not which "side" you're on. The most important thing is your personal qualities, most notably, whether you are the voice of reason and whether you have intellectual integrity. I'd infinitely prefer to sit down and talk with Wehner than with an obnoxious gasbag who holds my views. Conversation with Wehner would be profitable; he might do me the service of changing my mind.
This article opened my eyes to the nascent seeds of dissent brewing within the republican party. Though, I am unconvinced that Mr. Walsh's candidacy will become a major threat to trump or his rather sleazy swampy administration.
The point that Walsh is no different than trump is valid, if one is evaluating him as "presidential" material. However for most readers of the Times, I believe he will be seen as a painful thorn, meant for trump.
I hope Mr. Walsh and similar candidates weaken trump.
That man has got to go! (to prison!)
What about the Republican "policies", like immigration that targets people of color, tax cuts that are nothing more than corporate welfare, war mongering in the Middle East? How about self-righteous, moralizing religion used to impose values and deny rights to women and LBGTQ people? All offered to us in sober tones as if they were just differing points of view when in fact they exacerbate the racial divide, income inequality, deny human rights, and advance militarist profits---all at the expense of the vulnerable. And somehow these "different points of view" are not rife with racism, classism, and grifting opportunism? Shall we not take note of the particular Christianity that is used to manipulate and dictate women's health choices, deny people civil rights like marriage, and deny science? Wehner may not be the hypocrite that Walsh is. But his sober tones hardly conceal the destructive worlds he advocates. I care as little for Wehner's sincerity as I do for Walsh's overt venality---they are all of a piece.
Let Walsh rant, let him rave. It can only hurt Trump. Unlike Flake, Corker, ex-cabinet members, former chiefs of staff, and the zombie senate, at least he's making a case for how unfit Trump is for office, if not existence. Support Weld, neither of them will unseat Trump in a primary but they can hurt him, the more the better!
1
Bill Weld is nothing more than a political opportunist who appeared aged when he ran as LIBERTARIAN VP candidate in 2016. I cant believe even a Never Trumper can take him seriously.
Can anyone imagine voting for a former Tea Party congressman who was only capable of serving one term? I will never forget how he mistreated now Senator Tammy Duckworth but yet lost to her. His also mistreatment of his kids by not paying the children support he owed them by law.
But I must say he is typical of what Republicans have to offer the American people. Running for president of this great nation is not a good joke Mr. Walsh. Forget it!
1
I would be happy to see any pro-life Republican run as a third party candidate simply to siphon votes away from Trump. He won the 2016 election through machinations and tampering. It would be only fitting for him to lose in 2020 by any means possible. Ideally, this candidate would be a rabid pro-lifer (unlike Trump who spent most of his adulthood as pro-choice). That would turn many evangelicals away from Trump. What we don't need is a William Weld capturing swing voters who would have voted against Trump this time around. Walsh would be fine to run against Trump because anyone who would vote for him would never vote Democratic anyway. It would be just desserts for Trump to lose an election by being challenged by a person as despicable as he.
1
This is what the Republican Party has come to. They're not arguing about whether Trump is an angry racist. They're arguing about whether another candidate could be a more effective angry racist.
2
I've seen a couple of Mr. Walsh's TV interviews as he delivers his "apology" for racist and xenophobic comments. What stands out to me as he is apologizing for calling President Obama a Muslim, he's also telling us it was a HORRIBLE thing to say. He meant it as a slur. I wish he had gone on to tell us what exactly is so horrible about being Muslim?
"An evil man is ensnared by the transgression of his tongue__Proverbs"
2
The conservative core of the Republican Party... the Eisenhower, three Manhattans at the 19th hole, RepublicanClassic™... if they gave a whit about the future of this nation, we would be reading about Mitt Romney announcing a third party bid to deny Trump any chance of a victory in the general. Or Marco Rubio. Or Paul Ryan. Or Corey Gardner. Or John Cornyn. Or Condoleezza Rice. Or Susan Collins. Or all of them at once.
But they don't. Instead the "A" team is sitting on their hands, hemming and hawing and "regretting" the racism and "wishing" the President would stop tweeting. Instead we get Joe Walsh. A former one-term, Tea Party fool and right-wing radio huckster who except for an apparent distaste for adultery and fast food bears a striking resemblance to the President in policy and substance is mounting a pointless inside-the-tent challenge that will go nowhere and accomplish nothing but increasing Walsh's "Q"-rating.
This is what's left of the party of patriotism and probity in 2019. I pray they get what they deserve next year at the polls. I wonder if the Russians will allow it.
2
Finally, someone who mentions Bill Weld as a Republican Candidate, who stood up first to run against Trump . Weld is a worthy candidate. He is an old-fashioned moderate Republican Candidate, once Governor of Massachusetts and smart.
I hope the rest of the press spends some time profiling Weld.
And give less time to Trump and Walsh, whoever he is.
Give more coverage of Congress Amash as well, as he is the only Congressman who ha bravely taken Trump on.
We need to be reminded of this constantly and maybe there are a few more decent Republicans who will start beating the drum against Trump and his lack of ethics and morality. Against Trump's corruption and bringing down our standing in the World.
The last thing we need is another Racist, misogynist and cruel candidate like Joe Walsh as a Candidate . He may have said he is sorry for all of the horrible things he has said, but his apology is not believable . Please spare us from more chaos from a mini-Trump.
122
@Jean
Weld's run for the Republican nomination is pointless. Let him mount a full-throated, third party run that would deny Trump victory in the general and I'll nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. He did it as the VP nominee of the Libertarian Party in '16.
10
@Julian Fernandez
I totally disagree! Here's hoping that Trump vote can be split
3
@Jean
Even if it were believable, white men no longer get a free pass on being horrible and then being absolved by virtue of some uttered apology.
12
Just reading that this man said, “Sandy Hook Parents: Your 15 minutes is up.” was enough to make me feel physically sick. Those poor parents' time will never be up. They will live with what happened to their children for the rest of their life. I suspect many of them think about it every fifteen minutes. What Democrats or "anti-Trump" Republicans think about this man is irrelevant. He and Trump represent the Republican Party today. Anyone who supports the Republican Party and its Trump enablers in Congress (i.e. all of them) support Walsh and Trump and their world view.
2
"That they personify the Republican Party today is still, for some of us at least, a source of shock and shame."
---
Your crocodile tears make no impression on me, Mr. Wehner. I could write a very convincing book (as could any thoughtful person) simply enumerating all the divisive and hateful Republican tropes, slogans and actions for the past 70+ years, only rarely interspersed with common decency. It is not by accident that Donald Trump found his expression in the Republican party. The very rabid form of American capitalism itself is an acknowledged surrender to the dog-eat-dog ethic that led to Donald Trump. For longer than my lifetime, the Republican party has been the party of hate, greed and envy. That image long preceded Trump, or Joe Walsh.
2
What a thoughtful and insightful column. For most of my 53 years as a super voter--I vote in every election and every primary for every office--I was a registered Independent, and proud of that fact. Though I mostly voted D, I regularly voted R for governor, state rep, city council and county auditor. But watching the viciousness of the attacks on Obama, who I voted for but wasn't a great fan of, and seeing the obvious racism of so many of those attacks turned me off. When I came out of the voting booth in that first Obama election, I changed my registration to D. Now that Donald Trump and the most ignorant, vicious racists, homophobes, utterly selfish, misogynists--and simply unbelievable hypocrites(Who cares about deficits?(R)) have taken over the Republican Party, I can't imagine voting R ever again. Not even for our town's Fence Inspector.
I was a senior appointee(Division Director and Deputy Secretary) of two Republican and two Democratic governors. In all those years of senior government service I never heard anyone say "Let's do this or propose that to upset the righties/Republicans." Never. Now this is the central motivation of so many Republicans. This is sick, sick, sick. It is simply a hate for their fellow Americans. I will now devote my money and my volunteer efforts to defeating any and all Republicans. This is their due for all the damage they have done and divisions they have fostered in this great nation.
4
Seems that it's pretty easy to draw an audience and, thereby, make a buck as ranting, raving "conservative". They're all over the radio. Model yourself as a shadow of Limbaugh, spew anger and hatred, employ tortured logic to support your spiel, and listeners will find you. Cha-ching! Not sure why. Maybe people who view the world through that lens need the validation and acceptance that conservative talk radio provides?
Who has the guts to challenge an entrenched, toxic narcissist who remains popular with his base, but is inherently unstable and will forcefully punish those who go against him?
Another toxic narcissist. Just what we need.
2
Trump simply has opened a Pandora's box, and that which now oozes from it is biting him. Poetic, isn't it? His ilk always eat their own in the end, it's why they never last.
Unfortunately they do have the tendency to be maximally destructive while they hold sway. They're just an example of how the human race never, ever, truly learns the lessons provided by history.
Rather than learning we repeat and inevitably become the next victims of it. So it goes I suppose.
John~
American Net'Zen
For a moment let me point something out from the Dem/Lib/Prog perspective;
We have been demanding that the GOP stand up for the nation, the constitution, and start to oppose Trump!
Then when someone like Weld and Walsh stand up and oppose Trump there is wailing that they are terrible politically and just as bad as Trump!
Well, yeah. Of course. That's not the point, is it? The point is to force Trump to defend himself against an inside GOP insurgency. Force him on to the primary trail. Force him to perhaps deal with an opponent at the '20 GOP Convention who may hold quite a few delegates. Force him to insult and deride some Republicans. Force him to divert his attention from the target rich, easy pickens' on the Dem slate. Sew confusion and chaos in the mind of the Oracle of Chaos himself.
There's never been any question one of these malevolent mimes would be someone for whom any person of good faith and sound mind would actually support.
The whole point is to disrupt Trump.
Walsh and Weld should have no trouble fund raising - from Democrats!
1
Why the change of heart on Mr. Walsh's part? The sudden epiphany? The Alex Jones of the north has become Bishop Fulton Sheen? Yes, Oh yes, I have seen the light....The real question isn't about the transformation of Walsh. It's that he thinks the Republican base has come to their senses. The base is not hankering for Trump light. They are the creators of Trump. The distaste for the Sandy Hook families . The desire to whitewash America. The desire to allow gun violence to continue so they can bed down with their AR-15's. None of that has waned. They ARE Trump and Trump is them. Walsh sees the bear as a wounded animal and he thinks he is seizing the moment. His calculation he is giving the people what they really want is a fools errand.
2
As vile as Walsh has been over the years, he’s still infinitely better than the current alternative.
1
A primary challenge from a Republican as nasty as the president seems somehow fitting, a kind of fight-fire-with-fire proposition. Trump will probably buy out Walsh with a White House job offer, or Fox News will absorb him in their swamp, and everybody will be happy. Nobody is allowed to compete with Big Don for sheer, unrivaled badness.
1
Yes, but are you going to vote for a Democrat in 2020?
Vote blue, no matter who?
Yes, Joe Walsh is cut from the same rancid cloth as Trump.
My real question, though, is what about you, Mr. Never Trumper?
It's easy to point out Walsh's flaws.
Harder to examine one's self, and switch from long time GOPer to the party of FDR.
Not voting, or writing in some pointless name, like the moderate Mr. Weld, won't save the nation.
Any Democrat will start the healing process.
Vote blue, Mr. Wehner, no matter who.
2
What a party---the only relief pitcher in the bullpen is Joe Walsh.
I sure wish the other Joe Walsh was running for President. He’s compassionate, funny, smart, and plays a mean guitar.
2
“One thing Mr. Walsh does have that the president does not is the ability to apologize.”
Did I miss his apology for interrupting President Obama during the SOTU speech, with his cringeworthy shout, “You lie!”?
That was a watershed moment for me. The Sergeant at Arms should have hauled him out by the scruff of his neck.
Lack of civility is not the only thing we can mention in response to him stepping forward. The man is clearly scraped from the bottom of the Republican barrel. Sadly, what lies above him there isn’t much cause for hope either. The entire party seems seems infected with some nasty malady that affects the victim’s ability to do anything for the good of others.
@MG
Now I have to apologize. I confused Joe Walsh with Joe. Wilson and blamed the wrong man for the “you lie” shout to President Obama.
I wish I could go back but this is the best I can do.
Their isn't a Republican politician in Congress today worth a "bucket of warm spit" (thank you John Nance Garner). Todays GOP is utterly corrupt and needs to be put out of our misery. I pray the GOP is crushed nationwide and sent packing. There is no credibility anywhere within that party.
1
Joe Walsh is simply evidence of what others have been saying - that this IS the Republican party. It is a party of hate filled, lying, cruel, pain inflicting, bigoted, racist, people lacking in moral character and civil obligations. Trump isn't some outlier who sneaked into the party's nomination but a representative of what the Republican party is and that his departure will only be replaced by another "who appeals to the worst instincts and ugliest sentiments in America."
Bill Weld was once a decent guy. A decent guy doesn't stand a chance in the Republican party.
Never forget "He's not hurting the ones he is supposed to be hurting" when you think of how Republicans feel.
1
Any party that would produce a challenger to a morally and intellectually unfit president like Trump, but whose moral and intellectual qualities were equally rancid, is a party in a precipitous decline.
2
Joe Walsh may not “approve” of Trump, (lord knows that’s understandable), but he’s not unlike Trump in that he knows which flashy bandwagon to ride to get the most attention.
1
Great piece. Mr. Wehner's book, "The Death of Politics," is full of clear-eyed wisdom. I highly recommend it.
It's nice to hear a Republican openly tell the truth.
1
Trump's elevator pitch on why the next G7 summit should be held at his property and today's news he wants to ignore the law and seize whatever land he needs for the wall with his boast he'll pardon everyone involved should be reason enough for principled Republicans to insist on impeachment.
1
@Keith
Where can we find any principled Republicans???
Let's not overthink this. Mr. Walsh believes that CurrentOccupant suffers from being too reasonable.
If we're lucky, Walsh will run as a 3rd-party candidate and neutralize the more rabid fringe now basking in the contemporary execrations from the Oval Office.
2
Republicans have quite a choice to make.
1
If this is what the Republic party offers as an antidote to Trump, then the party is morally and ethically bankrupt beyond repair. Why, Mr. Wehner, are you still a Republican?
5
I am somewhat heartened at this apologia of yours, Mr. Wehner. I have been a persistent critic of yours for a very long time for your embrace of the racist, bigoted Republican Party.
You are, however, to be congratulated for your clearsighted, unflinching portrayal of Joe Walsh's hypocrisy. The ex-Illinois Congressman, in running to replace Donald Trump, is merely an extra. He is--and has been for a very long time--precisely what the president is. Why he thinks that he should replace the president with himself--a low-octane nobody whose megaphone is soiled with racist tropes and tripe--is beyond rational thought.
He complains that Donald Trump is “completely unfit” to be president, before adding that “everyone” in the Republican Party knows it." But what of himself? How is he different from mainstream Republicanism? He's anti-everything that's not white or wealthy or entitled. He has no programs or policies.
You write, Mr. Wehner, that "Mr. Walsh — who appeals to the worst instincts and ugliest sentiments in America" is, in the main, not one jot's difference from the president. You must ask yourself how the Republican Party sank so low as to extol the virtues of separation and hate. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan drank from the fetid well but Trump is drunk on it. Walsh, too.
The bottom line: the Republican masthead is fine with Trump. He holds the title that Walsh never will. Your party, sir, loves the anger and the hate. And, I fear, always will.
And it loves Trump.
3
Dear Peter,
Aren't Walsh and Trump exactly what you and your fellow Republicans have worked for over the past 40 years?
Did you raise your voice when Paul Weyrich, "Father" of the right-wing movement and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority, etc. said in 1980 'I don't want everyone to vote'? When Newt sent training tapes to Republican candidates to teach them how speak about Democratic candidates in demeaning and derogatory words? Or when Reagan and GHWB used the stereotypes ‘Welfare Queens’, ‘Willy Horton’? Or about Nixon’s ‘Southern Strategy”? Or the rise of 100's of RW talk radio, cable & TV shows. Or the Tea Party 'we want our country back', financed by wealthy RW (Americans for Prosperity or Freedom Partners)? Or the 30+ year crusade against the Clinton’s? Or the sanctimonious positions your party took that it was it was the only party of ‘American Values’, ‘Christian Faith’ and ‘True Patriots’ and Democrats were unpatriotic, un-American, crime loving, disloyal, Socialist, Communist, Fascist, open borders, immigrant loving and treasonous Democrats? Or the years of ‘voter suppression’ efforts. And when the relative quiet din of this Republican orthodoxy became a cacophony during the Obama administration did you raise the alarms about the road your party had taken? Or the coordinated effort to make the first non-white President a failure even in times of national crisis.
Aren’t we reaping what you and yours have sown?
4
Unless you are pledging to actively support the Democratic candidate for president, your “Never Trump” posture means nothing.
7
"They are cut from the same rancid cloth." Indeed. So is anyone who can still identify as Republican, or who would knowingly ensure the election of a dangerous narcissist by refusing to vote for a Democrat.
1
For perspective, I am a true blue progressive supporting Elizabeth Warren. Even so, I do not like or condone the nasty and hateful politics of the day, which Walsh has promoted. Walsh is now walking back his past racism and stupidity and apologizing because he is an opportunist. What a great way to build your presence and brand: run against Trump, make rounds on all of the news and talk shows and become an influencer. Interviewers like John Heilmann are taking Walsh to task on his past behavior and beliefs-- behaviors that indeed helped poison our otherwise more collegial and compromising political system. He has advanced some ugly stuff, which he now says was wrong.
