I think we need to differentiate between "Republicans" who (like me) have long voted for GOP candidates, donated and were active in party politics, vs. the new voters who likely never seriously voted before or were engaged in politics. I don't believe these "Trump Republicans" will last long without some firebrand leader, and Trump's ability to remain viable is in question. The voters who swarm to Trumpism aren't really Republicans in my opinion, they may wish to start their own party.
13
The day that Republicans of Good Character start publicly saying that voting for the moderate Democrat over the extreme Republican (see: Senate, Georgia) is in the best interest of our nation, and urging their compatriots to do so, is the day that I believe that Republicans like Mr. Wehner truly believe that the trump wing of the party must be stopped at all costs.
49
There are many things to admire in Mr. Wehner's work and he's worth listening to. Any moderate voice in the Republican Party should get a hearing. But in every piece he writes you can pick out the points where he glosses over the long-standing problems in conservative thought. He apparently had a hand in George W. Bush's recent speech where he acknowledged the damage done by globalization. What he won't do is acknowledge that the whole point of globalization was to exploit people. You can hand them band-aids later, but they'll see through it. Likewise, he's disappointed that more traditional Republicans aren't speaking out against Trump, but anyone outside the party can see in an instant that they don't speak out due to the greed that is at the core of the party. They want their tax cuts, at any price.
49
I’ve voted for the Democratic Party in each of the 40 plus years I’ve been eligible to vote so my comment here is necessarily biased. Longing for the “other” Republican Party to assert itself begs the question: what other Republican Party? This GOP is the Party of Goldwater, Nixon (see Southern Strategy), Reagan, GHW Bush (see Willie Horton), GW Bush (see Compassionate Conservativism) and now Trump. Yes, Trump is the result but he is of the Party. A guy like Trump, firmly at home in the GOP, was bound to happen. No surprise that other members of the GOP are acquiescing. Only if they fear for their own re-election will they speak out (see GOP response to Nixon).
44
The reason that "the Republican leaders we know who have deep disagreements with Mr. Trump and Mr. Bannon are for the most part unwilling to make the counter-case in a forceful and comprehensive fashion" is that, for decades, the focus of the Republican establishment has been to try to obscure the fact that they *have* no counter-case. They've been the party of greedy, wealthy, empathy-challenged white people since the days of Ronald Reagan, and their agenda has focused exclusively on protecting and enriching themselves at the expense of anyone and everyone else. They have been able to function as a party only when their role has been obstructionist --- to keep things from happening. They have no wish list of things they would like to do to help the nonwhite and/or non-wealthy people of this country.
I wonder if the stereotypical "Trump supporters" (white, lower middle class, diminishing economic prospects) we are all mystified & horrified by are starting to understand that the mainstream of their party is utterly unconcerned with them, and always has been, and that's why the GOP --- as opposed to Trump --- is increasingly unpopular.
Mainstream Republicans are going to have to start showing some concern for the issues affecting the lives of their constituents, or at least find a new way of pulling the wool over their eyes.
38
It is difficult to see where this schism within schisms thing is headed, with each new group revolting against the last new group. The trend seems to be the adoption of more extreme or ideologically "pure" positions by these schisms who feel disregarded and disrespected by the party "establishment." On the right, this trend becomes the enters into the territory of the extreme nationalists/nativists in our society. It is not surprising that this is happening to the Republicans who invented the concept of Republicans In Name Only as a way to tar and isolate their outlier moderates and establish a kind of central party thought control. This is not purely a national Republican party phenomenon. In north Idaho one county central committee condemned our congressional delegation for voting for economic sanctions against Russia, and an eastern Idaho county central committee opposed creation of new community colleges because a community college in southern Idaho sponsored a refugee resettlement program.
11
Peter Wehner refers to a "rage at the establishment [that] is off the charts. And he ties it to the growth of what he calls "white identity politics," "tribalism" and "ethnonationalism."
I think Wehner is simply panicking. But doubtless there is anger against the establishment," and why not?
Take identity politics -- largely invented in the 70s by Democrats -- and acquiesced in by the Republican elite. Has Wehner really forgotten the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that promised every one of us would be free of discrimination on the basis of our race, gender, etc. The ink was barely dry on
that law when the Supreme said, actually, no, the Civil Rights Act means the opposite of what it plainly says. It permits employers and government to hire and promote by race?
Has he really not noticed the ways in which the establishment has used dodges to violate the will of the people as expressed in referenda on racial and other preferences in Michigan, California and Texas?
If Wehner is alarmed at rage against the establishment, why hasn't he traced its root causes? The establishment decided that it knew better than the people how to heal racial divisions in our society, and the law must not be allowed to stand in the way of its solution. But its solution has left those divisions wider and more bitter than at any time that I can remember. The establishment has richly earned the anger of the people.
5
"For many of us, Mr. Trump, Mr. Bannon and Mr. Moore represent the politics of dissolution and dehumanization, of resentment and enmity, of half-truths and anti-truths." Mr. Wehner, if you look at the content of the GOP's 'repeal and replace' Obamacare and tax reform legislation proposals, you must realize that even the GOP establishment fits exactly with how you describe, Mr. Trump, Mr. Bannon and Mr. More. You need to defect from the GOP. In all of the GOP, there is no political integrity or honesty left at all.
23
Another relatively useless article by Peter Wehner & Co. The "decent" Republicans just won't face up to the only course left open to them, which is a clean break from the "tea party" that has in effect taken over the Republican Party. But they wouldn't do it in 2016 to block Trump and the populists, and they more than likely (I'd say it's a certainty) won't do it now either. The closest they got was the one-state (Utah) candidacy of Evan Mcmullin. No, the Republicans will try to ride the Trump presidency and to wrest back control of the party from the populists. They won't succeed. In the meantime, the "decency" that they represent will continue to be in very short supply even if direly needed for the sake of the country. Recommendation: form the third part now while there's still a chance to take at least half of current Republican voters with you, and don't worry about "liberals" (Democrats) having an easier path to winning elections. What is worse, liberal Democrats or Trump populists? You have to choose.
19
Mr. Wehner, Donald Trump is nothing more than the completely logical and predictable end point of the line that began when Reagan said, "Government is the problem, not the solution". A line which you and every single other Republican have fully and unconditionally supported ever since. A line which neither you nor any other Republican have even yet recanted. Look in the mirror, Mr. Wehner. Donald Trump is YOU.
34
I'll say it again, Mr. Weiner: Where were you when, Reagan, Helms, Falwell, the Bush II camp, McConnell, Boehner, Cruz and the Tea Party were building the foundation of the Trump - Bannon take over of the Republican Party.
I am afraid your were just too complacent, complicit and salient while they were launching their assault on the middle class, science, rationality and decency in politics.
Now is too late.
38
This article--as well written as it is--is nothing more than emblematic of the problem facing both Republicans and Democrats: The entire discussion is about Trump.
When Hilary Clinton ran for President she, like Bernie sanders and Donald Trump, came out against the Transpacific Trade Agreement. Why? Because she was responding to Bernie Sanders (and later Trump). The Tear-Everything-Down and Anti-Government wings of both parties bought the lie that trade was bad for America and no one articulated why that is incorrect.
Same with this article. Trump...Trump...Trump. Trump is bad, evil, crude. That is hardly a platform to retake the Presidency.
The world Franklin Roosevelt constructed, in which America has prospered over the last 70 years, is worth defending. Trade, Capitalism, and a Federal government works for America. But, no one seems to want to sell that. They just want t talk about..well, you know who.
22
Any takers? Why would anyone care to suffer the slings and arrows of politicians and pundits for the ingratitude of the American public? To do it your way we need men and women to be great again, but that can hardly happen when there's a photographer ready to take any possible unflattering picture of you, or a journalist ready to pounce on any misstatement no matter how innocent or out of context. Only crazy people or saints enter politics these days and from what I can tell few politicians on either side have halos.
5
So what is Mr. Wehner complaining about? Where has he been for the last 40 years.
Since St Ronnie, Gingrich, Ralph Reed reoublicans have been anti government, dog whisteling racism and all things not only against the left but the center. All the while pushing polcies that diminsh the middle. Indeed Trump is the culmination of their 40 year strategy.
Republicans should be rejoicing. Pence is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kochs so their anti government anti tax anti regukation agenda is being implimented. So a little bit of racism should not worry them. I have heard few republicans rant against Trump deplorable cabinet since they are delivery what the gop wants.
27
A lot of words.
I defy anyone to find in all those words the demand republicans put country and democracy first.
Peter is an outlier and his whole soliquoy is about how his party might be able to retain state power.
Who he is. What they are. The "good ones." Ten months in and this is their best. Conservative if a toadstool is conservative.
13
Let's not forget that Peter Wehner supported the Iraq War as a member of the administration, and is thus complicit in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the devastation it brought and is still bringing today. Those are crimes and moral failures of a magnitude Donald Trump has not committed - yet.
Same goes of course even more for his former boss George W. Bush who suddenly gets good press for some speech he surely didn't write any part of - everyone knows he lacks the intellect - even though it's still the same George W. Bush who personally plunged the world into chaos and unleashed the waves of muslim refugees now flooding Europe. Plus of course the hundreds of thousands of deaths he is personally responsible for as already mentioned.
But it seems that if only you oppose the evil Donald Trump - who, again, has not committed any such crimes yet, although he certainly may - the liberal press will give you credit even if you belong on death row as a war criminal.
11
I think Trump supporters are beyond reach of traditional Republicans and the influence of traditional Republicans is waning. That's what Trump's easy victory in the primaries suggested. Mainstream Republicans can do what they want and Trump's following will not change. The saving grace is that Trump's following is a minority. Forget about the 2016 popular vote and the argument that Hillary won. The fact of the matter is that Hillary's tremendous lack of appeal with voters across the board was the essential reason for Trump's victory. If Democrats nominate an uncontroversial candidate, they should bury Trump in 2020. What traditional Republicans have to say about Trump is simply not a factor.
10
Bannon is not a leader of the Republican party, and he no longer works for the White House. I don't support him but would never vote for a dem to congress. Why? Because they must toe the line of their leaders, and that means identity minority voting which is not a benefit to US citizens.