Curiously, I am glad that he is fessing up and seemingly trying to be a better person, and in spite of his stupidity, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Through introspection, individuals do have the capacity to recalibrate. Maybe Walsh can change some hearts and minds and encourage Americans to be more civil and support dialogue for better understanding. I don't like his conservative policies but I do advocate open honest discussions.
Maybe there is hope for more collaboration and compromise among our political parties that is what we need more than ever. It has to start somewhere.
2
It would be illuminating to read a response to this thoughtful essay from the “strongly pro-Trump political pundit with whom [Mr. Wehner is] periodically in touch”.
1
Excellent column. Bravo.
1
"We live in a time of acute bitterness and acrimony, where people’s first (and second and third) impulse is to brutalize, insult, embarrass and demean those who hold different views."
Ain't that the truth. We don't debate honorably or seek truth; we seek to "win." It's Fight Club, a verbal fight club; face-to-face or online our M.O. is search and destroy, no holds barred. Good manners, respect, and decorum have been defenestrated.
The toothpaste is out of the tube. Can it be put back? Maybe the president ... oh, never mind!
1
I'm a Democrat, thank God.
3
I still can’t believe I voted strait ticket R my whole life. I didn’t wake up until Cheney and W wrecked our economy and started wars for profit. I woke up too late, but I woke up. I’ll never vote R again, never.
4
Who cares what Joe Walsh's past, and present racism is, His tea party ideas, anything that hurts Trump, who can be against that.
A source of shock and shame perhaps, bu a stone-cold fact.
Yesterday, interviewed on NPR's program from Boston, On Point, Walsh claimed that he became a never-Trumper after the Helsinki meeting where Trump stated his trust of Putin over American intelligence agencies. He apologized for his past claim that President Obama was a Muslim (but did not apologize for using the word "Muslim" pejoratively). He claimed that he was never a racist but merely made inciteful comments on his radio program to make people think and to foster discussion. What chutzpah!!!
If Walsh truly believes that any moderate person believes a lying word he says he is as delusional as the person he intends to run against.
3
"That they personify the Republican Party today is still, for some of us at least, a source of shock and shame."
Shocked?? Really??
50 years of "Southern Strategy", "States Rights" (wink, wink), Dan Quayle, Moral Majority, Lee Atwater, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Tea Party, Citizens United, climate denial, anti science, NRA, on and on and on...
"Self--how did I get here?"...Talking Heads
4
Joe Walsh is the snake who talks the dog into carrying him across the river and then bites him. We know he's a snake, we know what he has done, and we should know what he'll do. Any publicity or support we give him will result in our being bit no matter who we are, because he is who he is a hateful, deceitful, opportunistic snake.Just like the guy he's running against. Maybe he'll do damage to him, but we help him cross the river at our own peril.
3
No mention of Bill Weld?
1
Unfortunately, there are some Americans who enjoy outrageous, childish behavior and bullying on behalf of their politicians and, sure shooting, there's nothing more certain to bring a mushroom cloud into their lives.
1
Walsh is a kind of Republican false flag operation. His "racist, bigoted, vicious, threatening and dishonest" rhetoric, once turned on the Democratic front-runner, is meant to make Trump seem Presidential by comparison and deflect the President's own, equally stomach-churning notions.
1
Re: his flip and disrespectful Warholian reference to the Sandy Hook parents; thats about as sick as it gets.
Never thought it was possible but even DJT has class relative to this joker.
1
They had to drain the swamp so they could set the bar low enough for this bottom-feeder.
3
"...worst instincts and ugliest sentiments in America."
Any Republican mouthpiece who's been going along for the power snatching ride since "The Southern Strategy" and, now -- suddenly -- notices how a critical mass of Americans have had their reptilian brains snatched by the mouthpieces of inflammation and ugliness since then...is not a "woke" Republican.
You guys are just about as hypocritical as Walsh...just the "passive aggressive" version.
1
Sorry, but many people are really, really fed up with MALE REPUBLICAN UGLINESS. Go away!
3
Joe who? Joe Walsh comes out of the woodwork and now tells us things about Trump that we knew long before he was elected president. Now that Walsh sees a chink in the armor of Trump he thinks he has an opportunity to get the national recognition that he didn't have before. He is a dishonest, untrustworthy opportunist just like the guy he wants to replace.
Joe, crawl back into the woodwork. One loser in the presidency is enough.
1
Let's just say it. The Republican Party is now a repulsive group of mostly white people with extraordinary hate in their hearts. It's not a political party. It's a mob of thugs. Watch your wallet.
3
I'm pessimist's pessimist. I trust Joe Walsh as much as I would trust a weatherman who predicts snow will put out the fires in Brazil.
But, amazing things do happen. Consider Tom Turnipseed.
Turnipseed is a local lawyer who specializes in cases involving the poor, minorities, consumers and workers who got the shaft from big corporations. A pure liberal.
But he started his political career as the director of an agency in charge of white segregationist academies. When George Wallace ran for president back in the day, Turnipseed was his CAMPAIGN DIRECTOR! After that, an amazing transformation took place - Turnipseed started running for office as a liberal espousing the above mentioned causes. "Yeah, right", I said to any and everybody. He got creamed of course - this is South Carolina. So he moved into advocacy tor the downtrodden, and slowly, he's made me a believer.
So, Mr. Walsh, if you are sincere about being a changed man, maybe, in a couple of decades, I'll sing your praises as well.
But not until.
1
"Dumb and dumber."
Joe Walsh is a hack.
A hack who is so misogynistic that he couldn’t stand the thought of Hilary as president.
A racist who worked to delegitimise President Obama every opportunity he got.
He actively called for violence if Trump didn’t win and now has the audacity to whine about the bed he helped lay.
Utter rubbish.
Why on earth should we give the likes of him any ounce of our attention?
Next!!!!
1
Joe Walsh for President? You mean the musician? Yasssss! Don’t want that other loser.
1
For many years now the Republicans have had 2 principles: lowering taxes on the rich and getting rid of as many regulations as possible. Fundamentally neither one of these is out there to help the Common Man. They are in service of their masters who are funding them.
Luckily for Republicans they also have their useful idiots. First and foremost are the racists. Throw out bitter hateful speech and they will willingly and happily vote against their own interests. Add in the gun crazies and the faux Christian anti abortionists anti humanity and you have a nasty little mixture of the worst our country has to offer.
it is honestly ridiculous to talk about any kind of Republican principles because they haven't been there for many decades. There are just the users and the used.
Walsh is another huckster looking for a cozy contributor job on cable news
2
Walsh is a useful idiot. Think of him as testing the waters, any glint of support may embolden another candidate to run. Someone in the GOP slready knows this but it bears mentioning. A candidate with Trump's same odious ideas but with less baggage and the ability to speak with only slightly more restraint will be a winning candidate. Heaven help this country if they come along for 2020.
Walsh, discovered that being hyperbolic gets you a lot of attention at a party. Now, he’s announced, and he’s getting even more attention. Do we see a pattern here? It’s self promotion, he may not get anywhere this time, but who know what the future holds? One thing is for sure, someone like Joe Biden would look like road kill next to these guys. People, want something diffrent from the status quo, and Democrats need to have answers straight away, without hesitation. Every answer must also be a sharp attack. We are in the school yard now, and the bully gets the free air time. Warren, has that perfect demeanor. She's serious. I went to Catholic school, and on break out in the school yeard, the nuns would simply walk among us and all the had to do was look a certin way. Warren, could parry Trump’s attacks with her serious rational approach, and a jab to his obvious failures af leadership.
1
And don't forgot, Walsh is the same guy who appears to advocate arming toddlers ans elementary school kids with semiautomatic weapons, "mortars" and other lethal weapons in their role as "Kinderguardians" in Saha Baron cohen's brilliant "Who Is America." Walsh was duped into flying to Washington to accept a Stand with Israel Freedom award and be interviewed by fake Israeli “anti-terror expert” named Col. Erran Morad. See "Joe Walsh Supports Arming America’s Toddlers on Sacha Baron Cohen’s New Show " See and watch https://www.spin.com/2018/07/sacha-baron-cohen-who-is-america-joe-walsh-toddlers-gun-control/
1
Joe Walsh has been garbage. However, every n'er-do-well and jerk has the capacity to ask for forgiveness and atone for sins committed. While I have no idea whether or not Walsh is sincere in making up for some of his disgusting remarks and positions, let's just say he is one scummy individual trying to take down another scummy individual. Sorry, but that just works for me.
I would love to see a WIngnut bloodbath that tears the Republican Party to shreds. Do they deserve any less?
On the one hand, Walsh is a blow hard, a demagogue, and a Tea Party hypocrite. On the other hand, Walsh may help damage Trump enough in the GOP primary to deprive Trump a second term.
Given how epically awful Trump is as president in all regards, and harmful he is to America’s standing in the world, I plan to cheer on Walsh from the sidelines. Any decent person would as well.
I didn't read anything here that was vicious, racist, or bigoted. And if he sounded insensitive or mean, we're adults, not kids. Suck it up. Do we need trigger warnings like we're a college child?
I'm getting tired of the silly accusations. It's turning into modern witch hunts.
The whole lot of Republicans absolutely turns make stomach into a puke pumping machine. They are vile and self-righteous hypocrites and self-serving macho pigs who would all walk all over their mothers to eek out another dime for their own pockets. They support a entirely corrupt and criminal man whose a bully towards everyone and represents an existential threat to our republic and our planet. The GOPers are all about sucking everyone else dry to enrich the white elite.
Signed, Highly educated middleaged white male
1
Brilliantly told.
Thank you.
Another honest Republican. How, we need about 30 million more.
A one term Representative, he of the equally vile and despicable, now seeks political redemption using the highest office in the land. Sorry, that ship sailed. Use your radio show (assuming you still have listeners) to spread your 'new' gospel.
Tea Party?
Isn't that the rag-tag collection of hypocrites who blocked attempts to revive the economy after the last Republican Depression, but enthusiastically endorsed trillion-dollar deficits after the Obama economic recovery revived the economy?
... and this Tea Party congressman thinks he should be elected President instead of voted out of the House?
The man is crazier than Trump!
3
Joe Walsh's apologies for some of the despicable things he has said in the past comes too little, too late. if the apology was sincere it would have come years ago.
Do any Republicans understand video tape and Google at all? All the hateful racist lies he has moutherd are out there for anyone to see.
"It will make them look foolish if they hammer Mr. Walsh for those very characteristics now that he is challenging their 'chosen one'."
I cut and pasted the above sentence from Mr Wehner's opinion piece just so I could see if it looked as goofy out of context as it did in his mostly-well-reasoned arguments against Trump, his supporters, and Joe Walsh. I think it does.
I am often guilty of nitpicking and I, unabashedly, enter that plea now. But to suggest Trump supporters will be made to look foolish on the condition that they hypocritically criticize Joe Walsh strikes me as silly. Do they not already look foolish supporting Trump in the present. Are they're not already hypocrites in the present tense?
Joe Walsh made it as far as the halls of Congress. So did Louie Gohmert and Michele Bachman and Joni Ernst and Steven King and Joe McCarthy and a wide assortment of other lunatics, wife-beaters, drunkards, and perverts. These are just a few of the folks who served to propel us into a swamp that no one seems to have no drain plug.
I suppose lunatics, wife-beaters, drunkards, and perverts are entitled to representation, too.
Obviously, a publicity stunt... and attempt to get $$, make himself viable as what a senator from Illinois? (Does he have a law degree? no a theater major.)
I just watched "Mississippi Burning" (about the FBI's search for the bodies -- evidence of the murder of the
three Civil Rights works in MI in the early 1960s. )Watch that to see racism and the Klan in action. (We have come a long way from those days!) Clicked on one of the links and apparently Walsh at one point was almost liberal - supporting abortion and gun background checks -- but changed... and the question is why? anti abortion, pro gun! Someone needs to ask him. _
1
If those two Republican clowns ever get on the debate stage together it will be must-see TV.
1
What benefit do we get from outing this endless stream of repugnant characters the republicans provide for us?
It should be very clear that the candidates are not the issue, it is your party and the folks that comprise it all the way down to the republican voter which are the problem.
Unless we are willing to call the uneducated, racist, angry and solipsistic Trump voter by his real name, we are wasting our time classifying the inevitable product of his dementia.
2
I'm baffled as to why these rich white men feel so victimized and enraged in their lives.
No one owes them anything. They've had every privilege and advantage and yet they rail against democrats, govt, women , people of color, etc. Why don't they do something to help others instead of being so consumed by hatred? Joe Walsh is a horrible person, as is Trump, but the fact that he opposes trump does not make him ok.
2
Mr. Wehner wrote: A large number of Mr. Trump’s supporters are either blind to their double standard or at least not embarrassed by it.
Ahh, that old conundrum: stupid or evil.
I'm going with both.
And this editorial goes a long way to explaining why.
Thanks.
this well reasoned column will fall on deaf ears
Since this bottomless pit of shamelessness got the Donald elected, why is it now abhorant for Republicans to hear one of their own mimicking their leader.
I, for one, revel in Walsh's language. It worked for our incompetant leader, so, it should now work against him.
Someone needs to state the obvious, over and over. He, Trump, is, of course all of what Walsh says he is. Too bad some like Senator Rubio isn't the messenger, but one can dream.
Joe Walsh is far more articulate and much better-focused than Donald Trump. Like many who seek fame and power, he's an opportunist. Trump used to be a Democrat. Now he's something else. Walsh used to fuel racist rancor. Now he's apologetic.
While Trump dodders, Walsh is fresh and ready to play hardball. Narcissists don't like to share center stage. I suspect (and hope) both may eventually end up out back in the dumpster.
Joe Walsh wasn't on my radar screen until yesterday. He tried to portray himself as a level headed alternative to Trump on the Newhour last night, but Woodruff did a decent job of breaking through that veneer. This furthers the job. I can only hope that he & Trump diminish each other while rational voters take it all in.
1
If Joe Walsh represents the best alternative to Donald Trump, god help us. But in fairness, for what the Republican Party has truly become, we really shouldn't expect too much better from them.
The Republican Party is now comprised of the angriest, most self destructive groups of citizens whose emotionality has overtaken any sense of their rationality. People like Weld and Kasich are pretty much relics of what the Republican Party was and would stand no chance whatsoever in a primary against Trump.
"A large number of Mr. Trump’s supporters are either blind to their double standard or at least not embarrassed by it." Which is to say, Trump's supporters are hell bent on demonstrating that they will not only go over the cliff for Trump ( but he won't be going over them) but will do their utmost to bring everyone else over with them. It's almost unfair to call it the Republican Party anymore. Call it what you will, but if ever there was an example of a mass mental breakdown, Joe Walsh as an alternative to Trump, demonstrates the magnitude of the social illness.
2
One can barely click the remote and not find an interview with Joe Walsh. I saw him on PBS last night, continuing his apology tour. But he can't paper over the fact that he has represented the worst racist and xenophobic strains of the Republican party.
Frying pan, meet fire.
1
Walsh's mere presence on the national stage indicts his entire party, not to mention an entire era. And the press's complicit willingness to extend the courtesy of a hearing is disgusting.
1
We need to be very clear about something here ... it's simply not true that "people's" first, second, and third impulses are to brutalize, insult, etc. That is the playbook for the right, not the left. No, the left isn't perfect, but it's disingenuous to suggest they engage in the same level of personal attack that the right has been doing for years, going back to the Clintons. If you want to fix political discourse in this country, Mr. Wehner, start with your side.
4
So these are the embers of the party of Lincoln?
I am truly amazed that no one in the Grand Old Party who both views themselves as a Republican and most important, a patriot, has not yet stood up and accepted responsibility for an administration and party that has truly lost their soul.
Joe Walsh is not this person. And neither is Trump, McConnell, Graham, Rubio, or any of the other Senators or House members who's noses are brown and stench from Trump's rot.
Both Trump and Walsh are awash in their own importance. They care not one iota for America or any of its citizens. If they want to brawl for the "soul" of the Republican Party, I say let them have at it.
It might make for good theater and after all, that is about the only thing either are good at.
4
William Weld's hat has been in the GOP ring for several months now, as I understand it. He appears to be a reasonable candidate. I'm surprised that Weld isn't getting a lot more exposure.
4
When I heard that Joe Walsh was going to challenge Donald Trump in the primaries, I thought that having a President who was a rock star would be great. Sorry - wrong Joe Walsh. This Joe Walsh is just a mirror image, politically, of the guy he wants to replace. We don't need to replace one defective with another.
Meanwhile, I'll keep hoping that maybe the real Joe Walsh would like to be president. What better campaign song than "Life's Been Good To Me So Far"?
1
The only job Joe Walsh should give himself is driving voters to the polls in Kentucky to help vote out Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. That is his best start for a road to redemption given his "former" life of being a trumpet for "rancid" behavior and a Trump mini-me.
2
Dr. Frankenstein attacking his own creation. Interesting.
4
Great column, thank you. Walsh found his home on Hate radio,all we can be thankful for, is he won’t beat his Cult leader and never will be president of Once great America.
How fitting that a wildly vicious radio shock jock, who used provocative rants to bolster his popularity with a racist base stoked by defiantly vile language, now has turned his voice against the shockTwitterer in the Oval office.
Walsh -like Trump- has his ear to the grumblings of the People and moves to capture a shifting audience by any means necessary. He can apologize for past smears and lunacy because- probably- he didn't really mean any of it.
Does he now really mean what he says in defiant denouncement of DJT? It does take courage. But will a bevy of anti-Trumpers be good or bad for the future of America ?
Good.
1
Excellent commentary on an impossible situation, kudos to Mr. Wehner. As most of us have seen Trump now is the Republican Party. His hostile takeover thrived on, embraced and spread a viral hatred and paranoia that had previously been bottled up. Walsh is of the same ilk and it's hard to imagine he's really much different now than two years ago.
We need a stabilizer, not another loose canon. I believe there is still a contingent of reasonable, centrist Republicans like Bill Weld and I encourage all Republicans to vote for him.
2
"A source of shock and shame"? Maybe for you and some others, but many of us have seen this coming for decades as the GOP kept moving to the right, basing its appeal on racist principles and policies. It's just that Trump and Walsh say it in raw, plain language, without the window dressing other Republicans have used.
2
Real politics requires unpleasant choices. We allied with Stalin to defeat a greater evil. Without the Soviet Union the West would have lost the European conflict. What devil’s bargain ever posed such moral compromise? I hate the end justifies the means but at present we are locked in a cold civil war this country. I see Mr. Walsh as the friend who is the enemy of my enemy. I accept his partial conversion and his retractions. The Dems will learn much from his debating techniques with Trump and he may just convince enough Obama Trump voters that they were conned just like Walsh. Don’t think Trump isn’t scared. He hasn’t attacked Walsh yet has he?
Walsh has something against Trump, but I struggle to identify it. Both get personal when arguing against a position, happily slandering Gold Star parents who've lost sons in war and grieving parents of children whose brains were blown out by gun toting madmen. So it's not about basic human decency: neither has that.
Maybe Joe is unnerved by the way Trump lies. I know I've never witnessed a person for whom lying is woven into his conversation as seamlessly as it is with Trump.
A trivial example brought it home for me. Trump was excoriating France for a perceived trade slight. He brought up wine and said, blithely, that he preferred American wine to French wine. Then, as if it just occurred to him, he admitted what we all know, that he doesn't consume alcohol at all. He closed by stating that he likes the way American wine looks.
The lie about liking our wine better flowed out like cheap rosé. Maybe Joe noticed that deep character defect and realized we are being governed by someone whose words can never be trusted, for whom truth is nothing more than an occasional inconvenience.
Maybe Joe is running on the premise that he is mean, racist, sexist, and crude, but at least he admits it.
That's an improvement, I guess.
One reason Walsh would be better than trump, he is articulate. Since all we can now expect from a decent President is that he please stick to the script, say what the people actually making policy want him to say, and say it sincerely, to the camera, Mr Walsh’s credentials are impeccable. And I think once in office he would be able to display the proper gravitas and not insult foreign nations and leader out of ignorance.
The only "good" thing about the Trump presidency is that it has completely stripped the veneer off of the Republican party.
They are, and have always been, the party of the 1%, pandering to single issue voters (pro-life, pro-gun, tax-cuts, etc.) and the ignorant (using scare tactics of "the other" and communism/socialism) who reside well below that threshold in order to secure votes and power.
3
Mr. Wehner correctly points out the hypocrisy of Trump supporters who are now criticizing Joe Walsh, or any other public figure who says terrible things and promotes terrible ideas. However, it is instructive that these Trump supporters do not recoil from their hypocrisy or try to explain it away. No. They believe that the proper approach in the political arena is to say anything, do anything, that advances one’s cause. Lie, cheat, steal. Bottom line: the ends justifies the means. What is so disheartening is that this appears to be a successful approach. Using “the ends justifies the means approach”, the Republican Party has amassed greater political power today than they have ever held in modern times. As for the rest of us? We face the conundrum of ceding power but maintaining our morality or lowering ourselves to the same amoral level. There is evidence of both in our politics today. What a depressing choice.
1
"In that sense, Mr. Walsh is a cautionary tale. We live in a time of acute bitterness and acrimony, where people’s first (and second and third) impulse is to brutalize, insult, embarrass and demean those who hold different views. The purpose of language, as they see it, isn’t to clarify or enlighten or reason together. It is to inflict the maximum pain possible on other human beings."
That Mr. Wehner is able to see that his party has descended to those depths does not excuse the half century of using those techniques to rally this very base the party has cultivated.
Where were you, Pete, when Reagan was opening his campaign in Philadelphia, MI; the site of the murders of three civil rights workers a few years prior?
Where were you when Cheney was calling anyone who disagreed with his plan to invade Iraq un American?
republicans have encouraged the disaffected racist voters for years and now they are aghast that these people now control the party.
Where was your condemnation when Bush Sr. used the trope of Willie Horton to scare and stir up racism against Dukakis?
I am glad you seem to have seen the error of your ways, at last.
Now vote for the democratic candidate and maybe you can get a working conservative party, without the hate and racism.
1
I cynically believe that Joe Walsh is running against Trump so he can promote his brand and write a book about his conversion from Trump supporter to critic. It's hard to take him seriously when his radio show is like Trump's tweets. What kind of person tells parents who have lost their children that their 15 minutes of fame are up, as if they are using their kids' deaths for their own purposes. Walsh should ask himself how he would react if his children were gunned down at school. Would he be quiet after such a disaster? He is just someone who wants to be the center of attention just as Trump does. Both, will try to out do each other in racist, demeaning, and childish comments during the 2020 race. Their 15 minutes should have expired years ago.
1
Further proof, as if any was needed, that today’s GOP is operating somewhere to the right of George Wallace and David Duke.
No party with these “values” should be allowed anywhere near the levers of power.
And yet we somehow have installed in the White House an deranged wannabe dictator twiddling the dials of the global economy and blissfully swaggering right up to the edge of nuclear conflict.
This will not end well.
2
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Or do they?
Mr. Wehner is absolutely right about both of these mainstream republicans. Then I am reminded that he worked in the administration of Ronald Reagan, who referred to Africans as "monkeys," and George H.W. Bush, who pardoned those who could implicate him in Iran-Contra, and George W. Bush, who lied us into Iraq and included in his administration people who practiced outright McCarthyism against their opponents (Ari Fleischer, anyone? Not to mention the vice president). Mr. Wehner is right to criticize the hypocrisy of those republicans. He also should take a long look in the mirror.
1
Walsh's apology rings hollow. It is impossible to put his vicious vitriol back into his personal Pandora's Box.
2
I believe that Joe Walsh, the legendary rock guitarist would be a better president from this guy who comes across as “Trump Lite”. I’m still baffled as to why John Kasich hasn’t announced his candidacy. If he were to run he’d receive the votes of millions of Democrats in addition to votes from Republicans. I believe that even Mitt Romney could do well if he entered the fray. My hope is that Trump supporters will look around and see minimal benefits of Trump’s “mis-administration” and surmise that the cost is way too high for Americans to allow 4 more years of “Bizzaro President”.
What ever happened to the republican party of Ike Eisenhower? The republican party of Richard Lugar of Indiana, or George Mitchell of Maine? These were people of decency. They did not seek to assassinate the character of their opponents. They, as honorable men, took their opponents to be honorable as well. I have been a democrat for 53 years since casting my first vote at the age of 18. I at one time respected quite a number of reublicans. I cannot think of a single republican who currently holds any public office that I can conclude to be honorable. The silence of republicans about the most corrupt presidency in our history is deafening. It is no surprise when we hear many former republican voters today say that they didn't leave the republican party, the republican party left them. Shock and shame? You think? Add disgrace, dishonor, and debasement.
1
Joe Walsh made his bones on being a racist Pre Trump. Now when he must be missing the limelight he wants to run against the guy he said if he didn’t win he was getting his musket.If Trump had of given his sycophant a job would Walsh be turning against his boss? The media coverage of this now Trump hater is amazing. So few Republicans have the courage to buck Trump that a guy like Walsh is elevated to champion the eviction of Trump? We are really scraping the bottom of the barrel.
1
It is a source of shock and shame - Yes, and when I felt that about Nixon, I left the Republican Party - and have never regretted it. Why don't you leave it? They are not going to change.
That is the only way to show one really doesn't want to be connected with such thinking (their only "values" are: Reducing Taxes on the Rich and Eliminating regulations on business.
3
Joe, if you need volunteers for your campaign I am your man. Forget the Republican Party, run as a third party candidate. My efforts on your part would be a better use of my time than working for Elizabeth.You will have millions of supporters, in the primaries that is.
Run Joe, run.
Good piece. Please read all the way through. When the first derivative of the current occupant of the white house is the choice then you should know you are in trouble. Walsh is Trump, Trump is Walsh. Congrats GOP.
I won't vote for Walsh.
I will say that the fact that he publicly expresses regret for the "horrible" things he has said puts him, morally, head and shoulders over Trump, who will never do that in this life.
1
Thanks for pointing out the ridiculousness and hypocrisy in our current situation. NeverTrumpers should rally around Weld or better yet Larry Hogan.
1
No, it's not hypocrisy. Trump's supporters have already made clear they care not a whit for social niceties, morality, decency, or any standard of ethics. They have a chip on their shoulder about the fact that some others actually have a moral backbone and call them to the mat for it. So, when they spot an opportunity to drag the Never Trumpers up on their moral high ground down into their self-loathing mud, they pounce on it.
They just want to believe that everyone is as lacking in conviction and spine as they are. Because if no one has any true decency in them, well then maybe their selling their values, country, and religious faith down the river for the sake of a 5th Avenue con man is the right move after all.
Pathetic.
3
First off, Weld who? So much for his candidacy.
This Walsh guy can do whatever he wants IMO. ANY aggravation of Trump is welcome. Let's watch the nasty GOP have some infighting - who's the worst racist? who's the best at insulting, bullying, intimidating and LYING?
Trump will prevail of course but a twitter slug fest could be fun. Then the GOP can stop 'advising' Democrats for awhile.
This is best the GOP has got? I'll take the messy buffet of Democrats.
1
At least he had the nerve to stand up and point out to the comatose and cowardly GOP that Emperor has no clothes (I'll leave you with that sight...)
Cue the adolescent tweets about Walsh from Dolt 45.
2
Btw, Mr. Werner, I don’t know how to articulate the exact quality of it, but whatever is going on in that email your friend wrote you is perfectly indicative of the insanity fever that’s taken over conservatives and exactly what is wrong in the Republican Party.
2
I had to swallow back the bile reading these tweets and comments from the despicable joe walsh. And no, he doesn't deserve the courtesy of his name being capitalized. Another truly ugly and hatefilled American. Mentioning him and Bill Weld in the same sentence is almost a blasphemy. And I am saying this as a Massachusetts voter who did not support Bill Weld but got the sense that at least he was a decent human being. I just disagreed with his politics.
As for his "apology" for the mistakes he made. Mistakes???!!!
Calling Tammy Duckworth a non war hero when she lost both legs serving her country while walsh has no military service since he was too busy in his youth trying to become a two bit actor is beyond the pale.
Each day the news is worse. We wait for trump supporters to reach rock bottom but there is no bottom. The so-called never trumpers aren't even giving Bill Weld the tiniest bit of consideration.
I fear for my country. The 2020 election will be won or lost by the tiniest sliver of votes. I'm suspect of the polls showing trump's approval rating slipping. These people are silent supporters of trump, they're just too cowardly to admit it.
My only advice is for us to not become complacent. I don't care if trump is polling at losing 99% to 1%. I will still make sure my voice is heard, my vote counted. We can't sit this one out. Our country is being destroyed. Four more yeas of trump and a complicit senate will be the death nail in the coffin of our democracy.
4
"It will make them look foolish if they hammer Mr. Walsh for those very characteristics now that he is challenging their “chosen one.”"
Understatement of the century.
True yet Walsh has a thousand times more courage and self-awareness than the current occupant of the White House.
Perhaps that’s not a good thing (imagine, an effective head of state pursuing his agenda, at least Trump is incompetent!)
If Joe Walsh is a racist and a hatemonger but is offering a primary challenge to Trump, this is for the best because he will split the racist hatemonger bloc that solidly supports Trump. Anything that divides Trump supporters is good because it will open the door to a Democratic victory at the polls. I hope Walsh stirs up dissent over Trump within the Republican Party and then goes on to mount a third-party campaign for himself. This can only benefit the Democrats.
I agree with everything you say, Mr. Wehner, except with your statement that he will merely injure Mr. Trump. We must take down the beast by any means and many small cuts are as dangerous and lethal as one big thrust.
Despicable as he is, Mr. Walsh can and should injure the demon in our midst.
1
It is my hope that one day writers will abandon the euphemism "fiery" for "obnoxious."
2
With pleasure, and sorrow, I watch as the desperate right wing continues to be an embarrassment to our country. Either they are swooning over a disgusting con man fool or arguing about nonsense.
But really if Walsh is even kinda earnest in his run and he really has been looking hard in the mirror at himself and the racism at the core of America and he is willing to let all bear witness to his enfolding “come to Jesus” moment then it could be a significant opportunity for growth for America.
2
For those who are inclined to take Joe Walsh seriously, please remember when Sacha Baron Cohen got him to promote arming small children. I appreciate that Joe has wised up to the danger that Trump poses to the world, he doesn't have the record (or common sense) to be taken seriously as a candidate.
4
I think the fact that we don't hear talk among the "never-Trumpers" of running a traditional conservative candidate against Trump as an Independent in 2020 indicates that they would still prefer "Republican" Trump in office than any of the Democratic possibles.
4
Joe "shrill and strident" Walsh is not, in my opinion, a man to take seriously. Of course I am not an expert and base my opinion generally on his State of the Union outburst and several interviews I've forced myself to listen to all the way through. We can do better. The GOP must do better than him or dwindle into dust.
3
@PoppaCharlie the Republican party is dwindling, but not into dust. Instead one should call it slime.
1
I've known about Joe Walsh since he was a surprise winner in a poorly watched Congressional contest in 2010. I think women thought he was cute and men cast votes for him because he had the All-American name in that Tea Party year.
As a Congressman his actions were appalling, offending all persons of reason and decency. He eagerly sought reelection but Illinois sensibly gerrymandered him out of office.
Score one for gerrymandering. But Illinoisans knew he'd be back. Right wing radio wasn't a shock, if you don't count what he said on it.
Running for President with only an apology for all those awful comments over the years is a reach too far. Sincerity isn't his strong suit; opportunism is.
Sixteen reasonably good Republicans ran in the primaries against Trump in 2016. I would think one of them besides William Weld would step forward to offer an alternative to Trump and Walsh.
For the good of the Party if not the nation.
13
Here is an excellent summary. I may only add a note to ask Wehner to acknowledge some culpability in any support for the Republican Party during its relentless trend toward becoming the Cult of Trump Personality. Maybe he already has spoken out. But in any case, his essay provides some hope in implying an inevitable implosion of the radical Right. The hypocrisy partly demonstrates the result of viciousness that cannot otherwise be sustained. Witness the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution. In the penultimate paragraph, Mr. Wehner sums up, in effect, the vicious social Darwinist philosophy of those people--the basic reason for their behavior. It is primitive and ugly--yes, having little to do with rational discourse and good faith efforts at negotiation and compromise in the political realm. People who still think such discourse can be held with those Right-wingers are practically suicidal now. The fight against them now is not to prolong this situation but to end it.
4
I wasn't familiar with Walsh. However, if he were to run as an independent, that sounds great! He might split the Angry Republican vote, enabling the Democratic candidate to win the Electoral College in addition to the popular vote.
6
Those who oppose what Trump and the Republican Party are doing to destabilize the world are rightfully in despair as things deteriorate unabated. Trump and Walsh may be cut from the same cloth but he might destabilize Trump's strangle hold on 40% of this country. MSNBC and Nicole Wallace risked sullying themselves by giving Walsh a platform to speak and to be challenged for a reason. No one else has come out of far right field to challenge the Trumpist insanity we are experiencing. I hope it's more than a power grab.
3
Do the "Never-Trumpers" of the Republican Party not have the power to push the candidacy of someone who still holds their positions and values (however "rancid" I might find those)?
They could dispense with the certain ill-fated path of placing this candidate in a primary with Trump and run him or her as a conservative independent. The Republican Party does not exist anymore.
1
I'm glad Walsh is running, precisely because primary challenges like this--even as they galvanize the base--will also cast a shadow on Trump sufficient to get a small number of Trumpian to sit out 2020. A small number of Trumpians sitting out in key states like MI, PA, MN and OH will sink The Don.
5
Mr. Wehner, thank you for your comments. I appreciate your honesty. And you mentioned Bill Weld, who is getting zero coverage as if he's invisible. This is wrong on many levels, and I'm a Democrat who voted for him as Governor of MA many moons ago. I believe he could really make things interesting/difficult, depending on which side of the line you stand. He needs your Never Trump cohorts to start talking him up, especially if you all are so resistant to voting D-heaven forbid!
10
Hmmm, it seems that Wehner (also Walsh & others so called conservatives) want us to believe in their "come to Jesus" moment. With their history and what they have said and promoted about Obama (and others), one has to be gullible to buy into their moments of redemption. For the sake of political gains, the GOP/Republican party has long abandoned democracy and divorced itself from American values.
9
Just a micro-speculation. Mr. Wehner wrote: "Mr. Walsh speaks candidly about how his differences with various people over policies led him to say things that were, as he put it, 'horrible.'" I imagine, from my clinical perspective, that Walsh has a delicious sense of frisson to admit saying "horrible" things. "Horrible" is, I'd suggest, his badge of honor.
6
God help us all if Joe Walsh is the best the Republicans can do. I, for one, will be voting Democrat in 2020.
11
Walsh has the backing of super wealthy founders of U-Line business supplies company. Follow their money.
5
I'll take China for a billion, Alex....
After reading this article I see no difference between Trump and Walsh. Both appear like a nightmare one hopes to wake up from. Either one represent the worst in humanity. What Republicans continue to communicate is how little regard they have for the public and select leaders who are just as deplorable, as long it reassure their seats.