2
Excellent piece. The two parties see-saw with these identity crises. In a real sense they're four (or more) parties, puppies wrestling under a blanket, struggling to wedge themselves into two. Like the Electoral College, the two party system is an anachronism. Here in Europe there is no nation that lacks three or more (yes even the UK) and whose people stare at us--US--in bewilderment. Let's hope Mr. Wehner's correct about Bannon's thin bench and the difficulty of replicating what's his name.
7
Plainly-put, this is about power. Principles give way to power. Bannon understands this.
Bleeding-heart, hand-wringing Conservatives like Mr Wehner will be regarded with the same contempt as Liberals, who are usually described as having such attributes. Conservatism today is all about a bullish, winner-take-all approach. It's about the Power, stupid - to paraphrase Bill Clinton.
The White House incumbent and Breitbart's lackey are the embodiment of Fox News - Bannon would bristle at the suggestion, given his own rabid narcissism, which rivals that of the President. No serious conservative can ignore these facts if their plan is to reclaim an older, more civil and more decent Republican Party - these two qualities have been absent for decades. The politics of division and obstructionism with the overlay of racism and intolerance, have worked pretty well for the party, if we're to be honest. Why would they readily abandon a winning formula?
22
I am out there. A member of the liberal Democratic Party which seems to have been rendered helpless and headless. What do we do besides head bashing and hand wringing. I am ready and willing to support the decent, intelligent, rational remaining Republicans in order to rid the country of this monster we call Trumpism. The appeal to the basest common denominator is repugnant, yet the call to those who might affect change is seemingly unheeded. My god, in the name of all those who have worked to make this country fair and decent place for all, please help us! I plead with this Republicans who have a shred of decency, answer the call as many warriors have represented us against tyranny. Help us.
17
Your party is destroying the country, period. John McCain, George Bush and Bob Corker are admitting it because they have nothing to lose. Or, perhaps more to the point, nothing to gain. Nixon, Reagan and Trump effectively represent the the three giant leaps in conservatism's race to the cellar. And the reason why there's no viable way forward for a "responsible" conservative alternative to Republicanism is that the core ideology is a magnet for simplefolk. You know that's where your numbers are, so you know there's no way you could ever peel off enough to make a dent -- especially if you were selling anything that sounded halfway civilized.
Others have said a lot about reaping what they've sown, chickens home to roost, etc. But the fact is that We the People are paying the tab. And while it's true that history will be very unkind to the ridiculous fool that you people have planted in the White House, well, that won't do us very much good.
31
So how are you, Joanne?
I'm bitter and ruined.
Trump is laughably making America great again by working a few hours a week and escaping the white house every weekend.
Cost to taxpayers-------->$74,731,904.
It's his 76th golf day away from D.C. And his 84th day at one of his properties. Cumulative hours of golf = 779:03.
The remaining 4 days of the week he's on twitter all morning, watching Fox News, then tuning in all day and all evening as to what MSNBC and CNN say about him.
The rest of the time trying to sneak calls in to Steve Bannon when John Kelly steps out of the room. The president said he has a lot of time on his hands, and also said he sits around waiting with a pen in his hand.
So give us the date the Niger hearings begin at the House Oversight Committee. And let us know when he pays those hundreds of millions of legal fees for his staff, which represent a major conflict of interest.
35
I enjoy watching country club Republicans getting clubbed by people they've been lying to and taking advantage of for the better part of the last thirty years. I especially like when they puff out their chests and pretend like they're the sensible ones because they have money and a college education.
Wehner and his cohorts have made it their job to manipulate poor, working class Republicans in order to win elections and enrich themselves. Now, the poor working class Republicans (poorer now) are coming after them.
I won't shed tears.
17
Good column, making us think. For me, I wonder about labels though. Liberal or conservative seems narrow, confining: Dogma on either side no longer effective or even valid. The world is evolving rapidly and we are stuck in the middle ages. The media thrives on these distinctions as if they represent the real world.
Pragmatism, compromise, civility are out the window. What do you stand for Mr/Ms Pragmatic? It is not a binary world, either/or can't get anything done. So, we have to reach for something that works for all.
Trump/Bannon supporters: "They delight in Mr. Trump’s effort to annihilate truth and peddle conspiracy theories, and they draw energy and purpose from the unsettling effect he has on the nation as a whole. For them, Mr. Trump is a “fighter,” and politics needs to be weaponized in order to be enjoyed. They see politics as World Wrestling Entertainment, and Mr. Trump as the best wrestler in the ring."
Exactly, A world wide Reality Show leading possibly to Annihilation of all life on the planet. Roaches may survive.
10
I often disagree with Mr. Wehner, but I congratulate him on this column. It is the sort of well reasoned analysis that is very much needed by the Democrats. Instead, what we see in the Times are periodic columns from Democratic corporate centrists urging the Democrats to continue to support Wall Street and hew to the center. In other words, more of the same sort of Clintonism/Obamaism that got the Democrats kicked out of the White House in 2016.
3
Cool piece of writing coming out of your pen here, mr. Wehner!
I do have one question, though:
As an outsider following USA politics, I have seen the most terrible lies coming from "your" party over the past 8 Obama-years, blocking everything, up until & even the nomination for the Supreme Court.
How do you want to defend there unscrupulous behavior in the light of dignity & honesty you are asking for now?
34
What was Hindenburg supposed to do? The genie cannot be put back in the bottle.
2
I'm glad to see the recognition is there that so many of Trump's followers delight in his horrid displays of incompetence and callousness that outrage people like me. These folks are not good people let alone good Americans. We've always had despicable racists and social terrorists throughout USA history but in most ages we've forced them to stay under their rocks. We need to do it again and will with the help of decent Republicans like you Mr. Wehner.
10
“Ethnonationalist”?
Sounds like racist to me
12
One of my close friends who used to be a cantankerous libertarian now is a full blown Bannonista with a "to the barricades" altRight mentality. I believe that this segment of the party will indeed succeed in redefining the GOP but by doing so it will soon cede power to the Democrats within one election cycle.
The portion of the country resentful of being viewed as left-behind flyover states by Washington does not posses enough validity in their proposals to survive. Almost all populists movements fail because of the inability of their leadership to both maintain their stated ideals and effectively govern.
5
They may well not have “enough validity in their proposals”, as you put it; but, the better question is whether they represent enough electoral votes to take the WH.
Sure, their ideas lack cogency, but they’re not interested in persuading the rest of us, they just want to dominate us.
4
I've read enough on this Southern thing like as to blame everyone from the South and the politicians that inflicted the damage. So be it. But Donald Trump Was elected by the "Rust Belt" states of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania just to name few. There is more to this than a Southern redneck story. Look at that big picture. Who really voted and attended those rallies?
This is purely Economic and animalistic as in the nature of a creature cornered. The fact that the FED has no idea about where Inflation went and thus their reason for existence circumspect, don't rule out how much globalization has hurt the average American.
6
Having relocated recently I was required to register in my new state just prior to the 2016 elections. Although I've been a Republican voter for 40 years, I registered as an Independent because the party seemed incapable of fielding candidates committed to doing the right thing. Since the election, I've asked individuals of conscience, like Paul Ryan, to eschew politics and just do the right thing by, for example, publicly rejecting the Trump Doctrine. Other than John McCain and former presidents, I'm not hearing much, if any, meaningful response from elected officials on the right. Why? They are scared. I've got a plea to the folks falling into that camp: just do the right thing, and everything else will take care of itself. You might lose an election or two, but proven yourself a patriot, and you will have deservedly earned the respect of millions for years to come and the gratitude of the Nation. I fear there is little time to waste, so start by calling a press conference tomorrow to begin distancing yourselves from the Trump Doctrine and all it portends on the grounds that it does not represent the ideals comprising the foundation for the consent of the governed, enlightened by a free press, and the right of self-determination.
11
Yes. Sure. Everything here! That or you could just leave the Republican Party.
5
Bannon is right. For Everything There is a Season. His example, his childish speech, cries for the end of the current gloomy winter of bombastic nonsense and lies. Hopefully, we on the cusp of a new Spring, a season of light, of honest and adult discussion and action, not what Bannon served to the winter dwellers. It's the season especially for real Republicans, but others as well, to speak up publicly as did President Bush. It's the season for character to emerge, and, hence, for Congressional Republicans to oppose the darkness of Trumpism. It's the season, that new Spring, for honesty, empathy, decency, class, and something that used to be called "good". We need that change of seasons.
2
Republicans got what they wanted, an imbecile in charge who is tearing apart Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and any other form of health care, birth control, clean air, clean water. When will they wake up to the fact they will soon be effected by all of the above as will their children and grandchildren.
13
After wondering in the wilderness- Leaderless almost 40 years after Saint Ronnie, the GOP finally found its successor in Donald Trump. Do not be fooled- they are as content as screwworms (maggots) feeding on live tissue; us .
12
Unfortunately, this is no ordinary political disagreement. It is a clash of world views, ideology and the place of facts and reason in decision making. It is not going to be easy to bridge that gap.
This disconnect has been brewing within the Republican Party for at least two decades. At first, the right wing talking points were designed to shrink government. The disconnect between the working class Republicans and their rich masters is getting harder to harmonize. The culture war, the science denying, the racism, the nativism, the isolationism, are now being deployed to keep those working class Republicans in the fold to secure those big tax cuts for the rich.
Once the tax cuts are secured, the damage to the political system will be hard to repair. Those working class Republican will not be better off under this tax plan, and they will be looking for more targets to blame. Will Republicans continue to double down on cultural, racial, and nationalistic conflict to avoid their reckoning with reality?
8
Working class stiffs support the Republican Party because they expect to win Powerball and get rich too. Narcissism is classless.
14
Nonsense. This article is wishful, naive, and nonsensical. It suggests that Trump (Bannon, Gorka, et al.) are anomalous and distinct from regular republicans.
Nonsense because their popularity has identical roots.
It is true that republican voters have grown intolerant of the republican senators and congress-people. But the reason they are so perturbed is because they haven't got what was promised them: a healthcare system only for whites, all browns deported, all blacks in jail, all women in chains, all higher education gutted, science and math outlawed, justice run by the clergy, free guns and ammo, and a free rein to victimize people they wish, with regular checks in the mail marked "cash if you are white only." It is true that the likes of McConnell and others have not delivered this entirely - this failure is neither for the lack of intent, nor for the lack of trying.
Republicans are not in a strange place at all; it is all too familiar. They just don't like that they cannot control Trump, cannot get their Liberty-U graduates to run the White House. Trump could not care less about Americans, he is there to take care of his own (i.e., the billionaire class). He can do this without raising a whimper from his voters as long as he gives them evidence that he is doing everything to destroy the legacy of a black president, and doing his part to encourage the white nationalists and supremacists (the new victim class in America).
But thanks for the fantasy flight.
18
The Republican nomination wasn't close because by the time all the garden-variety candidates finished beating each other up to face Trump, there were too many hard feelings for some voters to get over and come together. If there had only been a few against him, he would not have won. The vote was too broken up over too many candidates. Trump only has about 35% that would rather die than admit they were ever wrong. If the rest of the party made it job 1 to get that idiot out of the party, they could do it.
6
The Republicans will not relent until the massive wealth of the American middle class is absorbed by the rich.
It has been the goal since the beginning. They think the working class is dumb enough to be robbed blind by the people they vote for. I think they know what they are doing.
11
Bannon comes from Wall Street but decided cheating people with fake news, and spreading racism and sexism is far more profitable; O'Reilly sends gay porn to his victims; Gingrich cheats on wives with cancer; Trump grabs women by the pxxxy, and they all want to destroy public education, cut taxes only for the rich, and keep minimum wage low and childbirth rates high to expand the servant class exponentially.
These are the wonderful "conservative" Bannonist values.
Wake up, nihilists. The only people you're destroying is yourselves and your loved ones.
13
Disinformation, denigration of the Press, fomenting friction between differing groups of citizens, different ethnicities and so on are the strategies by which Adolph Hitler came to power. He used humor in the most an appropriate places.
He appealed to the lowest sensibilities of people and deceived with horrendous results, as we well know. He craved power and the adoration of his crowds. Donald Trump is a man to fear. His personal history is sordid.
Where are the minds, hearts and voices of the formerly "G"OP? Will a few more
true warriors, such as Senators John McCain, Jeff Flake and Bob Corker be brave enough and have enough integrity to stand up for truth and condemn Mr. Bannon and his co-conspirator? History does have a way of repeating itself and it's not good.
8
Putting aside the Republican Establishment inheriting Donald Trump by embracing the Southern Strategy and Ronal Reagan's philosophy that Government is the Problem, Where are there any proposals from Conservatives? Think what you may about Trump's politics, his campaign was full of proposals. Beginning with a giant wall to keep out Mexican rapists, Trumps speeches were chock full of proposals to solve America's problems. Mr. Wehner points out Republicans can't pass a healthcare law. So, what are Conservatives proposing to fix healthcare. Take healthcare away from twenty million people. Let older, sicker people fend for themselves.
Let me try a Conservative proposal. Americans should not be paying more for their prescription drugs than other advanced countries. After all, what Conservative believes in overpaying for stuff. It's unthinkable. Here's another. Americans should not be paying more for healthcare, period, than the other advanced nations. It is antithetical for Conservatives support paying more for anything. imagine a Conservative going into a car dealership and demanding to pay seventy thousand dollars for a Chevy Malibu. It's is a fine American car, but what Conservative would demand to pay seventy when they can get it for twenty five. As an aging Eisenhower Conservative, I remember a party bound to ideas to help the average American. Building Freeways, getting ordinary people into houses and sending them to college.
13
Steve Bannon is a perennial adolescent punk who gets his jollies by throwing molotov cocktails at the "establishment." He wants to tear everything down, but has no ideas how to build anything back up. "Deconstruction of the administrative state."
Mr. Bannon is a gift to the Democratic Party.
(If only the DNC can get it together, and refrain from snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.)
5
The rationalist Republicans should be welcomed, even courted, to the centrist wing of the Democratic coalition. Those would be all who have spoken out against Trump, all those that are still holding their seats but planning to retire, and every Republican treated to a primary challenge from the far right. Many would come and all of a sudden the balance of power would forcefully shift in favor of civil discourse, regular order, and executive accountability.
6
I am a Coastal-Elite which means I am highly educated, hard working at my profession, believe in government as a force for good (so long as there are good people in Office with oversight) and that to many rightfully indignant Americans are unwilling to put in the time and work effort to make their intentions become reality.
Trump’s governing style is to eschew preparation, shoot from the hip, send out electronic messages in lieu of policy statements and take deceitful advantage of his base by self-dealing, conflicting patterns and waffle-iron positions.
How can Trump sustain this and how can America avoid some serious problems in 2018??
Thanks for speaking up. Perhaps others will share your eloquence and mission as well.
11
Thank you for writing this. It gives me a silver of hope that there are sane Republicans. Perhaps it will give courage to those who are sheepishly agreeing and not condemning Trump. Even so it may be too little too late in my view. I will never forget the Republicans who have enabled him thus far. This president is a threat to our Country and international security.
How long must we wait for impeachment?
9
50 years ago The Republican Party created the Southern Strategy, the conscious effort to appeal to the segregationist Strom Thurmond and George Wallace Democratic voters.
In the 1980’s the Republican Party gave us the culture wars and Reagan and the dog whistle politics of welfare queens and States Rights and created the Reagan Democrats.
In the 1990’s we got the Newt Gingrich House of Representatives take no prisoners confrontation, the Clinton impeachment, Whitewater, and Vince Foster murder conspiracy.
With Obama, they created the Tea Party and gave us the birthers, death panels, and support of the Confederate flag.
And all these years, the Republican politicians have been using the Reaganomics talking points of small government and tax cuts for the job creators coming from the right-wing think tanks.
For thirty five years, the rising tide of Trickle Down Economics has mostly helped the wealthy at the expense of the rest.
And the Republican establishment is sick, just sick I tell you, to think of Trump representing the Republican Party.
They can’t understand how the Republican voters, who have been losing their manufacturing jobs all these years as Mitt Romney and his Wall St. colleagues sent those jobs to China, these same voters who have been listening to talk radio all these years, how they can blindly follow Trump and not listen to reason.
20
This opinion piece and your excellent post have given me hope. We have to get out of the grip of this monster and the party that is eating this country alive.
4
@ Susan Levin
Thanks for your complement and hope.
Personally, Mr. Wehner doesn't give me hope. The "establishment" Republican politicians who talk like Mr. Wehner are trying to pass a tax cut bill that will go mostly to the wealthy and corporations.
It has proven that tax cuts and trickle-down Reaganomics do not create jobs.
It will add $1.5 Trillion to the deficit to be paid for be our children and grandchildren.
These establishment Republicans will then use their rising deficit to cut Medicare and Medicaid.
All the time, voters still believing establishment Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility.
Compared to Bannon, Mr. Wehner sounds reasonable. But the "establishment" Republicans have been creating this since Reagan.
It is not coincidence that the country is more divided than ever at the same time income inequality is greater than ever.
11
Peter Wehner writes: "Underlying currents and powerful passions animating the base of the party that had been building for years burst forth when Republicans nominated Mr. Trump."
Almost, Mr Wehner, but not quite. The anonymous formulation of currents and passions "animating the base" ignores the basic problem: the passions didn't come from nowhere. You should have written "underlying currents and powerful passions _carefully cultivated by the party's strategists_ for the sake of persuading the middle- and working-classes to vote against their self interest. Put another way, for immediate political gain, your party has been crossing bright red lines of demagoguery by undermining the legitimacy of gov't for decades. The Clinton impeachment, lock-step opposition to Clinton's budgets, even after they proved beneficial to stated Republican goals of lower deficits (stated goals should be confused with true goals), questioning the loyalty of opponents of the Iraq invasion, disparaging John Kerry's war record, using dog whistles to undermine Obama even before he took office, attacking the ACA as "socialist" when it was in fact an attempt to preserve the free-market system of private insurance, government shut-downs, and so on, and on...
Republicanism has created Trumpism. Undermining the legitimacy of gov't for short-term gain has had serious--perhaps fatal--consequences for the republic. Republicans have sown the wind; pity we'll all reap the whirlwind.
23
The albeit slow exit of sane, reasonable Republicans has begun. I follow a weekly Florida TV program that provides politically balanced discussion of issues largely related to our state. Already several of the highly respectable -- and respected -- regulars who have up to now identified as Republicans have chosen not to be identified that way. I guess they want to continue to be respected.
5
It is my opinion, and observation, that the GOP will suffer a real schism within the next 2 years. Esp. if they lose enough seats in 2018. Its inevitable.
But I would welcome it.The party has grown calcified, too many men for one, who seem to forget the very history of the party. As well as their oaths of office. Which have been superseded by other oaths to narrow, niche ideologies that do not serve the general electorate. I refer to the Norquist Oath as one example.
I also expect the Dems to suffer a schism of sorts, but not as terrible a one...more like tremors, over a big quake.
6
A college education is the best antidote to Trumpism. Over many years, Republicans have been cutting education budgets, making it more difficult for poor people to go to college. Is it time yet to shift from reverse into drive?
9
Yes! Restore full funding to education! Teach logic. Teach kindness and respect for those over which you may have power through wealth or cultural advantage. Try to even the playing field for those who start with disadvantage. The possibilities are exciting, not frightening!
3
I am old enough to remember the Southern Strategy and the purposeful appeal by the Republican Party to the Strom Thurmond and George Wallace voters.
And it just continued over the years with "welfare queens" and the birther movement.
But all the while the Republican Party got these voters, the only goal for the Republican Party has been to make the rich get richer.
The "small government" libertarian individualism really meant tax cuts for the wealthy and social program cuts for the rest.
But I give credit to the Republican Party. For years they have been able to get voters to vote against their own economic self-interest.