8
Walsh sounds like an appalling character, but if he siphons votes from Trump, I’m all for him.
3
He may in the primary, which he will lose. Unless he runs as a third party candidate in the general election. his impact will be insignificant.
3
The Republican party has not gone off its rails. There are no rails. I'm still looking for any candidates of any political party who have rails, or plans, that I can assess to see if they are competent to be president. I'm not sure how much more incompetence the country can stand.
4
I must admit, when I heard he may run as a challenger to Trump, I had hope, my thinking being, if we have to have a conservative in the White House again, let it be someone who is competent and sane. But in studying Walsh, I can understand why he was just a one term Congressman.
In addition, if "Borat" could get him to agree to arm children in schools, I think we can disregard anything he has to say.
5
It isn’t Trump that’s the problem. It’s the party. If the Republicans internally fights this out, let them do it. I am never going to give a Republican my consideration again.
14
Peter, I am a fairly staunch democrat who wonders why we are where we are and why with whom we are. Thank you for reminding me that there are thinking human beings still a part of the Republican Party who may be able to help rebuild it into some semblance of what it used to be. People who will work to overcome the hate and horrible rhetoric in order to rebuild our country into the empathetic and strong ally and world partner we should be, we used to be.
I hope the Republican Party can regain it's "right mind" soon.
Please, keep writing.
5
Despite Mr. Walsh’s many warts—and there are many—if his candidacy can hamper the re-election plans of Trump by even a little, I say godspeed.
7
Many harsh words used to characterize Joe Walsh,some maybe apt. But similar descriptions were used for every Republican since Nixon, even Mitt Romney. Its telling how The Squad manages to escape criticism for their words and statements in such a tone on these pages.
Perhaps we should all consult a thesaurus to find more precise sophisticated nuanced words to describe the vile nature of political opponents we wish to verbally eviscerate instead of the same old tropes and tired narratives...
2
Huston Smith wrote a book titled Why Religion Matters. I read it with great interest, but during the Trump era in which religious people have seeming abandoned every tenant of their faith, I've begun to believe that religion doesn't matter because people have failed their religions. This beautifully articulated piece almost restores my faith.
5
Perhaps Joe Walsh will take votes from Trump in a Republican primary, but he has a past history that matches Trump's for its odious behavior. It would be great however if ran as a Third-party candidate in the general election and took votes from Trump where it really mattered.
9
What is it exactly about the Republican party that could create such a shop of horrors? Is there a Republican party in 2050? Or even in 2030?
Not too long from now, there will be many history/political science courses, and likely entire degrees, based on studies of this sick time in our national history.
5
"The democratic virtues we desperately need to reclaim in American public life — moderation and compromise rightly understood, civility, forbearance — are antithetical to Mr. Walsh."
Actually, these virtues have become antithetical to the entire GOP establishment. The Republican Party has steadily moved to the right over the last three decades and has now acquired the persona of angry racists on right-wing radio and "Fix News" -- like Mr. Walsh. But I must salute you for the contents of this column. In 2016, George F. Will asked Republican voters to hold their noses and vote for Hillary. Patriotic Republicans of good faith need to heed his plea in 2020 so as to save the country from sliding into fascism.
7
"That they personify the Republican Party today is still, for some of us at least, a source of shock and shame." Yes, they do personify the GOP. Nixon, Reagan, McConnell, Trump, Walsh, ALL of you. I love to read all this hand-wringing about this party of racism AS IF IT WAS A SURPRISE! Trump is the love-child of the GOP - make no mistake about it. As the chinese proverb says, "If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed." And we have.
8
My better angels must be on vacation right now. I'm thinking I might enjoy watching Republicans rather than Democrats eat their own for a change. I'm imagining Trump and Walsh taking each other on like two WWE champions in a political arena roped off, of course, to keep the screaming and booing fans at bay. Or not. Maybe let em on stage like Jerry Springer would do?
Isn't that what we are watching every single day with Trump shadow boxing his way on the world stage? But he's all alone out there. Why not let him have an opponent in the ring with him who is his equal in every sense of the word.
Put it all out there in living color on HBO or sell it to the highest bidder. Why not? Would this not be the epitome of America's fascination with Ultimate! EXTREME! tests of strength in everything?
This is what the world sees right now. Might as well own it and make a buck on it.
9
If he really wants to redeem himself, he should run against Trump as a 3rd party candidate in the general election.
5
I was always taught that a leopard doesn't change its spots.
I've heard Walsh making the rounds on talk shows and podcasts, and as one commenter has already offered: if this is all the Republicans can come up with as a presidential candidate, they're in more trouble than any of us thought.
5
Here's a thought I don't think has a chance happening but you have to consider. What if he wins the nomination?
1
because two years as a back bencher in congress and hosting your own radio show is proof enough that a man can lead the free world with the nuclear codes.
i'm waiting for the candidate, former pest exterminator turned fundamentalist preacher, who can win the presidency, clean up the swamp and explain to us all, as if for the first time, the difference between good and evil.
i think it's good that politics seeks the lowest common denominator. i think it's good that candidates can represent the deepest desires of the electorate.
joe walsh: who we really are, running for the office that -- if only we had our own radio show -- we all really want, because we could any of us do a much better job with it than the present occupant.
Let's not forget that whenever an incumbent president has had a primary challenger, that president has lost the general election. We can only hope that history repeats itself.
16
I personally know many Never Trumpers, which is saying a lot when one considers that they only made up roughly five percent of the Republican Party in 2016. From my experience, they are possibly the most discouraged and depressed voting bloc in the country right now. Most of them haven't voted for a winning presidential candidate in over a decade, and the one time they voted for a Democrat, she lost. These are very practical, fiscally-minded, secular, moderate people. They can't bring themselves to get behind Bill Weld or Joe Walsh because they know he can't win. They fully realize that they are a small minority within a party that no longer truly represents them.
Most of the Never Trumpers I know will likely vote for the Democratic candidate in 2020, but they don't have any affinity for, or trust in, the party. Biden is the preferred candidate for most of them, as one would expect, although the NTs I know do find younger, more temperate candidates like Gabbard and Buttigieg to be fresh and inspiring; they just don't expect them to win the nomination. When you've seen your vote and support go to waste as many times as they have, it's hard not to be pessimistic.
13
My one question for Joe Walsh:
If Donald Trump is the Republican nominee for president in 2020, will you vote for a Democratic presidential candidate instead?
7
On MSNBC, he said he was very close to that possibility and would never cast another vote for Trump.
It has been my good fortune to have never listened to Mr. Walsh's broadcasts. Of course the same applies to all the other far-right wingnuts with the exception of Rush Limbaugh, who I tuned in to see what all the hype around him was about, and found him disgusting in short order.
Civility. Now that's a word that is rapidly becoming anachronistic. Which I guess is appropriate, because civilization, as those of us well past the mid-point of our expected lifetimes lived and perceived it, now, too, is head toward the same graves we will soon occupy. And civility is, for all practical purposes, anathema to Republican philosophy as well.
But I would tune in to primary debate between Walsh and Trump in an instant to watch these two hotheads browbeat each other silly. Those who attended the performance live would be well advised to take a cue from attendees of a Blue Man Group performance and, particularly those who scored seats near the stage, and come prepared with sheets of plastic to protect themselves from spray of spittle foam spewing from the lecterns.
8
More importantly, Joe Walsh has given Joe Walsh--the only Eagles member with a sense of humor--a bad name.
16
Peter Wehner is both a man I have fundamental disagreements with on policy, and a man I have great admiration and respect for. Once again he is right on point concerning the despicable direction and hypocrisy of most of the Republican party.
This country desperately needs people like Mr. Wehner on both sides of the aisle. People who honor their own convictions by consistent advocacy of them, but who also recognize that democratic government is ALL about reasonable compromise with those who hold differing views on policy.
8
"Unfit to be President" - this raises the question of how one becomes fit for the job. The first prerequisite is of course the ability to raise huge sums of money for the campaign. That probably excludes over 99.9% of all American citizens. Proven dishonesty does not seem to be a problem, and nor does a complete lack of political knowledge or experience.
As a general rule, most Republicans would probably say that any Democrat was unfit, and vice versa. In short, any candidate's fitness for the task is a matter of political opinion, and further discussion is a red herring.
3
@Bill George
I've had my disagreements with Democratic candidates as well, but I have to say this much for them - I didn't feel like I had to take a shower and scrub vigorously with soap after I'd listened to them.
4
Mr. Walsh's apologies are more than likely opportunistic. He may be hated by the Trump camp now, but if and when he decides to get back aboard the train he'll quickly apologize for the apologies, and all will be forgiven. I guess everyone's willing to absolve the sinner when it serves their interests (and brand them hypocrites when it doesn't). Personally, I'm feeling a lot less forgiving at the moment. When Trump loses in 2020 and people like Senator Rob Portman come bearing apologies, I plan to hold out. No mere apology will mitigate his reckless abandonment of moral principle when it was needed most.
4
A characteristic I look for in a leader is to have the ability to peer into the future and be correct about your vision not to have continuous mistakes and apologize for them.
1
Let's be honest, Mr. Wehner. You broadly assert that "we live in a time of acute bitterness and acrimony, where people’s first (and second and third) impulse is to brutalize, insult, embarrass and demean those who hold different views." While that may be a fair assessment, the "people" you speak of are largely confined to one political party, the GOP. It is the Party of Trump that is doing most of the brutalizing and demeaning—and often doing so with great relish, having been freed from any constraints of decency or civility by "the chosen one." And even those Republicans who have not joined in have been complicit with their meek objections or cowering silence.
You may not all be "cut from the same rancid cloth." But to be a member of this Party in 2019 means donning that cloth and pretending it don't stink.
9
No, "people's" impulse is not to "brutalize, insult, embarrass and demean those who hold different views." Republican/ right wing impulse is to do so. Of course, one can find some who do so in the center and on the left, but they are the exception and not well received.
False equivalency is highly destructive to public discourse. We should be calling out those who pursue tactics damaging to democracy.
3
@DW107
The Rs will frequently refer to 'competition as the natural state for people. I would always argue that were such the case, there'd be no civilization. I can't imagine the earliest inhabitants of cities (ancient Sumer) moving into close proximity with one another, increasing the likelihood of disease and injury, and gladly accepting shorter lifespans - just to be closer to their competition.
2
I don't get these sanctimonious Republicans, either Wehner or Walsh. I've watched this process over many decades. First Goldwater opposing the Civil Rights Acts, then Nixon's southern strategy and then Regan and Bushs' code words and winks and nods. The Democratic Party in the south from about 1980 up to about 2010 struggled with and made substantial progress to create a competitive bi-racial party but Republicans (including those in the courts) continually played the race card for competitive political advantage and usually succeeded in rendering the Democratic Party in the deep south noncompetitive.
11
The GOP is broken. The activated fringe voters that the party started using very effectively in the '90 as a hammer to help them accumulate power - from the TEA party, who are happy with receiving their own share of stimulus but hate seeing their taxes benefit *everybody*; to the very white and paranoid NRA wing; to the evangelical wing, brought into a fervor by the prospect of women demanding equal pay and bodily autonomy - has eroded its veneer of political/fiscal conservatism and exposed the ugliness of its foundation in anti-democratic and racist values. There is no palatable governing philosophy there. There is no longer any illusion of decency.
I think it's too late to fix this by honest criticism and loyal opposition. The US needs a new conservative party.
6
"Joe Walsh has done that over the course of his political career. So has Donald Trump. They are cut from the same rancid cloth."
Wow! As bad as things were for the Democratic Party following the 2016 election, that's not something anyone would ever say about any of their top candidates. The GOP has some real soul-searching ahead....
1
I watched Joe Walsh being interviewed on TV. I am amazed at the mis-placed egos of persons thinking they are not only capable but worthy to be president of the United States. Well, Trump actually became president so my amazement has turned to chagrin. I am pleased that there are at least some Republicans willing to stand up against the Trump menace. Even the most willing masochist seems to reach the point where he screams "enough, enough!"
3
Democrats and a few moderate Republicans seem to be, as the old rock n roll song said, wishin', hopin', plannin' and dreamin', for the 85% of Republicans who wholeheartedly support Trump to come to their collective senses. Not going to happen. Time to stop lamenting that lost group and move forward. Time to put the imposter President out of a job.
3
Well said Mr. Wehner. I am a progressive democrat, reading your book, 'Death of Politics', sent to me by a friend, also a progressive.
I haven't followed Walsh, so am grateful to hear more about his history. I knew about his calling Obama a Muslim, which he knew was an untruth.
I did not know of his treatment of the Sandy Hook parents. His turning point was Helsinki - mine on him (if I could have supported him beyond his calling out what every reasonable person sees about the occupant of the WH) - are his comments about Sandy Hook parents. Unforgivable and despicable.
2
Walsh is nothing but a rank opportunist, raised( or descended )to the highest( or lowest ) level. He knows that his unfunded, unpopular, and policy-less campaign, based solely on his 11th hour anti-Trump invective is going nowhere. But, what his totally insincere efforts can accomplish in his greedy little mind is land a lucrative national media contract or other enrichment. Ironically, his local radio program just recently lost its national syndication, in a twist of divine justice. As a Democrat, Walsh’s only raison d’etre is his role in adding another weapon to the Republican circular firing squad.
2
Joe Walsh has enough bones in his closet to make a thousand skeletons. He is hot headed, speaks without thinking first, and would be nothing more than a carbon copy of Trump. The only good thing about his running is that he actually could take votes away from Trump during the primary. He has no principles, and that is the reason that he was only a one termer in the House.
4
Walsh and Trump use words to wound! The word, once spoken, cannot be retracted or explained.Apologies ring hollow -the damage is done.Opportunists will use any words, employ any tactic to get their ideas into the public.Trump has grabbed the outrage antic from the Tea Party-he is better at outrage than they are.Walsh is trying to regain the dubious distinction of all outrage, all of the time.
3
What do Republicans/Conservatives believe in? They talk a good game about "fiscal responsibility", but all it really boils down to is "tax cuts". They flirt with Libertarian-ism, but come ever close to advocating for anarchy. In the end, they all come off as grouchy old men, yelling at kids to "get off their lawn".
1
A truly repentant anti-Trump Republican will run as a 3rd party candidate to ensure Trump's loss in 2020. Weld and Walsh are not heroes, they're keeping one foot in the koolaid.
1
I assume Walsh just is doing this for publicity.
He is not to be taken seriously.
2
Thank you for pointing out that the Republican Party is no longer viable. Republicans who consider themselves patriots have a duty to donate money and work for the election of moderate democrats.
They failed the test miserably in the last election by rejecting Hillary Clinton for a sociopath who at best is a supporter of White Supremacy and at worst a Russian agent.
Hillary Clinton is a moderate democrat who as a US Senator often compromised with Republicans and worked across the aisle. The Republican party demonized her with phony hearings for years, lead chants of lock her up and finally sworn fidelity to Trump.
The Republican leadership needs to be thoroughly thrashed in the next election and the party needs to re-evaluate itself and start over.
You nailed it Joe Walsh is no better than Trump. Joe Walsh and Donald Trump represent over 90% of the Republican leadership.
1
So the consensus opinion, from a Conservative Republican commentator nonetheless, is that most Republican party supporters look the other way, or even support, when it comes to : Misogyny, Bigotry, Paranoia, Insular attitudes, Jingoism, Lying and a lot more.
What a "fine bunch" I must observe. And why exactly are we burdened with the lot of you? In other words, if all you have to offer is that sometimes you are not all of the above, why should we trust anything you have to say anytime that you say it?
2
Nicolle Wallace and John Heilemann did a masterful job of raking Walsh over the coals on MSNBC the other day. What was chilling was how deftly, if disingenuously, Walsh was able to parry the jabs. He's as dangerous as Trump is, and in much the same way. If anyone in the GOP thinks this country would be better off under Joe Walsh just because he claims to be a deficit hawk who would be only too happy to eviscerate everything that helps ordinary Americans in the name of "fiscal responsibility" (which in the aftermath of the Trump tax cuts is a joke anyway), then it just proves how morally bankrupt the party has become.
1
some cliches:
Trump and Walsh: two peas in a pod.
Trump and Walsh: the kettle calling the pot black.
Trump and Walsh: out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Both of the same mold.
Which is why Walsh will threaten trump.
Yes, and there is William Weld. Sad thing the media has said nothing about Weld, but plenty about Walsh since he announced.
Like I have said, the media is as responsible for the situation of the country as is anything or anybody else.
3
We're not talking about American politics. We're talking about conservative politics. Joe Walsh embodies much that has gone wrong in conservative politics. There is no left-wing equivalent for Joe Walsh. Certainly none for Trump either.
Obama was the model of the qualities Mr. Wehner finds lacking in Walsh: moderation, compromise, civility, forbearance to name a few. And yet, uncompromising obstruction and proto-Trumpism went unchalleged in the Republican majorities at the time. John McCain was a rebel for challenging bitherism. Where were the moderate Republicans then?
Peter Wehner is as much of a hypocrite as his unnamed pundit friend. The primary difference is Wehner still foolishly believes conservative politics can regain a mantle of respectability in the post-Trump era. A pro-Trump pundit has already conceded the argument.
4
Joe was FOR Trump before he was AGAINST HIM... Everything TRUMP stood for as a failed businesman and amoral human being was out there in plain sight for anyone to see from the beginning. While I can understand "evolving viewpoints", Walsh's Buyer's Remorse seems as disingenuous as the GOP's support of Trump's manifestly anti-conservative fiscal and foreign policies.