For years they been able to get voters to think liberals are the bad guys when it is liberals who want to improve education, give people health care, and reduce poverty.
And they all wear their flag pins while our country is going in the direction of a second world country.
But there are those death panels.
13
When a journalist asked Sen. McConnell for his thoughts on Donald Trump's initial claim (months before his candidacy) that President Obama was not born in America he said that it wasn't his responsibility to tell people what to believe. Had the senator spoke truth to this lie he would have avoided unwittingly endorsing Trump. Instead with Obama in office McConnell was only too happy to further undermine the legitimacy of a sitting president . This lack of truth telling began the cascading support of a man who ironically may lead to the senator's demise and that of the Republican Party .establishment.
10
Political leadership DOES affect public opinions, and too many Republican sought praise from talk-radio hosts and legitimized what were increasingly paranoid fears.
Rather than criticizing Obamacare as too bureaucratic, many Republicans made it a moral atrocity that needed elimination. When talk-radio discovered illegal immigration in Summer 2007, it was not treated as one of many failures of our immigration system, but as an existential threat to America.
Trumpist is now opposed by every President or candidate who led and helped define the party in my lifetime.
The one thing that WILL NOT save the party is for Republican leaders to continue to say things about trade, immigration, and society that I truly hope most believe to be false.
LEAD, don't pander. If "the base" stays home you will help to build a new base much healthier for America.
9
Well, Mr. Wehner,
You could switch parties and join the Democrats.
Or you could start a third party.
14
I share Mr. Wehner's hope that there might be a silent minority in the Republican Party that isn't a party of anger and desire to burn the village. I remain highly skeptical however when I watch the Republican led Congress quietly following Trump like a herd of drugged lemmings. No more than 4 of them have the courage of their convictions to express an opinion of any sort that isn't one of the Party Talking Points.
For middle of the road Conservatives and for Liberals, the only hope I see is that among the voters, the Republican Demolition Derby wing is actually a smaller fraction than it would appear from the noise that they are making. The loudest, most obnoxious noises make the best press and sustain the largest number of paid viewers for the media. Hillary lost by microscopic margins in a few key states, not by the vast amounts implied by the noise from the pundits. Democrats need a resounding victory in 2018 and 2020 to convince the Republican leadership that demolition of government won't sell to any but a very vocal minority.
Democrats need to field candidates that describe policies that meet voters needs and fears, and they can win. Let the Republican party divide itself into two or three, if they so wish. Democrats need to field leaders, not lofty idealists.
7
Seems pretty clear to me that politicians need to also stop kicking the can down the road and blaming the other party.
The public needs to better understand the issues our nation faces and needs to see both parties start to chip away at fixing them, free colleges for all and new tax cuts are absurd in such an environment. Unfortunately the public may prefer such flawed logic to reality - shame on our politicians.....
1
I have a sense that Trump has merely pulled back the curtain to expose that politics is simply war by other means. Maybe I am too cynical.
Politics is about power, not principles. In broad terms, for Democrats, the goal of politics has been harnessing the power of government for the poor. For Republicans, the goal of politics has been harnessing the power of government for the business class. Trump figured out the agendas of the major parties left out a large swath of the electorate that also wanted in on the power grab, but had been told by both parties they did not merit protections under their banner. He also introduced a manner of speaking about politics that jettisons any pretense that politics is anything other than what it is, a forum to decide winners and loser.
Now the gloves are off and it is a brutal struggle over who gets to dictate to everyone else not only the rules of the game, but what the game is. Trump doesn't know any better than to employ such "impolite" speech, or if he does, he does not care to expend the energy to pretend. And so, politics as war by other means, politics as the mechanism for securing my well being over yours, becomes the norm.
7
Donald Trump is a horrible embarrassment to our country and anyone who cares about the outlook for world peace.
8
Assuming Repubs can wrestle their party back from the Trumpsters what makes you think Trump supporters are going to fall in line? They're not. If fact I think they're going to be more aggressive if their man is shunted to the sidelines. Interesting times indeed and about to get more interesting.
4
The writer and the GOP establishment is being completely disingenuous. They whipped up this ethnonational fervor to win votes for years and rose up a group of people who are impervious to facts and now they’re upset they can’t control it?
8
Lots of talk, writing, analysis, no action. In Texas, and much of the country the opposition turnout abysmal election after election. Who and where are the leaders on any side who will challenge the nihilism you so accurately portray.
I can't see or hear them. 5 tweets drown out the media for a week, then another five the following weekend. Where are the leaders who can break this cycle? One of the reasons this is so depressing is we apparently have no leaders who can cut through Trump's deliberate fog machine, his rapturous control over what the media chooses to cover. Sickening.
3
Ignorance is a major factor in this phenomena. The party establishment represented by the likes of McConnell and their ilk have exploited the ignorant and woefully uninformed of much of their base to include the evangelicals for their own self-serving purposes. Those factions in turn rose up and dominated the party at the polls. And, a huge swath of the frustrated have started to realize that their life's skills are inadequate to thrive in the age of AI, automation and intellectual adaptability. Brawn and macho are no longer sufficient to navigate life. Even the "skilled trades" are emphasizing "Skill" over "Brawn". The liberals, the intellectuals, the computer savy are at fault. The geeks are ascendent. So, along comes the Bannons and Trump to exploit these frustrations. So far no sane voices have come forward to channel the frustrations of the sabot throwers in a positive direction. Until that happens there will be chaos. The only dampening effect on this frustration is that so many charlatans, gifters, and exploiters like Bannon and Trump are vying for support that factionalism may limit the impact of this ignorance.
5
Mr. Wehner, the Republican Party is already intellectually and morally bankrupt. Let me just point to the widespread Republican denial of climate and evolutionary science. All the party cares about is further enriching the already wealthy. Allowing tens of thousands to die early from lack of adequate health care is fine with most Republican members of congress. How often do they have to prove it until you accept that fact? We've seen it over and over.
President Eisenhower would qualify as a wild-eyed radical leftist nowadays.
Where are those principled conservatives who will denounce the ongoing disastrous deconstruction of our government? If they haven't done it by now, why trust them anyway? Almost all the Republicans in congress have forfeited any moral or intellectual authority they might once have had, if they ever had any, which is dubious.
Mr. Wehner, it is past time to give up the pretense that there is any possibility of redemption for your party. The soul of the party has long ago, and gleefully, been sold to the highest bidder. Money is ALL that matters. Virtually every single policy position held by the party is wrong! It is on the wrong side of everything! Ok, that's my opinion, but allow me to point out that 70 to 80 percent of Americans agree with the centrist positions espoused by Bernie Sanders, among many others. (He's not really a leftist; that's one of many right-wing lies)
The Democrats may not be without fault, but in comparison, they are saints.
9
Responsible republicans need to go on Fox News and be the grownups in the room by denouncing the policies the Trump Administration is supporting that are destructive to the majority of Americans. They need to be loud, proud, unapologetic and patriotic. And they need to be out there 24/7 lining up to be on fox and then speaking truth to power. Every day, all day.
At that point new leadership will emerge...
5
Trump won because the "normal" GOP and GOP establishment thoroughly discredited itself by its embrace of the neo-cons and their intervention-first war hawkishness. Trump was the only candidate to call out G.W. Bush on his Iraq War lies and failure.
Trump also won because of the bipartisan establishment's refusal to enforce their own bipartisan-enacted immigration laws and because of their refusal to update and reform those laws for the 21st century.
On these two points, there was little difference between Hillary Clinton and, for example, candidate Jeb Bush. Most everyone agrees that Trump's tone, character and manners are beyond the pale. Which goes to show people will put up with a lot to vote for a candidate willing to align with the people on issues that matter.
2
what does it say about the Republican Party -- and Republican voters -- that candidates will not criticize the president or the party unless they're not running for office? why do republican candidates fear their voters?
The Republican Party has spend decades using race-baiting and fear-mongering campaigns to mold the right-wing base into an irrational and uncompromising constituency of the minority. Even when they win the election, they still obstruct progress.
The best thing that can happen to the GOP is to cleave the Trump wing from the traditional conservative faction of the responsible right. Once they find a reasonable alternative to Donald Trump, voters will follow.
5
Some reasonable thoughts from Mr. Werner but when the GOP decided that the Grover Norquist tax pledge was a great idea, it abdicated any pretense to responsible governing.
Trump, unfortunately, fits very well into a party that since Nixon has no interest in the common good but seeks only power at all costs. Fiscal responsibility, free trade and world leadership, all dog whistles of the GOP have been shown to be cynical slogan used only to rally less perceptive voters.
We need new ideas and leadership but the morally bankrupt and intellectually shallow GOP won’t provide either.
4
I think of Abraham Lincoln and his well known saying: "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."
I hope that this is still holds true. It's obvious that the republicans are trying to fool most of the people all of the time, and they have a powerful voice thanks to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and other strident voices as well as right-wing organizations like Sinclair Broadcast Group which has a wide network of stations through out the U.S. and is attempting to acquire more.
If citizens are not alert and do not make their voices heard, the U.S. will be taken over by a group of hard right ideologues who care nothing about the "government of the people, by the people, for the people" and it SHALL perish from the earth.
4
If Bannonism can get even a trainwreck like Trump elected, it seems to me that this is the way the Republicans need to go. They just need to find better candidates.
Peter Wehner doesn't really give us any reason to believe otherwise. He asserts that if Bannonism triumphs, then "a lot of lifelong Republicans would head for the exits." Really? Let me remind you again; Trump was a truly *terrible* candidate, AND YET HE WON!!! Can you imagine how well a smart, decent, and articulate Republican who ran on the same principles might do? Someone who was willing to talk to Democrats, and could co-opt some of their issues, and peel off some of the Bernie Sanders voters? That is what the Republicans should be looking for, not a return to the failed establishment Republicanism that Mr. Wehner is defending and hopes to reinstate.