1
They're not blind to the double standard, they just don't care. That's the real revelation in Trump's election; 60 million Americans simply DO NOT CARE about things like integrity or honesty.
That is what many liberals (and conservative Never-Trumpers apparently) don't seem to be realizing. These people are fully aware of their hypocrisy, and they simply do not care because Trump is enabling them to exercise their greed or their racism with complete impunity, where Democrats and reasonable Republicans have been attempting to prevent them from doing so.
Nothing Trump does will matter to these people, because none of them ever had any integrity to begin with. All they care about is gathering as much money as possible, just like he does, and making sure that their position of social supremacy over non-white Americans remains intact, just like he does. Nothing else matters to these people, and trying to ascribe them motives beyond that is an exercise in futility.
1
Peter Wehner notes that the anti-Trumpers are caught up in "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic. I agree with him. A more appropriate adage is "He who sups with the devil should have a long spoon." Both Trump and Walsh stir up toxic brews of hatred and disrespect.. While a part of me thinks it would be interesting to see The President and Joe Walsh go at each other in a cage match, I cringe when I think what this might do to drive serious public discussion out of the political arena.
4
@Robert Cadigan
I agree; watching Donald Trump and Joe Walsh square off against one another -- with each targeting the other over a sustained period of time -- would make the Jefferson-Adams election in 1800, one of the ugliest in American history, look like a walk in the park.
I agree, too, that the blast radius and accompanying damage to our political culture and public discourse would be enormous. After all, both Trump and Walsh have shown over the course of their political careers that there's virtually no line they won't cross, no malicious thing they won't say, no conspiracy theory they won't embrace, if they believe it serves their purpose and hurts those they perceive as threats to them.
The problem, of course, is their viciousness wouldn't be contained to, say, a debate stage; it would seep into the wider culture and create imitators. It would unleash further demons; and there are quite enough of those roaming the landscape these days. What America desperately needs right now are leaders who model some measure of decency, dignity, magnanimity of spirit, and even a touch of grace. Trump and Walsh not only don't embody those qualities; they have, at least up to now, shown themselves to be antithetical to them.
4
More soap box derby...we don’t need any more egocentric, hyperventilating self-aggrandizers running for president.
No more Twitter berating contests and useless attempts to land on the front page of every news outlet; how about substance and acknowledgement of how it is a difficult job leading the country, particularly if you accept you are running on behalf of all Americans?
1
Republican voters and politicians knew what the had in Donald Trump long before the 2016 campaign, yet they nominated and voted for him. No more of this nonsense that Hillary Clinton was a flawed candidate. She was not even in the same universe as Trump with regard to corruption, indecency, bigotry, and dishonesty.
The sad fact is that Trump’s base of support, and his political enablers, are in lock step with him regarding gun control, human rights, civil rights, immigration, destruction of government agencies and institutions essential to democracy, and desecration of the environment.
None of these people can change who, or what, they are by renouncing their allegiance to Trump, just because he becomes too heavy a burden to bear. It will take several election cycles for Republicans to show that they no longer are defined by their destructive, divisive, and hateful policies of the last century (yes, dating back to the 1930’s).
Until we have a new Republican Party, which stands for smaller government and conservative fiscal policy , and not the hatred of the NRA or the White Nationalism movement, or the destructive greed of unregulated large corporations, then the current group of Trumpist Republicans should be forced to the margins of American politics.
1
In terms of any Republican challenge to Donald Trump in 2020: There's a line from the Invasion of the Body Snatchers when the doctor, the main character in the movie, says, in regard to fighting the alien seed pods taking over the Earth: "I'm afraid it's too late for that." (a paraphrase of the line)
As the old saying goes, better late than never but better never late.
1
Only difference I can see, that’s a positive, is Walsh isn’t a fan of Kim Jong Un, Putin, or Mohammad Bin Salman. I also don’t see Walsh antagonizing China the way Trump does.
2
Your observation that pro-Trumpers are "demanding that Mr. Trump’s most vocal critics do what they will not, which is to publicly recoil against a politician .... who appeals to the worst instincts and ugliest sentiments in America" is spot on.
It is related to one of the oddest characteristics of Trump himself. He loves to condemn others (especially Democrats) for doing and saying things (even if they aren't) that he himself is doing and saying. Psychiatrists call it projection.
I don't understand how it works so successfully, but for Trump it does ... hopefully until now. The GOP can't be fooled once, then twice, and forevermore (George W Bush notwithstanding). They're not that gullible....are they?
I witnessed Joe Walsh's interview on PBS with Judy Woodruff and was sickened by the syrupy "sincerity" following his ostensibly Damascene moment of revelation. Walsh is the sum of his prior behavior, much of which is on-record for all to see and follow.
As for the Republican Party, it has proven itself to be a collection of hypocritical ciphers, the whole lot of which couldn't produce a single spine among them. In this regard alone, the Democratic Party gives the GOP a good run for its money but the Dems are not hopelesdly, gratuitously and "pathologically dishonest, dehumanizing, cruel, crude, racist and misogynistic."
That honor of patriotic political fortitude belongs exclusively to the once-proud GOP. The characterization fits Joe Walsh, like Donald Trump, to a "T."
So are we to take it that Mr. Wehner is endorsing Bill Weld in the primaries? Or is he holding out for a third or fourth challenger?
Remember that the Johnson/Weld ticket was all that stood between Trump and a popular vote victory. They got 3.3% of the vote, and therefore held the balance of power, since Hillary only won by 2%. It's safe to assume that most of their vote came from people who normally would have voted Republican.
2
The Republican Party, which has happily turned a blind eye to Trump's endless excesses and horrors, deserves Joe Walsh. Let the two mad dogs chew each other up while the party collapses. But what about Bill Weld, you say? Compared to him, Don Quixote was a hard-headed realist.
1
Walsh is running for the exact same reason Trump did -- the publicity. No more, no less.
An opportunist gonna opportune.
He should be ignored. I wish Trump had been.
2
To effect the sort of change Mr. Wehner wishes to see—a return to sanity, negotiation, civility—the GOP will need to abandon the scorched earth rhetoric and tactics they’ve displayed for decades. When you portray the other party as pure evil, you cannot justify compromising with them.
During the 2008 election I asked many voters (younger ones) why Obama appealed to them so much. Most gave some version of this: they were sick of the idiotic “culture wars” of the baby boomers and Obama was not a boomer and not into that.
If anything the culture warriors on the right have become more out of control than ever. They’d destroy America to punish their straw men enemies, and we are seeing it daily right now. The Repub party has become the vehicle for this.
First the GOP must figure how to excise the cancer in their party, or is it too late?
I heard Walsh on the PBS NewsHour yesterday. God save us from radio talk show hosts and reality TV stars!
3
I'm all for anyone who will dilute a vote for Trump. Walsh doesn't have a snowball's chance, though.
2
Walsh and Trump are exactly the same. Walsh is just less honest about it.
But about that Republican hypocrisy. There is no Republican hypocrisy. Republicans have been saying and doing the same things for decades, at least in my lifetime. No one else seems to have been listening. From Nixon, through Reagan and Gingrich and McConnell and Walsh it’s always been pretty clear what Republicans have stood for and what they meant when they spoke. That people still don’t get that says more about them than the Republican Party.
Trump just says what Republicans have always been thinking but are too scared to say out loud. That’s why he’s so popular among the Republican base. (And that base is, thankfully, still a minority of Americans.)
Republican never-Trumpers are just complaining about the packaging, not the policy. They want everything that Trump and Walsh want. They just wish those guys weren’t so in-your-face about it.
1
I've taken of late to say I'm not surprised by the current behavior of the Republican Party. That behavior has always been there from the party's founding; it's just been suppressed more or less by other things.
The R party was founded in 1854 by primarily 3 groups:
* Radical Abolitionists - who today would be labeled Leftists.
* Remnants of the old Whig party, which was largely supportive of the wealthy and businesses. (They too made the assumption that if you made the rich richer, they would somehow personally make things better for all the little people around them through their "better nature")
* Remnants of the popularly called "Know Nothing" Party (officially referred to as the American Nationalist Party) which was anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic.
The behavior of those last 2 should sound very familiar to any paying attention. We heard echos of them in Wendell Wilkie in 1940, in Barry Goldwater in 1964, in Ronald Reagan in 1980/1984, and the Tea Party in 2010. With each successive iteration, all but those most extreme elements have been purged until only that earliest most hateful core remained, leading to Trump.
Walsh is a part of that core. He eagerly contributed to the Birther bunk and was among those throngs of Republicans who (in 2012) praised loudly that "Putin was the kind of strong leader America deserved." (Remember that?) He's been hateful of far too many all his life and wants redemption now that it no longer has a shelf life?
I'm not surprised.
1
What seems so disingenuous about this article is the singular condemnation of Joe Walsh as “A man of pulsating rage.” This approach has been the hallmark of the Republican party for most of my lifetime. Be it "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice", the "nattering nabobs of negativism", the" welfare queens", the specter of Willie Horton, WMDs in Iraq, or shouting "you lie" during the State of the Union address, the theme is the same: manufacture outrage against those who don't march lockstep with the Republican view.
When you can't campaign on ideas that would benefit the country as a whole because you're interested in protecting the wealthiest Americans, turn people against one another. Unfortunately, it's too often been a winning formula. Why should one expect a change in strategy now?
1
Thank you- and I’d add that we now have the poster boy for pulsating rage as displayed in his confirmation hearing—Brett Kavanaugh sitting on our Supreme Court.
2
@Nick Salamone
Indeed. Good point.
"They are cut from the same rancid cloth."
Completely agree. They look and feel very much the same. However, I would smile if Joe Walsh challenges Trump, not in a GOP primary but as third party presidential candidate and let them cancel each other out.
Meanwhile, let the rest of the country discuss policy and get an adult elected to the White House.
347
@Aurace Rengifo
Yes, if Walsh and the 'fiscally conservative' Republicans seek to get the deficit under control, Walsh needs to run as a third party candidate. If just a few fiscal conservatives vote for him out of protest, Trump will probably loose.
The problem with Democrats is that they tax and spend.
The problem with Republicans is that they cut taxes and spend.
Republicans are no longer fiscally responsible.
13
@Barnaby Wild
'Taxing and spending' is not a problem, it is how civilization works, my friend.
I would say that Progressives are willing to spend on a better society with better infrastructure.
Maybe if we can get the gop thieves out of the way, real progress can be made on all fronts.
Maybe taxes would not have to be raised so much to clean up the perpetual mess the top leaves us with decade after decade. Had enough yet?
The tax 'cuts' were and always are theft of our resources to hand over to those who already have everything. Now they want to salt the earth?
56
@Aurace Rengifo
Great idea! I would contribute to Walsh if he would run against Trump in the general election as a third-party candidate. Remember that 46 divided by 2 is 23, which loses every time.
10
What I appreciate most about this column is what *isn't* here, because its absence seems so notable by its rarity.
Wehner, blessedly, fails to conjure some excuse for conservatives' behavior arising from supposed provocations or psychological "triggering" by liberals.
Possibly another of the things Wehner truly believed in that his compatriots never actually cared about was: personal responsibility.
162
@Bill Camarda
You must watch hours of Faux trump no news or listen to hours of Hate radio! Or both
@George You completely misunderstood the commenter. He says that Wehner does NOT share certain reprehensible characteristics with other Republicans. He says that Wehner is NOT the hypocrite that other Republicans are. Such mild praise of a moderate, traditional Republican is certainly not right-wing hysteria.
8
Thank you! I do hope you at some time acknowledge that for this coming election at least you and other never Trumpers will need to actually vote for a Democrat rather than just sit this one out.
316
@Grindelwald
We are going to vote for the Democrat, something that many left leaning Democrats would never do if in the same situation...like with Big Bill.
1
@Grindelwald:
Very true.
The mathematics of elections shows that abstaining only helps the person in the number 1 position (the tentative winner).
However in 2020, we also need to return Congress to fully blue/democratic control; that is, the Senate and the House.
This will prevent GOP resistance while we try to remove trump's criminal enterprise that he's installed within our Federal government.
11
@Gregory
False equivalency.
7
The biggest problem with the GOP is they know how to play politics and win, but they don't govern, hence the mess we're in with the tyranny of the minority in the Senate. If GOPers want a functioning government,they need to vote for GOP candidates that pledge to govern, not use our government to "win" while the rest of us lose.
5
Sometimes fighting fire with fire works.
Setting a backfire against Trump with Walsh might just do the trick. May the fickle winds of fate blow fiercely against Donald Trump.
121
@RjW Counting on a trick to beat Trump is only one step away from a voodoo doll.
1
@RjW-- exactly. Get rid of the monster and his awful enablers, including those grifter kids. By any means. I have trouble taking the GOP seriously-- they impeached Clinton becasue he lied about sex with a grown up, they vilified Obama both covertly and overtly. Lifelong dem, I thought Clinton was a "very good" president, Obama "good despite GOP obstruction." Trump is not even in the same league of quality as these two. I believe he is worse than Nixon becasue at least Nixon was a loyal American and a smart man to boot. Trump needs to go.
12
@RjW. No. Just say no.
2
Yeah, I follow Joe Walsh on social media just to see how bizzarro the world can be. He despises trump but lives in a house without mirrors because if he owned one, he'd see trump's reflection staring back at him.
177
@newyorkerva
Nice image. Clever.
9
Such a shame that William Weld's candidacy is not getting much more coverage.
He is someone who can bring legitimacy back to the GOP.
It's a shame that more Republicans haven't promoted him. It really speaks to the unfortunate rightward extremes the party now embodies.
I am very disappointed that the NY Times and other media I follow have not brought more attention to Weld.
I always thought I was getting the most balanced news but I see the absence of this coverage as a real deficit.
3
Under President Trump, the Republican Party is on the cusp of sliding into Know Nothingness and Whigdom.
In order to reconstruct itself, the Republican Party needs a Cultural Revolution to purge it of Tea Party members, climate deniers, birthers, and White Nationalists, and a Marshall Plan to rebuild its ideology from the bottom up. Before all of that, though, the country needs the equivalent of an Appomattox or VE day, in which we can declare Unconditional Surrender, such that all semblance of the scent of Trump can be extinguished.
"The democratic virtues we desperately need to reclaim in American public life — moderation and compromise rightly understood, civility, forbearance — are antithetical to Mr. Walsh."
Then write a pro-Weld piece and simply ignore Walsh.
4
Amen
The days when the GOP stood for fiscal conservatism, strong alliances to stand against totalitarian regimes like Russia, and free trade are gone; as gone as a sustainable environment, media responsibility to hew to facts, a welcome mat for the poor, huddled masses, unions that counterbalanced corporate power and aspirations of racial equality. We are left with crazy and crazier in terms of GOP policies and leadership under the most un-American President we have ever had to endure.
3
Disingenuous---that is, hypocrisy and insincerity---is the label that best defines the present-day Republican party, aka, the Party of Trump. As Mr. Wehner accurately points out, the policies that were once anathema to Republicans are now perfectly acceptable: the growing deficit, the trade wars, the love for Putin (and Kim), etc. etc. We can see this hypocrisy in the lives of many individual supporters of Trump, who once opposed him--- openly and accurately harshly criicizing him. Think of Lindsey Graham for example, who originally could easily have led a Never-Trump movement but now is one of his loudest and crudest defenders. It has been said that many Republicans who openly support Trump silently abhor him. What this shows is that in politics --- holding on to principles, doing what is best for the public, is secondary to holding on to the position and the prestige of power.
270
@shimr Lindsey Graham in particular personifies the hypocrisy we are living in. He is Joe Walsh in reverse, someone that appeared at times reasonable and principled and anti-Trump when John McCain was alive but “jumped the shark” for Trump, once Senator McCain died.
19
@shimr
to the sentence, "holding on to the position and the prestige of power" I would add, money. These Republicans (and I am sorry to say, many Democrats too) have sold their souls to Mammon. This is manifested in the thousands of lobbyists who swarm over the Capitol Building every day. They are paid for by corporations and donate generously to the members of Congress and the Senate.- Greed has become the governing force in the U.S.
15
@shimr …….and lets not leave out the hypocrisy of the self righteous religious leaders who support Trump
18
Mr. Wehner,
I bookmarked, and occasionally revisit, your article in The Atlantic: "What I’ve Gained by Leaving the Republican Party." I marked it because you are a person who stands on principle. You are a conservative this lifelong liberal could have a conversation with.
'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' never works for long. Any conservative 'Never-Trumper' who is worth anything should simply ignore Mr. Walsh. I'm ignoring him, and I'm a person who should be thrilled that he's disrupting Trump Nation with his blatant opportunism. His apologies make my eyes roll. He's just not worth wasting any mental energy on.
Joe Walsh is not going anywhere with this attempt to unseat Trump because he's nothing but a Trump 'mini-me,' but with the disadvantage of not being despicable to the core, just 99% to the core. There's a tiny 1% of him that understands the damage he's done. Why on earth would Trump's supporters want somebody with even that teeny bit of conscience left?
Stay the course, Mr. Wehner. It will all be over soon enough.
114
@CF -Wise, kind and I hope prophetic words. Thank you for expressing so well. "...all over soon enough" lifts my spirits that this awful nightmare will soon see dawn and new, hopeful and loving days ahead.....
4
@CF
Actually, I don't remember Mr. Wehner complaining about rising deficits during Reagan and W Bush.