4
Republicans have gone a long way toward destroying this country by denying science, turning the EPA into a polluting agency, enacting a host of voter suppression measures, catering to the rich at the expense of the poor, gerrymandering congressional districts and allowing the election of a president they know to be inept, unfit and totally devoid of ethics. The few honorable lawmakers who have spoken out against this travesty, like John McCain, are outnumbered by many too cowed by Bannon's nihilism and too cowardly to correct what they secretly acknowledge to be a ghastly mistake. Our only hope for ending this nightmare is the third branch of government, the judiciary, but only if it acts to protect its independence. Only the courts can rein in Trump's attacks on the First Amendment, his multiple violations of the emoluments clause, his disgregard for legal and ethical precedents, his blatant attempts at obstruction of justice and, perhaps, his collusion with Russia. The attorney general cannot be counted on since he gave up any pretext of independence when he allowed Trump to interview three federal prosecutors nominated for districts where the president may encounter legal problems. And the Supreme Court may not be much help thanks to Citizens United and a seat stolen by the GOP now occupied by Gorsuch.
5
BCCI McCain was only too happy to keep his ill-gotten gains in the 1980's and then not only said absolutely nothing during the Bush-Cheney reign of terror but actively supported their neo-con, intervention first Iraq War abomination. McCain had many chances to speak out against the true destruction wrought by his political party and instead chose to aid and abet it. McCain's defense of the "international order" shows a tone-deafness about the failure of that international order to bring accountability for the war crimes and lies of Iraq (not to mention Vietnam). Unfortunately Bernie Sanders did not want to talk about foreign policy much during the primaries, as his record in this dimension is more positive. Hillary's complicity in all of above is a big reason Trump was able to gain a foothold in 2016.
2
I've long been saying America needs a conservative party, not the herd of roving lunatics the Republican party has become. Why are the only Republicans willing to admit that Trump and his followers are delusional and dangerous are the retiring and former officials?? And the Democrats also share a lot of blame for not putting forth a coherent, eloquent argument against what Trump is doing. Obama's greatest failing was not using his impressive oratorical skills to hit back against these people who are trying to unravel everything he's done with their only rational being that HE did it. Someone needs to publicly and forcefully illustrate why Trump and his supporters are not patriots and are, in fact, the exact opposite of patriots.
4
If you have bad ideas, no amount of politicking is going to get you over the top. Republicans have bad ideas and those within the party who recognize this are not courageous enough to say so. Mr. Trump has done nothing to advance one good ide, because he has none. And as long as he's president, he will not speak for 70 percent of the nation and that lack of credibility will thwart any effort to get these bad ideas enacted into law.
1
The true base of Republican Politics are the ignorant white masses that are scared and rightly so because jobs have moved overseas and minimum wage doesn't support people. When you have minimum wage being the only wage and not a stepping-stone wage you get a scared mass of elephants.
Trump has gathered the herd of elephants and logic and truth no longer matter, only blood.
The Republican establishment is gone, its base in tatters holding on by the fingertips through these mindless mean spirited elephants.
I would suggest that the true moderate Republicans form a more moderate party to attract more of the people of moderate thinking that have "now" gone to the Democratic party. Pragmatism not ideology. I was so thrilled my Senator, Senator Alexander went across party lines to his Democratic partner to save the most competitive parts of the ACA. I guess he figured out that if the ACA failed, we'd all have Single-Payer in 4 years.
I might even come back to the Republican or whatever that newly formed party is, if moderate. For now I am a Democrat and I want change. The definition of one who wants change is Liberal. How can you want change from the Conservative Republican party? That's an oxymoron!
We need change, my nerves need change.
1
In the bleakness of observing this ongoing deliberate obliteration of our most cherish value, the abrupt efforts to actually increase the devastation of the effects of greenhouse pollution, the systematic polarization of our trusted allies, etc.
This administration in attacking the underpinnings of virtually ever aspect in the very frail hope for a better and healthier life for those who will be picking the pieces when we are long gone.
Every one of us are now confronted with the brutal choice of
(1) Meekly following the a clueless brute tweet his bully pulpit of abuse and ourselves into chaos.
(2) stand up, demand the ideal of our Declaration of Independence be strived for, to bring us together and work to bring a healthier planet forth.
3
Te Republican Party Mr Wehner yearns for is little more than a memory. The current GOP stands for tax cuts and deficit reduction, less expensive health care by removing millions from access, free trade by ending TPP, NAFTA etc. Those contradictions show the Party as incoherent. Whether those contradictions are resolved in favor of coherent governance or pandering to white identity policies and self-interested billionaire donors remains to be seen.
2
Starting with Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy and continuing with Reagan’s campaign launch in Mississippi (to symbolically say that the murder of the three civil rights workers was ok with him), the GOP has brought this unseemly and horrifying situation on itself. They deserve the turmoil and the dysfunction; sadly, the majority of Americans have to suffer for their sins.
2
John McCain should have delivered his speech over and over again starting a year and a half ago while campaigning for Hillary Clinton. That would have gotten the US a sensible conservative government that could have done something. Instead he chose to further the interests of his party through Trump.
It is clear that the disdain for white nationalist like Bannon and Trump is indeed "toxic" amongst all people who don't identify themselves as Republicans. So I'm actually heartened to hear Bannon speak os a "season of war" against the more tolerant and less racist members of the Republican party. Perhaps now they too will join the battle to stop this dangerous nativist fringe from getting anymore traction in our political system.
I have little doubt Bnnon and Trump and their message of fear and hate will be inevitably and soundly defeated. They will be seen as a poorly run, fleeting 'white uprising' in our history. However with the advent of hate-news, aka Fox News, it likely won't be as easy as I would hope.
It will take Republicans with a conscience like Corver, McCain, and Flake who won't cower at the mention of the "alt-right." I see Bannon and Trump as an outright assault on common decency. I wonder how any person who has any regard for their fellow man and the well being of their own children can tolerate one more second of these little demons. It's baffling, but I believe they are digging their own grave by making enemies with everyone they come in contact with, even their own political party.
3
One of the GOP's key strategies has been to lie to the American people on major issues, about climate change, about lowering taxes for the rich stimulating growth, about the alleged evils of Obamacare, about racist gerrymandering and law enforcement, about the role of money in politics, to provide just a few examples. The party has now reaped the whirlwind, a strain of Republicanism that tells even more outrageous lies, much more frequently and pervasively, indeed has little regard for truth, calling it's lies "alternative facts". The GOP has flirted coyly with right extremism, blown its dog whistles, and now, as decent and honest people hope, is about to pay the price. Unfortunately it has subjected all of us to the damage which will be inflicted on our democracy and well-being by the right wing extremists it has set loose.
3
"then the Republican Party would collapse intellectually and morally, and a lot of lifelong Republicans would head for the exits." I'd say it is about time! Through my long life I wonder what the GOP is actually...FOR. They absolutely do not support the First Amendment. Despite their rhetoric, history says that they are not remotely fiscally conservative in action. They are against voting rights, equality, women's rights, health care, environmental common sense, public schools, upon which this once great nation was built...I can go on, but you get the idea. Oh, they are for impoverishing military spending and seeking out enemies to use the weapons on and then not taking care of returning veterans.
This collapse of the traditional GOP and Democratic party, and that is what has happened, will not be solved in one or two elections. I hope a broad consensus is reached, but I fear that we have made America, small, in so many ways.
1
Any takers? How about Peter Wehner for Prez? This was a pretty eloquent call for collaboratively working toward noble goals, the likes of which we rarely hear from anyone. We need to hear such things from our leaders.
No takers! The Republican party is a cynical interest group whose only purpose is to make life better for their corporate and wealthy clients. They have won and will continue to win as long as they can rally the rabble by stoking their resentment of the "liberal elites".
They could go too far and be un-masked for the manipulators that they are, or the Democrats could possibly find a way to speak to the Resentful Ones. But for now it's working for them.
1
The answer lies in Democracy. Vote. The Republicans answered this call before and so did the Democrats. When the man their party put in office performed so badly as to embarrass the party and misrepresent their hopes and dreams....they voted for the other party or did not vote at all. The views and goals of current centrist Republican voters are much better represented by Democrats in today's Washington than by these Brannon Republicans. They just need to vote this terrible leadership out of congress in 2018.
1
Sure there are many republicans who voted for Trump over sanity, and only now realize their mistake? Where are they hiding? The couple of GOP leaders who are now critical of Trump are a minority.
2
"Mr. Trump’s victory in the Republican primaries was not an aberration so much as a culmination, an apotheosis of sorts."
Apotheosis means the ideal example; epitome. So Trump and Bannon are the ideal example of what, pray tell? A party that engages in varying degrees of racism, some quite disgusting, and places winning above all things, including moral clarity. And yet, Mr. Wehner is straining to appear so reasonable, but you cannot reason with hatred.
I think the example the GOP needs to mirror is that of U.S. Air Force Academy superintendent Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria, who, in response to racial attacks on campus, stood in front of the assembled cadets and forcefully, but not emotionally, told the cadets who harbor animus to other races or creeds simply had to get out; out of the Academy and out of the Air Force. It was just that simple.
Establishment Republicans have to make it clear that they will not be part of a Party that hates black people, Hispanics, and other minorities as a critical component of its party platform. Ethno-nationaIists have to go or the conservatives will go. I have no illusions that this will result in a lot of losing in the near future. But it simply has to happen or those who are repulsed but acquiesce anyway are in peril for their mortal souls.
Moreover, conservatives have learn a lesson from this chapter in their history: dog whistles eventually end up defining those who whistled them for the sake of expediency.
4
WWE political warfare has nothing to do with governing, surprise, surprise. The republicans who oppose Trump must accomplish what Bill Buckley did when he marginalized the Birchers. Do they have the energy? Do they have the influence?
2
Maybe things are not as bad as Mr. Wehner or my fellow commentators are making out.
As the 50th anniversary of the Summer Of Love draws to an end, I look back to the 60s for some pointers. The top record in the nation 50 years ago this week was "To Sir With Love" from Lulu but the decade began with the Democrats being by far and away the dominant party in the south - with many of the so called Jim Crow laws still in place. President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 effectively bringing such laws to an end – but not without political consequences. Bill Moyers quotes Johnson as saying, “"I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come.” (As people look back with dewy eyes at the Kennedys, there’s nary a glance in Johnson’s direction.) Johnson was right and today the Republican Party has a solid core of persons whose parents fled the Democrat’s camp after Civil Rights’ legislation.
The Vietnam War, which eventually claimed nearly 50,000 American lives was ramped up in the 60s. It was surely one of the most divisive events in 20thC American history.
Today – things are surely better for minorities under Trump than they were under Johnson’s predecessor, JFK. In addition, our armed forces are totally volunteer based. Our Government no longer commits the lives of its citizens to questionable overseas wars.
I’m not giving Trump a pass but a little bit of a historical perspective never hurts.
2
Our government no longer commits the lives of its citizens to questionable overseas wars? Have you missed the Iraq War; the lies about WMD; and the fact that the nation has been at war in Iraq for over 15 years now and running, longer than Vietnam? If anything, it would be helpful to bring back the draft so there would be some measure of accountability for the permanent military-industrial complex and the unending foreign interventions.
3
I appreciate this op-ed and any other voices from the right that have the courage to stand against this administration and its followers. I have long felt that any public comments from people on the left are counterproductive in our tribal nation. Rational traditional Republican voices may still be heard at least to some extent. I don't know. Of course anything in the NYT will be ignored by those who I wish would listen.
Without focusing on the notion that Trumpism did not come out of nothing, I would like to ask what constructive traditional conservative thought might mean in the era of Gilded Age inequality? All I see is more of the same trickle down philosophy (we are pretty suspicious of that notion by now) that got us where we are.
In my opinion you need some creative new thinking other than seemingly opposing all attempts by the people to work together to make life better (aka, "government").
Meanwhile thanks again for speaking out in favor of sanity.
4
There is certainly a large faction of the Republican Party speaking out loudly, eloquently, and fervently every day against Trump and Trumpism. Nicole Wallace, Steve Schmidt, Bill Kristol, George Will...I hear and watch them daily as they grind their teeth and spit out invectives against Trump. The only problem is, is anyone listening? Decency and standards seem to be out of style. Respect for Constitution? That's out, too, unless you're talking about the Second Amendment. These thoughtful, intelligent people may not realize they were also part of the problem, back in the day when no one could conceive that Trump would be elected. The GOP has become more and more far-right with every election. It was only natural that it would eventually become so heavy with hate for anything on the left that it would swing this way. Eventually, we have to start swinging back to the middle, or all is lost.
88
@catgirl54: "Large faction of the Republican Party- speaking out"? A collective of perhaps less than a dozen voices does not equate into a large- anything. There are a small number of Representative who've chosen to forego reelection bids but to state there is a cacophony of dissent amongst Republicans in government and the few writers you've named about-- is highly exaggerated.
1
You mean the traditional elite Republicans, they need to retire and be quiet. As does say Hillary and Bill.
1
"Feelings of powerlessness, resentment and grievance are widespread" among the white voters who power the Republican party. Show me a demographic statistic that does not demonstrate that Republican voters are healthier, wealthier, more likely to live in a state that receives more Federal funds than it pays in taxes, and less likely to be a victim of violent crime and I might better understand the outrageous sense of grievance within this disproportionately privileged group.
4
What's happening to the GOP is a live example of a Rorschach test. At face value it's nothing more than an abstract picture comprised of random splotches and wavy lines- yet there are many interpretations. Some may see an elephant, some may see a scene of prosperity, while others may see a lunatic calling for a nuclear strike. It's anyone's guess now..
2
Each day the nihilists (and anarchists) within the Trumpian wing of the Republican party get a daily dose of hate, "ethnonationalism," skepticism about what the major news outlets report, and encouragement to do whatever it takes to "tear the system down," "drain the swamp" or "fight the deep state." They buy it all and are gleeful about hating, and hating, and hating anything that might stink of academia, governance, objective criticism, diplomacy, the common good, and especially, Obama. I believe these rabid folks easily switch positions that they have held dear for years (i.e. the deficit) in order to poke a dirty finger in the eyes of more reasonable Republicans and any Democrat. The congressional Republicans are terrified of these people and their rich supporters (Mercer, et al) and are floundering in indecision. I doubt that any Republican group will emerge that will energetically and vocally go against these Trumpians.
3
Who are these principled Republicans Mr. Wehner is counting on to stem the Trump-Bannon tide? George Bush is retired. John McCain and Bob Corker aren't running for re-election. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell would support Genghis Khan if he let them cut taxes and entitlement programs. Name one prominent Republican officeholder with a future who is forcefully pushing back against this garbage. Virtually all of them are willing to ride this wave as far as it will take them, American "ideals" be damned.
3
No there won't be any GOP takers. Bush is out of office, McCain is ill and Senator Corker is not seeking reelection. They have been the only prominent GOP memebers to speak out and challenge Trump and Bannon's vision.
Ohio has GOP Senator Portman who was re-elected last year, yet even with 5 more years assured for his term he won't speak out against the current GOP course charted by the White House.
You can question whether the Democratic Party can govern but there is no question the Republicans can't.
To the GOP it is tax cuts and everything just magically solves itself. It is easy to sell because it is so simple and yet so wrong. The establishment GOP are cowards and the Trump GOP are nihilists. A perfect combination to abdicate even keeping America average let alone making it great.
2
The raging fury cannot be eliminated. It can only
be quarantined and contained by that part of the
former republican party that has any sense of history
and moral courage. All ten of them. At present it is completely cowed
and fully intimidated by the core trumpicans, who with
sufficient funding by bannon and his rich (mercer pere et
fille in particular) benefactors are perceived as being fully capable and willing to
mount significant primary challenges.
They somehow have
convinced themselves that playing along with the beast
at the door, if not in the cellar, is acceptable strategy. It doesn't matter
that this accommodation never works with the type
of rage fueled authoritarian mob that knows that
intimidation, violent or financial, always works
with weak backboned opponents.
Wehner has in former columns referred to members
of the former republican party who find what il duce
is doing perfectly fine, no problems they seem to be
saying. But he has not reported upon the type
of arguments they actually articulate to justify this sanguine response
to the past many months of weirdness and basic
incompetences. Nor does he summarize their
responses to his critiques.
So it is not clear what it is they
really are looking forward to, counting upon, etc...though
one can infer it has a lot to do with big payoffs in this
farce of a tax plan, passed by the senate just
to try and exhibit a modicum of capability to its
funders class that their interests will be attended to.
1
Bannon wants disruption and chaos and if using white supremacy to get votes its fine with him. Candidates to the far right are his specialty Judge Moore who has violated the constitution wants to criminalize homosexuality and is a throw back to 1950's JIm Crow times is one of his picks anotheris a convicted felon. Bannon gave us Trump who is leading us down the road to fascism as an extension of his malignant narcissism. Center right Republicans are bad enough but far right Republicans will join Trump in a march toward fascism and a right wing court might uphold. The cross and the flag it was said how fascism will come to America it seems he was right.
3
To quote Alfred Pennyworth to his charge Batman when trying to explain the Joker, "Some men just want to see the world burn." This pretty much summaries the Trump supporter. Oh, and to think they even know what nihilism is, much less "delight" in it, is giving these dumb-as-dirt cultists WAY too much credit. The GOP establishment, on the other hand, is as bad as Weimar Republic and history will prove their corruption and complicity.
3
The only "the principles they claim to hold dear" have to do with getting themselves re-elected. Nothing else matters. They're not going to change.
I live in California. I feel immense pride in my state. I feel none, zero, zilch, for my country anymore. I want California to leave the Union. I don't want one red cent of my tax dollars going to Red states. (Oh, and after "tax reform" my taxes will go UP). Enough already. The GOP will never change. They are the enemy of the planet and every living thing on it.
I want to simply leave the GOP and their Red State supporters behind. They are insane. They are intractable. They remind me of people who commit suicide by driving the wrong way, at high speed, on the freeway. They want to die, but they also want to take as many other people with them as possible.
I don't want to go with them. I want to leave them behind in the dust and get on with my life. I'm sorry, sir, but they are not going to change. You are naive to think otherwise. Principals? That's a laugh. They're killers for hire.
8
Elephants shedding crocodile tears. Mr. Wehner, the Pottery Barn Principle holds here for you and every other member of the Republican Party who professes to have reservations about what your party has become. This has been coming for well over 30 years. You broke it. You own it.
4
As long as the vast masses of Republican voters take their cue from Faux News and Hate Radio (Alex Jones et al) we can't expect the current "blow it up" trend to change. Titillation is far more fun than having to use one's brain and parse complicated arguments.
Indeed, Trump wasn't the only primary candidate to run on "blow it up," he was only the most entertaining.
I must add my voice to the chorus of those attributing much of the responsibility to Fox News. I have seen first-hand how a family member can be completely and utterly brainwashed by having Fox on from morning til bedtime.
But even more than the extreme right media, Evangelicals and the Catholic Church bear enormous responsibility. At least the old folks watching Fox were slowly brainwashed without being conscious of it. Unlike media, churches are supposed to be true to their creed. Yet, Christian pastors consciously decided that abortion, birth control and gay marriage mean more than every other issue combined, and backed a man so far removed from a true follower of Jesus that it is mind-boggling.
People can starve, die without healthcare or housing, be deported, ripped from their families, income inequality can continue running wild fed by tax cuts for billionaires, billions poured into the military but our alliances and diplomacy gutted, our environment handed over to the fossil fuel and chemical guys, public education gutted.........and as long as POTUS packs SCOTUS and Federal courts with judges who will overturn Roe, roll back gay marriage and outwit birth control coverage mandates, then these pseudo-Christians consider the stench of Trump as POTUS a fair price to pay.
Looking across the horizon, I cannot spot many GOP candidates for the "White Knight" role, yet I pray such a person appears. Maybe a priest or Pastor willing to actually be like Jesus.......
2
New York Times get over it. You have done this to all the Republicans who became president....This is a democracy, and the majority won.
2
No, the majority chose Democratic.