3
Saw Walsh in an interview with Judy Woodruff last night; he seemed measured, intelligent, and well-spoken—in short, everything Trump is not—but I found it amusing that he wanted the public to understand how his ravings on the air was mere performance art, and not to be taken at face value. After seeing Alex Jones attempting this approach during his divorce, I’m not sure Walsh will be successful at this. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
4
@RP Houston - as one of our astute local political observers notes, this play by Walsh could be aided by, and possibly in aid of, his acting training and hopes for future entertainment jobs.
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-politics/trump-faces-his-mini-me-joe-walsh
The Republicans who challenge Trump should be those with a different vision of what used to be a decent political party - not a fellow entertainer.
2
This "challenge to Trump" from his own party is simply theater. And that's even more ironic given the Barnum and Bailey act we have in the white house.
But the idea from Walsh that Trump is a racist, but he's not is insulting beyond the theatrics of it all.
Trump's racism has 'inspired' people who have caused hate crimes to more than double during his there years. His white nationalist followers have responded to the brown "invasion" that Trump proclaims by murdering scores of people.
Trump's sociopathic cruelty has resulted in immigration policies that have scared children for life.
The consequences of his policies have moved us closer to environmental doom. They have increased risks of disease and work place injury and have removed the few federal protections we have for civil rights violations.
And the GOP members of congress have been in lock step with Trump from day one.
The idea that some Republicans are now "concerned" about his racism and misogyny is laughable. But to laugh would be to dishonor those that have died as a consequence of them. The Jews, Blacks,Latino's and young whites.
The GOP used to be the party of big business. Now they're the party of cruelty. They are the party where punishment for opposing them is not enough.
To serve the rich the organs of government must inflict pain on the needy, the weak, those who thought the social contract applied to them.
Walsh and Trump are cut from the same cloth. But the GOP is their tailor.
210
"The GOP used to be the party of big business. Now they're the party of cruelty."
Not to mention incompetence, ignorance, trying to destroy everything that's good about the U.S. — and what's that word for siding with the enemy?
15
@Drspock
The Republican Party is bankrupt morally and intellectually. It is incompetent to govern, and it acts stolidly against the country's best interests and against values that many Americans were once proud of. In order to enrich itself and the 1%, it's forcing us to endure the cruel devastations of Trump. "Republican party today"--ugly words.
4
@Drspock "But the idea from Walsh that Trump is a racist, but he's not is insulting beyond the theatrics of it all."
Absolutely. Don't forget: the Tea Party movement was as much about racism and getting a black man out of the White House as any supposed concern about "fiscal responsibility."
15
What is a conservative? These are people who believe in justice, paying their bills, and respecting others.
Trump is not a conservative, on all three counts. Is Walsh a conservative? Likely not. Biden is closer to a conservative than anyone who is willing to run against Trump. I can only hope that Trump is defeated in Nov 2020, but I suspect that anyone who will enter the contest against Trump wil be slimed by Fox "news" and other Murdoch or Sinclair outlets. So opponents of Trump, be prepared.
Oh, Walsh is not a conservative nor is he believable.
6
I agree—this will be a contest to reach the lowest possible common denominator. But let the republicans begin the infighting... Name calling! Twitter insults! Brawling at rallies! The more the merrier, and the better the other side looks to the rest of the country so that we can put an end to this nonstop nightmare.
9
A large number of Mr. Trump’s supporters are either blind to their double standard or at least not embarrassed by it"
And there are many who are so mad that they don't care what Trump says as long as they see him pointing fingers and attacking people who they perceive to have victimized themselves in some way. It's madness that drives them.
2
Walsh is exactly the same as Trump except for that his racist vitriol seems more intentional and coherent. Half the time Trump steps in it you wonder if he has any sense of even what day it is (not that that's an excuse). In contrast, Walsh is cognizant and earnest in his malevolence.
1
"A large number of Mr. Trump’s supporters are either blind to their double standard or at least not embarrassed by it."
I think it's fear, only fear. They fear what will happen to them if they speak out. They'll be targeted by Trump, and no matter how ridiculous the attack he delivers, they have seen many others' careers destroyed. They aren't in Congress, or wherever they are, for any principled purpose, they're in it for themselves, and they don't want to kick over the beehive.
It's a business calculation, that's all.
2
It’s pretty rich, and apt, when you think about it: the person who has emerged as Trump’s primary challenger is the guy (we’d all forgotten until now) is Trump’s equally loathsome political forebear. Could this really have happened any other way?
2
It is fair to be ashamed that this is the Republican Party.
It betrays a glaring lack of intelligence to be shocked. Trump was a natural evolution of where the GOP has long been headed. I’m not sure what is worse. Those who are surprised by Trump, or those who cannot admit that he wasn’t a surprise.
Anyone voting for the GOP at any level at this point is and has been a willful participant in driving the GOP to the extreme fringe that it has become. You can’t disclaim ownership of the Trumpian right while supporting the party in which he rose.
3
Thanks are due to this writer for not falling into the "us, too" rut of lessers like Joe Scarborough who drooled on screen over having on his show someone who'd "seen the traditional Republican light". There are already dozens of "never Trumpers" preening on the talk shows and cable who are still utterly opposed to food assistance to the poor, the old, and children, who are "never healthcare without profit" who are never "cut the military hardware budget in favor of funding education" who are "never support women's health and women's right to choose"....
These nearly 100% white men are just waiting for their beloved "traditional Republican Party" to be raised from the ocean floor so they can all get back to their quiter racism, less obvious but still cowardly sexism, and their fondness for tax breaks to the wealthy. Most of whom remain under their beds while waiting, just waiting for their comeback...
2
I like that last line but how has the GOP become the party of horrors, yet it still wins elections? Conservative radio has done a lot to squelch reality in the name of power. This has gone a long way toward putting America in the horrible place it is. Unfortunately, there will probably always be racists, sexists, and xenophobes in America, but the question is whether the GOP can decide that power is not worth appealing to those voters. Also, can the GOP seek the decency that is in facts, even uncomfortable ones?
108
@Anthony
Whenever I see a question like yours ( "...how has the GOP become the party of horrors, yet it still wins elections?") I am reminded of this observation:
'As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.'
- H. L. Mencken
The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920
3
@Anthony
The question is, can anything stop Fox News? Its business plan consists, 100%, of fanning these flames.
3
@Anthony
Agreed completely.
Fox and Rush only work because people want to hear these things.
2
Thank you, Mr. Wehner, thank you.
The mystery to me is why Wehner hangs on to the Republican Party at all. Walsh, Trump, and innumerable others spewing their vile racism are hardly the first. Remember the whistle of Willie Horton in 1988 by the allegedly genteel Bush's (elder) campaign??? I'm no political historian, but that was the point at which I paid MUCH closer attention to what goes on and my voting record increasingly went from purple to blue. Why, Mr. Wehner, in the ensuing decades, can you and other ostensibly decent Republicans not drive racism and racists out of the GOP? Perhaps because it is not important enough to them? I am worried about this administration's deficit spending lust, but is that the only issue that makes you and your "real" Republican brothers apoplectic?
2
Walsh is Trump in sheep's clothing. Does anyone think that Walsh would "govern" any differently than Trump has done so far? I think not. Walsh is just as racist and divisive as Trump. He will be a gnat flying around Trump's head for a few weeks and then he'll get swatted down. If Republicans are really serious about challenging Trump that would back Bill Weld or support a realistic candidate. They're not doing it, so they're not serious. Tempest in a very small Walsh teapot here. Move on.
79
Indeed, Mr. Wehner, for Trump and most arch-right Republicans "the purpose of language, as they see it, isn’t to clarify or enlighten or reason together. It is to inflict the maximum pain possible on other human beings".
The oh-so-pious Evangelicals having voted for Trump participate in this brutal game.
There is a Hebrew term, Lashon Hara, which considers the human tongue as dangerous as the sword, and literally means the Evil Tongue.
It is unfortunate though that the vast majority of Trump supporters continues to pick and chose from both their "old" and "new" book the same way they chose from the Constitution, namely whatever fits into their antiquated world view, including their vicious hate of "the Others".
That world view is more and more resembling the resurrection of fascism on these shores, including the Aryan mantra of keeping this country rassenrein.
It can't happen here? It has already started in the dark a fairly long time ago.
3
To quote the Title of an album by my favorite Joe Walsh.
The Smoker you Drink the Player you get.
I give this Joe credit for opening his eyes an seeing the destruction of America all around him.
1
Thank you for this article. I agree.
While I respect the Never Trumpers, that they so willingly took to Walsh as an alternative to trump, shows me that the Republican party is INDEED Bankrupt--bankrupt of morality, decency, vision and bankrupt of American values.
Walsh embodies some of the nastiest characteristics as trump and it was exactly his cruel, racist, nasty rhetoric and those of his ilk that led to trump's popularity among the most deplorable among us.
Is there really not one person with good character, that is not completely flawed human being that is willing to stand up for the Republican party and run against this madman in the Oval Office?
Hypocrites, the entire lot of Republicans with very few exceptions. Thank you Peter for being that exception.
The Republicans deserve to go the way of the Whigs. Into the history books.
4
The GOP is morally bankrupt, sold their souls, and it's time for country over party. Vote Democratic no matter who. Meanwhile I will clear my calendar to watch Joe debate Trump! Go for it!
10
The purpose of language "is to inflict the maximum pain possible on other human beings," sums up the creed of the present day Republican Party, AKA the Cage-Children Party.
"Joe Walsh has done that over the course of his political career. So has Donald Trump." So have so many, many other Republicans by their votes, voices, Tweets, silence.
"They [today's Republicans] are cut from the same rancid cloth" as Walsh and Trump. It has been the coordinated efforts of the Cage-Children Party to prepare the way for their "chosen one."
"That [Trump and Walsh] personify the Republican Party today is still, for some [infinitesimal number] of us at least, a source of shock and shame," but not ACTION.
Mr. Wehner, the Cage-Children Party cannot be salvaged anymore than the Titanic can be re-floated and put back in service. Find or found a new political party.
4
I said this back when you wrote your 2016 column bashing Trump. A true "never Trumper" would have heartily endorsed Clinton, rather than saying you could never vote for her or any Democrat. Mr. Wehner, the reality was that there were two realistic possibilities for president in 2016, Clinton or Trump. If you and other never-Trumpers were really worried about Trump, you would have come out strongly for Clinton back then. You and other never-Trump Republicans who failed to do so certainly hold some of the blame for this disastrous presidency. If you, McCain, Romney, Walsh, etc., had spoken up before the election, things might really be different.
PJ O'Rourke, the conservative commentator and writer, put it best when he said something like, "She's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters." I personally disagree with his view about Clinton, but you obviously would agree and should have followed his lead.
553
@PG Well stated. A "never Trumper's" vote for any one but his Democratic opponent is a vote for Trump. Those Democrats who voted for Jill Stein in 2016 were not wasting their vote. They were casting an absentee ballot for Trump.
21
@PG
If Clinton had not run on a platform of being "inevitable," and formulated a campaign strategy that treated entire states as hers by history and by right, people like Mr. Wehner might have felt more of a need to vote for her. Ditto many on her left flank, who abstained as well. As with Brexit, which was supposed to fail with a healthy margin, a great many people felt no need to busy or sully themselves with the bother of voting, only to panic after the results rolled in.
2
I used to be a Republican when people like Mr. Wehner ran the party.
These days I imagine Mr. Wehner and I have a lot in common politically, because we both hold moderate views.
There are millions of people like me and Mr. Wehner in America who are simply "Moderate", whether we are "R" or "D" (or "I").
I'm currently supporting Biden but I could easily support a serious Weld or Kasich challenge. I bet I'm not alone.
159
@Nial McCabe
As an independent I wondered what happened to all the moderate Republicans I sometimes voted for. Last cycle there wasn't one GOP candidate for whom I could cast a ballot. Nor am I enthralled with the current Democratic presidential aspirants. Bill Weld is looking better and better in my view.
5
@Nial McCabe With all the damage the entire Republican Party has done to our budget, our environment, science, education, labor - you would still vote for a GOP candidate?
43
@June
I take your point. With the 2019 Republican party, it's Buyer Beware.
As I said, I currently support Biden.
But I would love to see the reemergence of a more sensible, moderate Republican party lead by people like Mr. Wehner, Kasich and Weld. I might not agree with all they say, but I respect their views.
I know it's easy to be cynical, but I honestly think our country would benefit greatly by a reborn Republican party that was more earnest and truthful.
And having a decent opponent could be a healthy thing for the Democratic party too.
If a moderate Republican put forward a serious campaign that addressed education, science, environment, health care and other issues that I care about, I would at least hear them out.
6
If Walsh and Trump are the standard bearers for the Republicans in 2020 then there is still room for a third candidate who is actually sane. Anyone?
3
Don't forget that people were defending Paul Ryan's silence on Trump as "principled." There is no principle left in the Republican Party; Mr. Wehner clearly sees that. I'm just not sure why he retains membership in such an organization. If he has hope for reform, what shape does he think that's going to take?
477
@Daisy
Well, the Republican Party is not the party of Trump; he just shoved it aside.
2
@Jim Muncy
It is now.
9
@Daisy Mr. Wehner, in fact, has left the GOP. See his article from the Atlantic in February:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/i-left-gop-because-trump/581965/
The article is a brilliant dissection of Republican hypocrisy, Trump's incoherent incompetence, leftist lunacy in the Democratic party, and the decline of civility and norms in our political system. Very much worth reading!
3
"We live in a time of acute bitterness and acrimony, where people’s first (and second and third) impulse is to brutalize, insult, embarrass and demean those who hold different views. The purpose of language, as they see it, isn’t to clarify or enlighten or reason together. It is to inflict the maximum pain possible on other human beings."
And in addition, the recent history of villifying compromise as well as undermining our Constitution in pursuit of the retention of power (think: Merrick Garland) is breathtaking. Party over country... It's not only Joe Walsh and Donald Trump with their vile rhetoric... add Mitch McConnell to the list. He's cut from the same cloth but performs the same erosion of our democracy with actions rather than words.
591
@Bob Schaffel
Don't forget Newt Gingrich, who helped start this decades ago and is a major Trump advisor.
28
@Bob Schaffel
Who are the "people" whose first impulse is to "inflict the maximum pain possible on other human beings?" Not anybody I know.
Donald Trump and those who follow his orders certainly inflict pain, but I don't think they wish to inflict the maximum pain possible on other human beings. Mr. Wehner's statements in the last paragraph are excessive, exaggerated and false.
@Bob Schaffel is this why San Francisco is changing the language for people that are criminals to "justice involved" persons? Eliminating the word man in anything from manhole to manpower because it's sexist. Do you realize San Francisco is the laughing stock of the entire world right now. This is exactly why Donald Trump will be re-elected.
I used to live in the district next to Joe Walsh’s when he got into office. Yes, the guy was voted in, but he was roundly tossed out in the very next election after those who voted him into office found out what an absolutely apalling person he is.
If this is the only answer the Republican Party has to Trump, it is just another sign that the GOP has got to be voted out of office – and kept out.
856
@Patrick Sewall
Exactly - this is the best the Republican party has been able to come up with?
30
@Patrick Sewall
Good comments. I don't remember when "absolutely appalling" became one of the criteria for being President.
17
@Sierra How about William Weld
1
“A man of pulsating rage.” An apt description not only of Joe Walsh but most of our ruling Republican Party. Overwhelmingly white, rich and male, not only do they have a giant share of the pie, they are rigging it to get more.
What are they so angry about? Has life truly been so unfair to them? Don’t they realize all the good they could do in this world if they didn’t base their campaigns and lives on anger, racism, cruelty, greed and insults?
I am glad even flawed candidates are running against Trump. It is supposed to be how our system works. And it exposes a bigger truth - family values and fiscal and moral responsibility are exactly what the Republican Party does not stand for.
881
@C WOlson "An apt description not only of Joe Walsh but most of our ruling Republican Party."
I have to disagree with your classification that "most" of the GOP is like Trump and Walsh. ALL of it is. If those in the party that disagree continue to remain in the party and support it via their presence, they are just as bad.
The ship sailed long ago. It doe not take a rocket scientist to determine that any sane, caring individual should have left the party by now. They don't need to become Democrats. There is such thing as an "independent."
If enough of them would do that, the GOP as we now know it would fade into obscurity.
83
@C WOlson. Last night, I saw an interview of Kelli Harding, whose book, The Rabbit Effect, has been getting some attention lately. Its thesis is that longevity and good health depends as much (and perhaps more) on the relationships we build and on the degree we care for and are cared for by others. If that is correct, then these raging conservatives will find their lives shortened by their own anger. Perhaps that could be seen as fitting, but given the fact that we have seen average lifespan decline recently for the first time in decades, I wonder if the solution isn’t to be found more in mending the social and political climate around us, not just in the amount we appropriate to NIH or other health organizations.
6
@C WOlson. Power and money are drugs. It's not that life has been unfair to them - it's that life can never be fair enough to them. They need more "fairness" - in other words, the more they have their way, the more they want. This world is full of people who would stomp on others because it makes them feel bigger, and every stomp is a "fix" they want more of. Everyone I know like this is a republican. Every single one. Vote democratic, every time, or hand your children's future over to people with a lot of hate in their hearts and addiction in their souls.
24
Real question for Republicans who are 'Never Trump' voters, and for Democrats who feel the same:
Why does it matter one whit if the Democratic party nominates a candidate who is left (however slightly) of center?
We all get to vote for someone who on the whole is decent, is intelligent, who cares for this country, and who will listen to the cawing cacophony of citizens who are aggrieved. And, be 'Never Trump'.
Voting for such a candidate is what 'Never Trump' means, isn't it?
9
Trump was primarily elected because he offered the mystique of the rockstar business tycoon; the "master deal maker" who would use his negotiating talents to disrupt Washington and get results. Joe Walsh doesn't have that. He's just a name-caller with a thin résumé, and that won't beat Trump.
2
Where were all these never Trumpers when the Republican Party was creating Trump?
After Johnson passed Civil Rights, the Republican Party courted the George Wallace Democrats.
Reagan used the dog whistle politics of “welfare queens” and talking about States’ Rights in Neshoba County.
Deficits went up under Reagan and W Bush. Deficits came down under Clinton and Obama. Where were all these never Trumpers who are now criticizing the Ryan / McConnell / Trump deficit?
Where were all these never Trumpers when the Republican Party was courting evangelicals instead of working with Planned Parenthood to get women birth control?
Where were all these never Trumpers when the Republican Party courted the NRA?
Where were all these never Trumpers when the Republican Party courted Fox News and Rush Limbaugh? Someone in the W Bush White House said Republicans thought Fox worked for the Republican Party but it turned out the Republican Party worked for Fox.
Where were all these never Trumpers when McConnell broke records for the filibuster? When when McConnell blocked Merrick Garland?
Where were all these never Trumpers when the right was saying global warming is a hoax?
We all know that Trump is only saying out loud what Republicans have been saying more discreetly all these years.
It doesn’t look like the Republican Party has changed priorities with Trump. Their priority is still tax cuts for the wealthy.
And I expect Mr. Wehner has made a good living all these years.
36
@Independent
BRILLIANT X about 42!!
My personal politics coincide nicely with Mr. Wehner's, I'm personally deeply religious and believe in personal responsibility, therefore slightly right of center. However the Republican Party represents none of that, just every one of the crass behaviors you ascribe to them, and I just refuse to be part of their slime, better to be amongst decent people who are far to liberal for me than the wretched refuse of a once respectable party.
3
@William S. Oser
Thanks for the comment!
You are probably not as far from liberals as you may think.
All liberals I have ever talked with believe in personal responsibility, they just don't emphasize it.
All the liberals I know are from blue collar families, first generation to go to college. They worked and paid for it themselves.
Nobody wants to go to work and pay taxes so someone can sit at home and do nothing. Doesn't make sense.
They emphasize helping people less fortunate which kind of sounds like a Christian but they don't go to church on Sunday.
And you must know Christians who go to church on Sunday and say buyer beware Monday through Friday.
We should all be working together to get people out of poverty with trade school or college, get people working and paying taxes instead of our paying for welfare and prison.
And I have never met a pro-life, evangelical who didn't use birth control.
The one real difference I have seen is the acceptance of same sex equality. My thoughts are 50 years ago we fought to maintain segregation. 50 years from now, we will look back on this fight against same sex equality in the same way.
And don't let the right fool you with that talk about socialism and Venezuela. Warren and Sanders are talking about what Denmark and Germany do - better education and trade school, universal healthcare for half the price.
1
@Independent
Thanks for your kind words. My religious convictions apply to me, not forced on others, I'm personally pro life, but in favor of Roe v. Wade so that those who disagree with me can do what they deem right for them. As for LGBT, I've been proudly gay for 50 years, so need to convince me about the righteousness of same sex equality. Its just that the Dems or at least the left leaning of same believe you can give people lots and lots for nothing. College should be affordable and lets give kids a hand up, but free College for All from Bernie makes me want to gag. Also the idea of medicaid for illegals just doesn't seem right. Come in legally and then lets talk. Come in illegally, well I don't think our society can or should support you.
"A large number of Mr. Trump’s supporters are either blind to their double standard or at least not embarrassed by it. Pointing out facts that challenge their ideological and political assumptions is like shooting BBs against a brick wall."
Really? We've never noticed this....
2
Walsh is mounting the most Republican challenge to Trump. He offer the option of choosing between The Same and Even More of the Same. Who says he can't win.
2
The Republican Party members who have left their principles and mores to support Trump (or Walsh, or the Tea Party, whatever)....what will they be left with when they regain their senses?
They will be left with triggering skills. They will have anger. They will have the NRA.
They will have obstruction. They will have David Duke. They will have the fossil fuel industry.
I just don’t think they will have many votes.
8
If you want to see "pulsating rage" I suggest having every preacher in America read this from the pulpit.
People are herd animals. They want reinforcement for what they already believe without wasting energy doing their own thinking. That's why they're happy to accept shallow 'apologies' and absolve their leaders — and themselves — from reprehensible words and behavior as long as their personal beliefs are reinforced. Add in the fear that seems to be part of the Republican psyche and you get exactly what Mr. Wehner has described. If you stir them up, any vestiges of critical thought disappear. It's a tragedy for our nation.
19
If some Republicans want to challenge Trump in the Republican primaries, they should turn to John Kasich and persuade him to run again. I am not sure what his agenda, his policies, would be, but I am sure of one thing: he is perfectly normal.
In the 2016 Republican primary debates, he stuck out precisely because he was so normal: remember Bush, Cruz, Rubio, the New Jersey governor (I forgot his name) and their antics? Now that we have had Trump to entertain us (and sell newspapers) let's consider again "normal" candidates.
[I am a registered democrat, but if it came to Kasich vs. Biden, I would vote for Kasich -- not out of spite, but out of common sense.]
17
Kasich seems normal now, and possibly even a reasonable choice. But remember him as chairman of the House Budget Committee? Not so reasonable.
The years of Trump have lowered a lot of standards.
11
@Fran
I agree with most of what you say and our ex governor is definitely forgettable, but I disagree with you about Kasich over Biden. While I believe Kasich would have been a much better president than Trump, he's still a Republican and the pre Trump Republican party was still not better for the average working person than the Democratic party.
I will still vote for the Democratic candidate whomever that may be.
8
@Fran We here in Columbus know Mr. Kasich pretty well, and normal, well, normal is stretching it. In Ohio he is also known as TrumpLite. He used to sound a lot like Trump in his bombastic-ness. He never sounded racist or completely insane, like Trump, but he took on the "reasonable guy" thing after positive feedback from acting human. Not saying he's terrible or awful, and I sure would love to see someone challenge Trump, but caveat emptor.
3
When Tocqueville visited America in the early 1800s, he was distressed to see that the driving force behind the Republic was an individualistic drive for wealth instead of virtue. To Tocqueville, this could doom the young country.
With Trump’s presidency, Tocqueville’s prophecy has never proven truer. Walsh, a man with bigoted tendencies, is certainly the lesser of two evils. He at least seems motivated by a desire to reverse Trumpism - a phenomenon he helped create.
I fear, however, that the rot goes much deeper than this Presidency. Our entire political system is infected with profiteers and special interests. Corruption seems to be hiding in plain site. We need a complete re-boot our election system. We need a system that works for Americans and helps us prospers, but one that limits the ability to profit on the system itself.
33
Joe Walsh said despicable things and certainly helped fuel the environment that led to Trump's election. However, I am still hopeful that Trump will be voted out of office in 2020, and when the fog clears we will still have tens of millions of Trump supporters in this country, including those in power who helped prop him up. If those supporters come out and say, "I'm sorry; I was wrong and I seek forgiveness" as Walsh has said, it seems to me that the rest of us should have the grace to accept the apology. I don't think he should be the president, but perhaps we can give him credit for how far he's come.
"With malice towards none and charity for all," Lincoln taught us. If Lincoln could find forgiveness for traitors who tore the country apart to preserve slavery, then I hope that the rest of us can do the same for our fellow citizens who have caused harm, but who may in the future seek redemption.
10
Years of contemptible talks cannot be absorbed by an instant acceptance of apology. We should of course give him a chance and see how and whether he sustains his newfound outlook. But he is like Trump, and there is no reason yet to believe that he will stand by his apology. Let me first see him trying to persuade others like him. Taunters of Sandy Hook will not be forgiven easily.
3
@Kate I don't know if I will ever confront the reality of "forgiving" Trump voters, should they ask for it. As far as those former friends who are Trump voters, I don't think I will ever be able to unsee what I have seen.
2
@MidcenturyModernGal
I though California was removing people labels from our language like man from the word manhole or manpower and now your not supposed to used the term "convicted felon" but instead "justice involved" person. If we are not to be hypocritical of ourselves then we shouldn't call people "Trump Supporters" we should just refer to them as "politically enlightened"
Joe Walsh is the perfect Republican to challenge trump. By believe even more reprehensible than trump, he helps us to understand that we are in a struggle for our lives. It’s not a choice between moderate and trump, it’s a clarion call for a new direction. The kind that Senator Warren has best laid out, in my opinion.
11
In 1980 Jimmy Carter's approval ratings were sagging. He was disliked by both parties. Teddy Kennedy primaried him. After one term. That was how bad it was. Carter still won the nomination but the weakness on the left allowed for Ronald Reagan to do what is very difficult for any candidate to do: take out a president in one term. Granted, Carter did not have what Trump has: a good economy, but the democrats were fractured, which made it easier for the republicans to take the presidency and hold onto it for the next THREE terms. Ross Perot helped shake the tree again in 1992, allowing Bill Clinton to make a better case. The democrats need someone to come forward to fracture Trump's hold. If it is someone like Trump all the better for that. Whatever it is Trump and Joe Walsh represent -- it's already here in America. I think the country must remove Trump from office in any way they can. This is not the time for purity...not when the ship is sinking.
9
Walsh's apologies are simply an affectation and the product of opportunism. As his neighbor, I understood that after his wife, Helene Miller-Walsh, lost her 2018 bid for Illinois House of Representative by only 373 votes (out of approx. 50,500 ballots cast in total), Joe would read her close election result as his opportunity.
In 2018, Joe's name was not far from his wife's on the ballot. The only thing he seeks from the Trump challenge is to get more moderate Illinois voters to send him back to Washington as a Congressman or Senator. He seeks to rehabilitate his reputation in this primary by appearing less like Trump (wink, wink to those who love him for it), and more like Illinois conservatives who previously rejected his representation of their values.
Some think Walsh's strength is that he puts Trump's rhetoric in check. Trump cannot abuse Walsh since they are so similar. Have you learned nothing? Trump will abuse Helene as a loser, he will mock Walsh for losing his radio job and seat in Congress. Trump will not see their similarities because his narcissism will not allow recognition of his better looking twin.
7
While I applauded anyone with a voice who speaks out about Trump’s clear unfitness for office, Joe Walsh has demonstrated that his character can be every bit as foul as Trump’s. I will never vote for another Republican, and I certainly wouldn’t trust Joe Walsh to make this country proud. I’m glad he is attempting to redeem himself, but can’t help but wonder if it’s genuine, or would he easily slip back into his old bad habits?
13
As one who, decades ago, voted for Republican candidates (I was born when Ike was president) as well as Democrats, I cannot for the life of me understand why Republicans who are so appalled by Trump and today's GOP won't do the patriotic thing and vote for a Democrat. We, those of us who truly love our country, need to save it. And we're running out of time.
149
@Michael Why? Because, appalled as they may be by the man and his style, they like the "tax cuts."
11
@Michael: To me, it seems that the so-called "principled conservatives" are still buying the lies of supply side, trickle down economics and the anti-"big government" stance so they can stay cozy with their far right oligarch donors despite mountains of evidence that their pet theories don't work in real life (Reagan, W, and now Trump voodoo economics). Maybe they hate the fact that Dems know how to govern, balance budgets, and still provide most Americans with a decent standard of living.
@Michael Spot on!!
1
It is obvious to me that the mid to upper echelons of the Republican party have far more in common with a herd animal than a lone wolf. Most of the "Never Trumps" from before the primaries are now Trump's most avid supporters. I think the term that is most descriptive of this phenomenon is "situational ethics". Or, always be in tight with whoever is presently holding the reins of power.
So, as long as Trump can keep going out into hinterland and razzle-dazzling the rabble with his very mean spirited stump speeches, Joe Walsh will remain little more than a pimple on the north end of a south bound Trump.
13
"The democratic virtues we desperately need to reclaim in American public life — moderation and compromise rightly understood, civility, forbearance — are antithetical to Mr. Walsh."
And antithetical to virtually the entire GOP. Moderation, compromise, civility? Cry me a river. Mitch McConnell and company did everything in thier power during President Obama's eight years in office to negate, deny and derail his legitimate presidency. And what they couldn't achieve then is being carried out now - with artful abandon - and hiding behind the veil of deafening silence against their "chosen one."
90
Dangerous populists always rise when there is a weakened center-right party. So what is needed is a stronger center-right presence. For the moment, only Democrats can fill this void.
16
Well said. I wryly recall my R friends criticizing Obama for various and sundry, sometimes real and often imagined offenses. I don’t hear a single one defending their party’s president now. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it. Or could it be they’re vacationing in Greenland?
32
@Glory
If they are not criticizing this President, they are still part of the problem. They are just being approving by silence. If they are not donating to democrats, they are not atoning.
11
If Joe Walsh were truly sincere and repentant of his past sins, he'd throw his support behind a credible Republican challenger to President Trump such as William Weld. Walsh would be more credible if he said something like, " There is no person more different from me politically than William Weld. However, I am so startled by President Trump's unstable, destructive words and behavior that I'm willing to throw my 100% support behind the former Massachusetts governor. That's how serious I am."
I could believe that statement because it would eliminate the self-serving aspect to Walsh's current trajectory.
85
One of the things people look for in a Presidential candidate is a track record. President Obama had a lifetime of public service, and then terms in the Illinois legislature and United State Senate before he ran for President. Some people thought President Trump would bring long-term business acumen to the White House, although what they got was a sleazy, amoral grifter who thinks only of self-promotion.
Mr. Walsh has no record to run on. He's a one-term Tea Party congressman who has said awful and hateful things before, during, and after leaving office. I don't wish to speculate whether his remorse is sincere. Perhaps he's had his "road to Damascus" moment, as he said on PBS's NewsHour last evening. But let Mr. Walsh spend the next decade doing good works and making amends. Let him serve those he disparaged and devote himself to the public good rather than good ratings for his radio show. Then perhaps we can trust what he says. To demonstrate one's principles requires history, not just opportunistic branding savvy.
114
@jrinsc President Trump also has a good track record. In business he is un reachable with casino's, hotels and golf courses. Trump has his own university which in of itself speaks volumes about his intellectual knowledge. The president has a track record in his person life as well with the experience of 3 marriages that all produced children. Our president is a grounded and compassionate man eager to provide all media with an open book policy.
1
@RS
Sarcasm, right?
Or a foreign bot.
If you are sincere, then please get out a bit more and inform yourself of the realities.
2
@jrinsc: I saw that segment and did you notice how he danced around his previously stated comment that "Blacks are lazy" despite Judy Woodruff's pressing him on it? "Road to Damascus?" I think not. Opportunism is more like it. I just wonder how many far right wing oligarchs are getting behind him because they're just as sick of Trump as everyone else but won't come out and say it?
1
Will all of these "republicans" who say they are Independents and will not vote for Trump, will they vote for a Democrat. I doubt it; Brett Stephens will not and he's an intelligent person who wants Trump out. The only way to get Trump out is to vote for a Democrat.
230
Republicans who are disgusted with what their party has become need to vote D in order to send a message to the people running the show.
If they don’t, nothing changes.
3
Whilst I see and respect Mr Wehners arguments, it is still quite refreshing to see at least one GOP member step forward to challenge Trump in a primary. So far there has been continual and growing support for Trump within the GOP which is now firmly the party of Trump.
To be honest, I look forward to seeing the GOP rip itself apart.
31
@MrC I, too, observe the Republican Party tearing itself apart. I think it will take the Democratic Party with it. I look forward to a realignment of political thought throughout the country.
I want to give Mr. Wehner genuine thanks for this column. Joe Walsh's candidacy as an apologetic, pseudo-populist bomb thrower is neither credible nor constructive. Indeed, as Mr. Wehner observes, the Walsh candidacy can be seen as one sign of how debasing and purely manipulative politics has become in the sorry age of Trump. Mr. Wehner has shown courage, and a profound sense of civic (I might even say religious) obligation to the truth, in his columns over the past 18 months. I hope that there are some Republicans (and perhaps a few others) who share his candid and agonized critique over the current state of the party and a recognizable, conscientious conservatism.
25
I agree that jeoparedy is to give Mr Walsh any support (and I do not whatsoever), but I am for an ABT treaty: Anyone But Trump.
8
I removed myself from the Republican Party a couple of years ago. I'm an independent. I'm also adrift as relates to party right now. Republicans have been hijacked by aliens I think. Yes, deficit growth is now just fine, climate change has always happened, crass is in or at least OK, allies are to be confronted via twitter instead of with any kind of decorum, today the sky is blue but maybe not - "we'll see what happens". The Democratic party is not an answer for me either. It apparently can't turn left fast enough. It's all pretty sad.
10
@Charlie
So don't vote and your buddy Trump will be in for another four years. You better get an understanding of what is important now, its the end of democracy if you stand on the sidelines waiting for the perfect candidate. The rest of us who care about this country are going out to mobilize and get out the vote. We dont have time for debates on whether we like the candidate or not. Some of us are fighting for the democracy we need and believe in.
You doing nothing does NOTHING to save democracy so get busy.
35
What US persons call “left” is not left in the rest of the world.
7
@Charlie
Maybe if you did some personal re-alignment, Charlie, you'd understand that the Democrats are simply forming a strong center as there is very little "left" in the United States. Almost none. As is said, it's you, baby.
1
So, Mr. Wehner, voting with a conscience in 2020 will mean voting for the Democratic candidate, period.