2
i don't buy that there is a trump/bannon connection. i didn't buy that there was a taliban/osama bin laden connection to Saddam Hussien. Bin laden lived in a cave and Hussien shat on a gold toilet and had his hair cut every other day. The great chasm between them on hygiene would've prevented any collusion. Bannon served in the navy and trumps big cultural accomplishment was being on the howard stern show. i just don't get that they are really interested in working together. Bannon was a supposed svengali with Sarah Palin but you saw Trump mocking her in the "squirmish" speech. Trump and Bannon are truly just two ships passing in the night.
1
There is, of course, a simple solution for conservative, previously Republican, thinkers like Mr. Wehner who suddenly find themselves wandering in a wilderness. Vote Democratic for a while. Better yet, become active as a Democrat.
Why waste your time with a Twitter-sodden clown show when there is a competent, fiscally sound and effective political community who would welcome your participation?
2
Alas, Peter, you give us no names, so I will call them out. How about Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, Mike Pence, John Kelly, Reince Priebus, Gen. McMaster, Rex Tillerson, that whole row of Republican candidates he ridiculed and demeaned during the primary; yes, even John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.
1
When does the systematic dismantling of America's constitutional democracy, now veering dangerously toward the facism this country firmly rejected at great cost in WWII, become sedition and treason? Retrograde to the 1950's by reversing law and imposing chaos is not the solution. We are witnessing not just a battle for the Republican party — it is the war of our lifetimes, for our very lives, as Americans in the 21st century.
2
Going against the Republican Herd must begin with young people. ...Look especially to young Evangelicals, Mass-attending Catholics, Mormans and other strong Trump demographics who find themselves entrapped by a religious power structure that demands political, intellectual and ethical acquiescence contrary to its most basic teachings.
The wall that your Church elders have built requires blind obedience to ideas that are deeply flawed and ungodly to maintain this power structure. Trump is working with them to raise the wall around your beliefs --so you will be trapped inside and not see the abundant truths that would liberate you.
There is no justification anywhere for Evangelicals not taking a position against Trump's defense of neo-Nazis at UVA. There is no justification anywhere for Catholics any other church that condones vile treatment of women, racism, Muslim bans --the cult of white Christian superiority exuded by Trump's administration. No religion justifies life-threatening deprivation of healthcare from tens of millions of poor Americans. Further, 50% of Americans have no retirement savings--we face a retirement crisis. The income distribution worsens and Trump/GoP pushes tax reform for the rich. Will it be Mammon or God?
There is a wonderful tradition of religiously motivated American young people challenging authority to do the Lord's work, to do good. Your place is reserved. We're waiting for you with open arms.
1
"Give him a chance," the GOP whined. And if we gave him a chance health care in Americn would be non-existant for the lower and much of the middle classes. Now they're whining, "give us a chance." Why should we?
I honestly suspect that the GOP has stamped a February 2019 expiration date on Trump. If they can hang on that long, they can impeach and give Mike Pence a shot of 10 years instead of 7. And only Trump can sell the base the tax cuts
Pence's job in the meantime is to try to stay on Trump's good side (45 keeps turning around!), try to get on the base's good side (don't want to turn over that rock), and to look "presidential" (Trump lobs paper towels, Pence, well, the British term is 'catalogue man').
In the meantime, the cabinet which Pence put in place, is ripping apart the USA and our Constitution.
6
By covering everything thing the Leninist Steve Bannon is doing, the media is giving legitimacy to him, the same way they legitimatized Donald Trump during the 2016 election cycle. For those with a short memory, qualified presidential candidates were totally ignored by the media in order to give time and space to the antics of Trump, a reality-TV personality with no knowledge of American history or how its government runs. And look what that has done to this country -- we are now in the belly of another civil war. Bannon and Trump both practice the KGB tactic of divide and conquer -- and then totalitarianism.
So please give as much time and space to other campaign managers as you do Steve Bannon. Don't legitimize Bannon to the American public.
5
The mainstream Republicans that we now see as a potentially endangered species created the conditions for their own destruction. If Mitch McConnell and his co-conspirators like Paul Ryan hadn't been telling huge whoppers to their constituents for years, those people might not have been willing to believe Trump's constant lies.
The ideas that tax cuts generate more income and that tax cuts on corporations will end up in higher wages, the promise of a solution better than Obamacare, even though it was originally a Republican project, all led the Republican base to believe in fantasy solutions--even when it was clear to anyone pondering how this magic would work that it couldn't.
And now, what can they do? No one believes anything they say. They promised the sun and moon for free and didn't deliver. They can't admit they lied, and they can't deliver on their magical promises.
No wonder their voters like Trump--he's still offering them free Cool-Aid, and insisting that Hillary would have made them drink beet juice. If Trump has the mental and emotional age of 7, then his voters are thrilled to have a guy who thinks just like they do--steak every day with ice cream, two scoops for me, and golf any time work gets boring. What's not to love?
4
The Weimar Republic didn't take the Nazis seriously, either.
We are teetering on the edge of something much worse than civil war. Be responsible--learn to use a gun, ride a horse, and raise a garden. You'll need those skills if you plan to be alive by mid-century.
7
Is there anyone in the House or the Senate GOP who is willing to go against the herd on the Tax Package? No... because if (or, alas, WHEN) it is passed the establishment Republicans will rejoice because they will have accomplished what Grover Nordquist urged the to do for decades: they will have made the government so small that it can be drowned in a bathtub.
And will there be enough GOP legislators to go against the herd to fully fund the ACA? No... because if they ever did it would acknowledge that the government CAN solve big problems like health care far better than "the marketplace".
And is "conservative politics... an alternative to their case for a revolutionary politics"? I find it unlikely because conservatives are caught in a crossfire: the "ethn-onationalists" who made it possible to pass legislation that hobbles the government that conservatives rail against are now in control... and unseating them will require a willingness to speak out against the anti-intellectual and amoral ethno-nationalists who are calling the shots. If the past eight months are any indication, there are NO takers because being "ennobling" will not win over many of the billionaire donors who love the direction our country is headed.
3
Republicans think they can bring their base back into the fold using the same old trickses, and they are mistaken. They've been using the trickses against their base for years, and the base wised up. The tax cuts - please. Those tax cuts aren't for anyone who makes under 250K annual. Think they're that stupid? They realized they were getting used, and they're using the mainstream Republicans to get what they want, or taking them down with them.
The GOP is heading toward breaking into three parties--Evangelical, faith based social conservatives; Libertarians; and Populist, doomsday nationalists. The only thing that has held them together until now is their thirst for power via control of all three branches of federal government. Steve Bannon has as much in common with John McCain as a wrecking ball has with a Ming vase.
The Democrats may be heading for a similar eventual fate, but when you're a bunch of sheep wandering through the wilderness the last thing the shepherds are thinking about is how you split up the herd.
The question is how long the GOP will take to implode, and whether we become a nation governed by coalitions of smaller political parties, as is the case in other countries. Trump and Bannon have lit the fuse. None of us know for sure how long it will burn.
1
Sure hope there are takers to your proposals, and defeat the 'evil forces' based on arrogant ignorance and spite, with our vulgar bully in chief leading its 'base' to the slaughterhouse. You may agree that republican resentment and bias was an ongoing under-reported reality, otherwise Trump's ascension to the presidency could not be imagined. It is the complicity with this liar's intent to continue to fool the misinformed, and prejudiced, folks to hold on to power...and abuse it to its full potential. Remember the 'Birtherism hysteria' of unscrupulous Trump? Did you hear 'peep' from conservatives? Didn't think so. Ethno-nationalism has been tried elsewhere, to our deep shame. Can't we learn from it?
Beautifully articulated. I wish the author were a member of Congress, assuming he'd show the same level of thoughtfulness and outspokenness
1
Bannonism is just an extension of the Republican Party journey for the past 50 years. The Republican establishment allowed the southern strategy, silent majority, evangelicals religious beliefs should be law, shrinking government to drown it in the bath tub, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, embracing Tea Party and it is all about me to become the core of the Republican party. Out of this core the total legislative accomplishment of the modern Republicans is to cut taxes for the rich. They will get in bed with anyone to accomplish this goal including Bannon, the Mercers and the Koch Brothers. Mr. Wehner this column should have been written 50 years ago when Nixon started this insane journey for the Republicans. This maybe the point at which the focus on Bannonism as the problem and stopping it might be considered a solution to late.
1
Republicans who have stuck to their party this long, after countless disturbing Trumpist incidents that should have chased them toward the exits, have something very wrong with their characters. I respect the "never Trump" Republicans who've been critical from the start. But this sorry group of 40% of the nation that STILL supports this disgrace of a man are a disgrace themselves.
1
Nixon's embrace of the Southern racists after the Civil Rights Act started the Trump-Bannon movement. Mr. Bannon's billionaire funder and technologist, Robert Mercer, is using technology to unite not only the racists courted by Nixon, but also all the angry young men and their significant others who love to be in our faces with foul language and fist fights rather than the facts and reason which drive good government.
Bannon, like Putin, does not believe in democracy and wants the destruction of our democracy. They prefer a dictatorship and some are even willing to say so. The have much in common with the Italians who honored Mussolini because he made the trains arrive on time. They want strict rules enforced by a powerful dictator. And they want women to be subjects of men.
Through Mercer and his company, Cambridge Analytics, Bannon believes they can find and unite like minded voters and turn them into a winning coalition. So far they are doing a good job of it -- along with the help of another fan of dictatorship, Vladmir Putin. Trump won. Roy Moore won. Neil Gorsuch won.
Those of us who still believe in democracy -- Republicans and Democrats alike need to use similar technology to Mercer's to build our own coalition or we will be doomed to be governed by Trump or his ilk in a dictatorship. I believe there are more of us than them, but right now we need new tools and new dedication to form a new coalition.
2
People of all political positions still discount the very real fact that Trump promised Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid would be sacrosanct and improved rather than being at risk which these programs would have been with any other Republican Presidential Candidate in 2016.
I am more than willing to believe millions of Trump voters made their decision to nominate and elect him did so believing that Trump made that promise to them.
I am also more than willing to believe that in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan there were far more than the 88,000 voters who delivered Trump those states electoral votes who voted for him because they believe these programs would be an safe hands with Donald Trump.