93
Resetting the clock requires Mitt Romney or John Kasich to challenge Trump. I would re- register as a Republican in order to vote against Trump in my state’s primary, but not in order to vote for Walsh. When I consider the value in having the craziest Republican run for POTUS, hoping it seals victory for a moderate Democrat, I remind myself that maybe there is no Republican bottom. They have mastered the Art of the Abyss.
38
Mr. Walsh may have had a change of heart. If so, all to the good. A change of heart, however, is slim credentials for the presidency. We've already learned what happens when we elect unqualified leaders. Mr. Walsh is running on the notion that he's not as bad as Donald Trump. So what? That claim applies to hundreds of millions of us.
49
@Eric Caine
Yes! We need a real President, not any more entertainers or "businessmen."
2
The problem with the election of this president is the bar has been lowered so far that anyone thinks that they can do a better job. As the country had to do in 2016 the Republican Party may very well have to choose the lesser of two evils in their primary for a 2020 candidate.
4
@Patrick
Unfortunately, whether it is either (or both) Weld or Walsh on the Republican primary ticket against Trump, they lack the base necessary to contest on anything close to even ground. It is a pipe dream (at this point) to think that either of them can win enough delegates to take the GOP nomination. Now, if Trump goes completely off his rather unstable rocker and shoots every third person in the White House, that would be a whole other matter. But then they would probably be running against Pence (assuming he was one of the lucky survivors), who might still have enough “cred” with “Trumpers” to carry the nomination.
3
@Patrick
Trump lowered the bar so much your dog could do a better job. Assuming you have one.
Thank you for this piece, Mr. Wehner. This is the kind of thoughtful, principled thinking I expected from conservative leaders in response to our current administration. This approach permits substantive discussion of the actual issues our nation faces. It isn't my place to make a suggestion about the Republican primary, but nevertheless, how about a doomed primary run yourself, Mr. Wehner, just to insert meaning and proper process into all the words surging around us? As you say, who is it going to be who is willing to step up? This has gone way beyond propping up our respective parties, all the way to the future of the values we used to believe our nation was committed to.
20
As a liberal democrat, I am looking forward to the clash of these two. It is rumored Napoleon once said that if the enemy is destroying itself, there is no need for us to do anything but watch and wait. Let the games begin! This should be fun once Trump's requisite 72 hours of twitter silence is over.
55
@Jimmy
That seems like wishful thinking. As someone so similar to Trump, how would Walsh draw enough to support, through denouncing Trump, to make a difference? Walsh can call Trump out for his awful behavior, Trump can throw a few juvenile insults his way, and then everything moves on as usual...
1
This time, when Trump uses his favorite tactic and accuses one of his adversaries of doing exactly what Trump himself is guilty of, he is going to be correct and the parallels will further damage Trump. Even if the Trumpies continue to deny they exist.
We can only hope that Trump takes the bait.
21
This is no surprise, Donald Trump has the magical ability to make everyone look better in comparison, even this guy.
The biggest example is George W.- more than one member of the "elite liberal media" has expressed the fact that they long for the tone he set as President and even though they might have disagreed with his policies they respected him as a person.
26
@Hugh G
When I look at what W Bush did to this country, Bush may turn out to be worse than Trump in real damage.
Trump's media performance is the worst by far.
But W Bush gave us the Iraq War which will have repercussions for two generations in the Middle East and Europe, including the rise of right wing nationalists as a reaction to the Syrian refugees.
And W Bush took the balanced budget from Clinton, zero deficit, and handed Obama a whopping $1.4 Trillion deficit. Also the worst recession since the Great Depression.
W Bush got 3 Million jobs. And that was with two "tax cuts for the job creators".
After getting us through the Great Recession, Obama at 11.5 Million jobs. And that was with the "jobs killing" Obama-care.
Trump is lots of noise and hurting the US standing in the world and with our allies.
Not sure which history will see as the most damaging.
Unfortunately, we got both.
@Hugh G
No me! Stalin isn't better because there was a Hitler. Putin isn't better because there's an Un.
George W was terrible. I think of him and spit on the ground. Trump is worse, but GW was terrible too.
@Hugh G
I don't remember much respect for George W. among liberals, except at the beginning of his Presidency. He was seen as a doofus and war criminal who enabled us to be tricked into a never ending war. He does look good by comparison, but he was not a respectable person.
Of course, like most of the more waggish members of my generation, I was hoping that the Joe Walsh running for President was the one who played guitar for the Eagles, not this screaming malevolence.
But Wehner has it right here--two crazies do not balance each other out, even if they are going at each other. If one wants to lodge a serious protest against Trump in a primary, once can cast a vote for Bill Weld.
And, since Bill is still exceedingly unlikely to get anywhere close to dumping Trump, in the general election one can lodge a serious protest by voting for the Democratic candidate, whoever that eventually is (I'm talking to you, Bret Stephens).
157
@Glenn Ribotsky
What you are saying is just like two wrongs don’t make a right, two crazies don’t make a sane.
2
I agree the two are cut from the same cloth. However, Walsh's criticism may help light a fire under other Republicans. Moreover, if he does a good job of exposing Trump for what he is, it might be deemed more credible by those who consider themselves to be Independents or loosely bound Republicans.
22
@Mike
This presupposes a degree of rationality of the members of Trump’s party that has not been evident in the last two and a half years.
8
@AS Pruyn
I think there is *some* chance of it. I believe much of Republican's irrationality is that it's been deeply ingrained in them that the establishment, and especially democrats, are one giant misinformation machine out to get them. They ignore facts and logic because the person speaking the truth is completely disregarded as uncredible. At least some may not be so quick to dismiss one of their own.
Walsh has been floating his run against Trump on CNN and MSNBC and at first glance looks like a decent alternative. On further reflection he strikes me as a better looking version of our current man in the oval office. His pronounced concern with his public image and self-image of respectability (Trump is unfit to be President and someone needs to step in and run against him) is pretentious. No thanks, Joe.
19
I basically agree with this article. But I do want to point out ways that Walsh might be better than Trump besides Walsh's ability to apologize.
1. He might be a conservative.
2. He might not be so easily played by despots who get Trump to fall in love with a single letter.
3. He might listen to expert advisers.
4. He might not change his position frequently, and when he agrees to a deal, he might stick to it.
5. He might not lie continuously.
18
@LSR
On the other hand there’s no real evidence that he WOULD do (or not do) any of those things, and right now MIGHT just doesn’t seem quite good enough.
39
@LSR
Did George W. Bush listen to expert advisors? Did he tell the truth about the weapons of mass destruction? How many people died as a result of those lies? Did either he or his father or Reagan do anything other than drive up the deficit? The last Republican who could reasonably claim to be a good steward of the American economy may have been Reagan, and there are plenty who disagree with that claim, given the gross divide between classes that emerged from his time in office.
Don't you think the bigger problem here is that "conservatism" in the present era has become an empty and relatively meaningless conceit?
7
@LSR
if he's a racist, he's unfit to hold any office in this country. period.
1
Good reasoned article. Peter Wehner demonstrates the kind of integrity that is in short supply in politics worldwide.
16
Walsh is the proof of Trump's dominance: a candidate who is trying to out-Trump Trump. Interesting strategy.
15
I was somewhat taken in by accepting Walsh's recent op-ed piece at face value, even dismissing the notion that it was a trial balloon for a run.
Perhaps in a snit, I now see someone who is more likely crazy like a fox. If this hasn't enriched him already, or enhanced his prospects, it wouldn't be happening.
One has to think however many votes it takes from Trump will help defeat him. That might account for all the media attention.
13
@William
If Walsh runs against Trump in the Republican primary, it won't take any votes from Trump in the November election. I think that proves quite conclusively that Walsh, as Trump was in 2016, is just running to build his brand.
8
@Betsy S
Thank you for pointing that out. Perhaps whatever votes Walsh denies Trump in the primary will serve no other purpose.
One term Congressman says it all. One has too be really bad not to be re-elected to Congress.
89
The statement "at best we are in possession of partial truths," is powerful and applies to all of us. An "enemy of my enemy" column is strange ground. Never thought about the dynamics of it before. It's revealing. Didn't know too much about the self-identified "Never Trumpers" before (other than through the columns of three NYT conservative more implicit members). I saw on t.v. at the gym last night, without the sound but with the smirks, they were criticized on Fox News. Not sure to what degree they're a remnant of the once-liberal/moderate Republicans. But from columns like this, I'm very glad they exist. It can't be easy for them. The ones who are go public are brave and seem to have kept integrity. It's good to know that a "respectable opposition" (from the perspective of Democrats and Independents) still exists. (Not saying Still-Trump Republicans can't be, but they have to do a much better job of showing it.) In an age of "losing hope" for America, they're needed. They seem to have a valuable perspective. I suggest and hope they adopt a specific mission to help find several bridge-spanning "What Can We Agree On" themes. If so, I hope those of us in the center and left work at meeting them--not necessarily at the middle, as perhaps we would do better if we lessen use of old frames going forward. There are already partial models. A couple of the Times Features with both right, left, and left/middle columnists seem to agree more than not. Something to re-build on.
5
As a Trump voter, I find people trying to define me to be insulting. I am a life time liberal Democrat and civil libertarian but find it impossible to vote for any of the Democratic candidates for President or local elections. It is not me that has changed but rather the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is opposed to the deportation of any illegal immigrants though they say they are not for open borders. They support gun legislation which has a end goal of the criminalization of all private gun ownership in the United States. It is a long game and will take 30 or 40 years but that is their end goal. Democrats have supported massive funding for religious institutions through privatization of government services being run by religious non-profits. Democrats support increasing federal government control over the economy through health care, housing, education, and food assistance. It is not that I support Republicans or Trump, I oppose the Democrats. Forty years ago Jerry Nadler and Chuck Schumer ran as reformers. For forty years they have clung to power like Stalin. They have enriched their friends and families. They have betrayed most of their original supporters.
4
@Michael Green: your reasoning is understandable, but you seem to have missed the fact that, bad as your other options may be, DJT is a different level of bad.
I understand the desire to throw a Molotov cocktail into government, but you can be sure that the damage will land in the laps of those who were being disadvantaged before, which may well include you.
DJT’s incompetence appears everywhere, not just at home. Thanks to DJT, the US has lost significant influence internationally and is losing some of the advantages that it has had in world trade.
63
@Michael Green There seem to be two kinds of Trump voters: those who proudly state they voted for Trump because they support his policies, and those who voted for Trump because the Democratic party forced them to do so; neither seems to touch on any degree of personal responsibility. If you are truly a lifetime liberal Democrat, I find it interesting that you cannot find one Democrat to support in either federal or local elections, but you can support a Republican that is trying very hard to take away your civil liberties in order to feed his own ego and enrich his personal fortune.
81
@Michael Green If opposition to the democrat agenda is your reason for not voting for their candidate then I do believe there are/were other options besides Trump. Last I looked, the civil libertarians have a candidate. Anyone but Trump!
16
The Democrats need a right wing of the party. As a liberal/progressive, I welcome the diversity of thought from those like this author, Ross Douthat, Charlie Sykes, Arthur Brooks and Brett Stephens (aka Never Trumpers or New Conservative Democrats) their input into progressive policy formation will make it more broadly appealing to the country and hopefully more impactful in improving our fellow citizens lives.
39
This is a gentle understatement statement: "A large number of Mr. Trump’s supporters are either blind to their double standard or at least not embarrassed by it." They are willfully blind. Not only are they not embarrassed by their double standards but proud of the way they play on their opponents principles, of which they themselves have very few. The foundation of their lives I see is their power to stand by their man as long as he gets them what they want. When the fan gets hit, we will see how long even this principle stands.
90
@Rich Patrock
"When the fan gets hit, we will see how long even this principle stands."
According to an article in yesterday's Times, farmers are feeling the noose thanks to the tariffs and may, hopefully, have a change of heart about their hero.
7
@jhbev
Those articles about farmers often say that they continue to support Trump even while taking steps to bankruptcy. The anecdotes may not really reflect consensus, but they reveal people who cling to an illusion. There's a lot of that going around these days.
21
@jhbev: Not when 79% of them still "hope" he'll "do the right thing" despite two and half years of screwing them over.
2
The path that Mr. Wehner has chosen seems a lonely one. He'll not find a home in the party of Trump or the Democratic party. From what I've read, his path is guided by the values of a democratic society -- what Durkheim called the collective conscience -- that transcend partisan political interests. But have the last three years damaged those values beyond repair?
23
@Mel
“his path guided by the values of a democratic society -- what Durkheim called the collective conscience...”
Obama tried exactly that — appeal to reason, bipartisanship and compromise —and, as the first black president, got savaged by Tea Partiers and Republican dog-whistlers, hysterics and obstructionists in a way that, sadly, made Obama look naive.
As many other have noted, “the party of Trump” well pre-dates Trump.
2
"Whataboutism" asks: Are you upholding standards, or merely upholding your favorite party? A good question. If Mr Trump's lust is a problem, then so is Mr Clinton's lust. (And if lust is a problem, Mr Pence deserves credit for seeking to keep it under control.)
Triune Jehovah "is no respecter of persons;" newer translations say He does not show favoritism.
2
I don’t think anyone’s “lust” is the problem. But Trump’s misogyny certainly is.
2
@Andrew Lohr
Except Clinton was punished for his lust. And yes, I would call being the third of 42 presidents even facing impeachment, much less being impeached, a significant punishment.
1
Not sure why you're attempting to paint Wehner as a Clinton apologist - he's a Republican. And if you recall, neither Clinton is president, so let's attend to our knitting, shall we?
2
A well thought out and worded article. I especially liked the BB's against the brick wall comment. With people I know, in the party of Lincoln, my own party, this has been basically my result of facts to fiction discussions.
21
"A large number of Mr. Trump’s supporters are either blind to their double standard or at least not embarrassed by it."
Historians will look back at the Trump era as the era of shamelessness. The culture has become so toxic that the outrageous becomes the norm, and nobody feels the weight of their words.
Peter Wehner is right that Joe Walsh, from what I read of him, is indeed the 'proto-Trump" and as such isn't much of an alternative candidate.
But what needs saying, and I'm not sure Mr. Wehner was strong enough, is that as the GOP finishing crashing and burning, it's going to have to be rebuilt from scratch, once Trump (and Tea Party ideologues like Walsh, Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, and yes, Mike Pompeo) are finally driven from office.
330
@ChristineMcM
You're naming names, and I love it!
What is with those guys! What planet did they come from? Their behavior and political philosophy are just beyond the pale. Where do you even begin with them?
23
@ChristineMcM
But what for ? What would Republicans have to offer ? Their self-image of fiscal responsibility has long since (very long since) been disproved as mythology, a hypocritical one at that, and the rest of their platform has always been about killing off the social safety net, glorifying big business, and suppressing women's rights. So what would they rebuild to ?
18
@Jim Muncy: Where to being with them? Nowhere. You can't reason with childish immature people. They get off on acting childish, throwing tantrums like five year olds, and clearly have an eager audience for it.
2
I wasn’t a fan of Joe Walsh back when he ran for Congress - and I’m not a fan now. His apologies ring hollow, and his mean spirited rhetoric is too recent for me to think that his thoughts have evolved. He’s in this for one reason - for the attention it will bring to one issue, himself. We already have one narcissist running on the GOP side, and I think that’s plenty.
207
@JMH
I don't know: It could be interesting and instructive to see two jerks, side by side, try to appeal to Americans. Maybe some Conservatives will get it when the thugs are side-by-side. There's strength in numbers.
2
Excellent column. Joe Walsh is just more of the same, apologies notwithstanding. John Kasich would be a far better challenger.
141
Except Kasich was Governor Tea Party until his anti-union nonsense blew up in his face. Anti-abortion zealot and supporter of public gun-toting, privatizing prisons, and stripping localities of needed funding. Check, check, check and check mate.
17
Ronald McDonald, Humpty Dumpty, and the Cat In The Hat would all be better challengers.
13
@Joe B.: Agreed. No way would I even think of supporting him.
2
Joe Walsh was my Congressman for one term (2010-2012). He would hold these town halls (I attended several) where the atmosphere was similar to Trump's rallies. He would take questions (I gave him credit for that) and one of my friends asked about some of Walsh's outlandish childish statements. In the question, my friend characterized Walsh's statements and behavior as "acting like a 5 year old." A short time later, one of his supporters stood up and proudly thanked Mr. Walsh for "acting like a 5 year old." Like the Trump supporters of today, the Walsh supporters actually liked outlandish and juvenile behavior.
583
@tom boyd
Perhaps, instead of mentally defective people seeking mental healthcare professionals, which is not encouraged nor easily funded in America, they should consider going into politics. They have an angry crowd ready and waiting for them to lead the way.
5
@tom boyd:
What you describe is a subset of our society that I've begun to see and recognize more and more.
Present throughout society, we have a small group who enjoy the basest of behaviors, and who prefer to live that way. They live moment-to-moment for pleasure - they exist and vacillate between states of pleasure, hate, fear, desire and anger.
They love to see people fall or be punched/debased.
They love to see people attack others.
They love trump's animal side.
Perhaps they're what remains of neanderthals? They're 20% of us, with remnants of their genes.
Maybe trump is right to say science is wrong... maybe he knows the neanderthals didn't go extinct.
Is it possible trump knows he's the King of the neanderthals? (hoping he will finally lead them to true extinction)
10
@Wally Wolf:
So you're saying republicans are against Obamacare........ because they don't want anyone to treat their "disease" (that causes republicanism)?
Well, the proof's in the pudding.
We saw that those in "red" states who got ACA coverage immediately began to like Obama and democrats (if only slightly). This showed us that even a little treatment (of their "republicanism" disease) made them lean slightly left.
3