The New Deal and Great Society programs are so ingrained in our American culture that Americans take them for granted to the great detriment of the Democratic Party which does it's best to retain and improve them.
3
When talking about Trump/Hilter, it is always good to review history, REAL History. The Conservative elements of the Weimar Republic and VonHindenburg elements wanted Hitler to succeed against the growing Communist threat. Whole areas had come under their sway, especially in Bavaria.
The Monet powerful economic interests, like the Krupps, and the Conservative Elite, the Junkers, both believed that Hitler could be used to win the election given his fire brand populism. That he would come around to lose some of his more extreme views was the common perception.
We know that Hitler outfoxed the traditional people and the rest is history. Hitler removed the co- heads of the General staff, Beck and Von Fristch , and put his supporters in charge. Trump is assembling his Generals , turning a man like Gen. Kelly into a liar and an embarrassment to his career. How many other former servants of the nation has he effected? Put into a position ?
Should we fear a Putsch like Hitlers? Who will the army support? The Commander in chief or the Constitution? We know who Putin supports.
6
Sorry. But thankfully there are still quite a few things that Trump must undertake before truly becoming a 'Hitler'.
I'm German. I know this.
I also know that this country is in serious danger of first turning into some kind of a authoritarian state with the Republicans in control of all three branches of your government.
Either with, or without Putin's support -- this is scary.
2
"As the world now knows, these feelings of powerlessness, resentment and grievance are widespread, and as a candidate Mr. Trump tapped into them perfectly. "
And what was the source of those feelings? It was decades of lying that came out conservative media and the GOP leadership. Republicans had been lying about what they would do once elected, and conservative commentators like those on Fox News and Breitbart had been convincing the base of things that are simply factually inaccurate. The election of Donald Trump - a man with no knowledge of policy, and who lies as he breathes - is simply the culmination of the Republican party's communication policy of "branding, not content."
You guys dug this hole, you have to dig yourselves out of it.
9
Your analysis is spot on in my opinion. Your solution fills the hole too slowly for my taste (fear?) and limits the possibility of building something better.
Nothing wrong with reaching across that dark deep hole to offer a hand in public friendship. Fox holes make fast friends from all walks of life.
Maybe this period will allow all sides willing to open up a bit to see the mutuality necessary for a “gentle life”.
The end of tolerance. A party in power by the thinnest of margins claims absolutism their divine right to take a wrecking ball to the 200 year framework we know as America. Theirs' (they claim) are the only values and methods that can be tolerated. Theirs' is the only vision for America's future that can be embraced.
Everything else is the enemy. Everyone else is to be denigrated and shouted down. with a mentality of "you're either with us, or against us" that cannot be questioned.
And what happens if voters overwhelmingly reject the Trump/Bannon party ethos in next year's election? What then if a new sheriff and posse come to town. Will Trumpists and Bannonites embrace the new direction and vision as fervently? Because the results of THAT election will then be "the will of the people" because the "people have spoken". Will Trumpists and Bannonites adhere to the new party's mantra? Whatever it may be?
Or will they continue to see themselves as the only true Americans? Where their values are the only values that matter. Where there wants and wishes are the only items to be addressed by government and those of everyone else are ignored.
If so, how far off might a civil war be?
2
After the recent events in Charlottesville, Va. and Donald Trump's well documented response to it, literally calling white nationalists and neo-Nazis "fine people" -- You can rest assured that a civil war may not be as far off as you might think.
2
The sooner republicans realize that Trump and Bannon are two heads of the same monster, that they themselves in their blind and racially motivated hatred of everything Obama, the better for them. In his farewell speeches President Obama tried to warn them but that warning fell on deaf ears.
Trump and Bannon are parasites, they cannot survive without a host and in the end they will destroy their host, in this case the republican party. Trump has no agenda but himself, has no policy but self aggrandizement, no knowledge but how to flame bias and hatred and dupe people and has no ideas or ideals. And how many times does he have to demonstrate he has no empathy. None of this should surprise anyone who watched Trump 's failures as a businessman.
Bannon is the brain in Trump's empty cranium - his great idea is to destroy. But what comes after that destruction? He has no clue. Unable to answer President Bush's restrained and well thoughtout critique of the current administration Bannon descends into the muck of personal attacks. He knows he cannot argue against the ideas and ideals of our great country, for those are what millions have bled and died, what still makes USA the one beacon of democracy and freedom for the rest of the world to follow.
The battle for survival of the republican party and even this great union is at our doorstep. It is time for the moderate republicans to openly reject Trump and Bannon and join hands with their democratic colleagues in this epic battle.
5
We've been in liberal lala-land for so long that actual common sense ideas like controlling immigration and growing the GDP through less regulation and taxes sound like heresy. Well, if those ideas are representive of the herd, count me in.
3
I, for one, happen to think that controlling the proliferation of nuclear weapons, saving the environment, and avoiding a third wolrd war also rank up there in terms of importance.
We obviously belong to two different herds.
3
Mr. Wehner, all due respect, but for the past 50 years the Republican Party has had one mission: to realize the policy goals of the Scaifes, Olins, Mellons, Kochs, and other billionaire funders who own the party. In other words, to enact in law the sociopathic belief that accumulation of wealth and power by an individual should have no checks at all - regardless of the costs to other people. Since there is no natural, widespread constituency for policies that cut taxes on the very, very wealthy while cutting services for everyone else; for letting oil and chemical companies pollute our air and water with no consequence but outsize profits for themselves; for keeping wages as low as possible while ensuring that exotic financial instruments have no oversight; and other policies that benefit the elite few at the expense of the rest of us, the billionaire party had to sell something other than its actual goals to win over voters. That something was white, Christian, rural identity politics.
Your party and its donors have spent billions of dollars stoking resentments and pushing out all sorts of lies to get voters to vote "your way." I'm glad that you finally see this is a problem, but I'm concerned that you don't understand/acknowledge both that the GOP actively created this problem, and the fact that the greedy, selfish, ideology of your donor class is sociopathic, and must be resisted everywhere and always.
3
It breaks my heart & makes me sick to see that magnificent mammal -- the elephant -- as a symbol of today's Republican party. So very sad.
10
For years, the Republican Party has made the “liberal elite” the boogeyman.
The Republican voters are mad at the liberal elite like me.
I learned I was the liberal elite in the Bush election of 2000.
I grew up in a blue collar family, first generation in my family to go to college.
I worked my way through high school and college, going to a state university in math and computers which I paid for myself. Saved my money and got a masters in engineering which I paid for myself.
But Bush was the regular guy even though he is third generation multi-millionaire, whose family paid for him to go to Yale and then to Harvard.
And what makes Republicans call me a liberal is that I want to help people less fortunate than myself.
Kind of sounds like a Christian but so many Christians I know go to church on Sunday and say buyer beware Monday through Friday.
I want to pay more taxes to help those factory workers with retraining and health care.
But for them, I am the liberal elite and the bad guy.
Go figure.
Obviously, the Republicans have great marketing. In fact, it is Orwellian.
315
No you are a liberal because you want to use government to assist those that you think need it. Use your own money by charity and everyone would approve.
@Vulcanex
Yes, some of us think government can do good things.
Some of us are not drinking the Libertarian kool-aid that is only making the rich get richer and poverty and prison increase.
Public education helped moved us ahead of Britain a hundred years ago.
Public education allowed me to move up from working class to professional class.
And I pay more taxes as a result.
It would be in your best interest to reduce poverty, get people educated and working and paying taxes instead of paying for welfare and prison.
Go look at a country like Germany or Denmark or Switzerland. They don't have the poverty we have. And they do it with government schools and government health care.
And Germany has faced the same globalization and is known for manufacturing. They retrain their workers for high-tech manufacturing and other trades.
But some people would rather pay for prison than pay for pre-school.
2
The GOP needs to atone. The Main Street Republicans many of us would sometimes vote for, the party that espoused responsible foreign relations, sensible business strategies, and government restraint in areas better solved by commercial enterprises, has long been replaced by a zombie version which has been sucking the country dry. The worst misstep was the decision to cooperate and support right wing media instead of condemning them for their fact-free support of conservative positions. Although originally seen as a way to pump up support among the various factions of the party, it quickly turned into an engine of misinformation and hate that led to the Tea Party and Trump (and Putin). Those who want to redeem the party could start by admitting and renouncing their role in this effort to split the country.
4
Mr. Wehner's attempt to resurrect the Republican Party's dead and buried ideals from a fifty-year old crypt falls flat as soon as one realizes Trump is the only possible outcome for a party whose spokespeople have for decades been raw and ugly entertainers like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, and Ann Coulter. Trump simply realized there was no longer a need to pretend the party stood for anything other than lower taxes (for the rich), pro-life policies (for the unborn, but not for those out of the womb), and white power. There won't be any serious opposition to Trump from Republican leaders because he's the realization of their long-held desire to reduce government to rubble and allow the ascendance of plutocrats wearing designer halos so as to justify the prosperity gospel necessary to appease the fundamentalist base.
8
The Rs are forever branded by, and indelibly stained by the almost indescribable conduct, words, and mean spiritedness of Trump.
The only thing more disgusting than him is the tacit approval and deafening silence of Ryan, McConnell and the rest of the mostly white guy toadies that continue to sit on their hands.
Corker, McCain - thank you brave men, but it's not enough to pull the party out the self induced pile of sewage it wallows in.
I say - good riddance
3
The Republicans like Wehner, who would head to the doors represent maybe 3% of the Party and fewer of its voters. They make a difference only at the margin. Of course, they carry with them a disproportinate share of the party's big donors, but the more ideologically energized a group is, the less $ matters, and blood and soil is plenty energizing. The only hope for traditional republicans is that either Trump is a total disaster (and we survie the North Korean Fallout), or he proves a one-time shot who does not anoint a successor or 6. But the odds are low. The Wehner's GOP is probably dead.
1
"Their rage at the establishment is off the charts. They want to burn the village down." -- And then what? Every man/woman for himself/herself?
Seems like terrible-two's toddler temper tantrum to me -- infecting our entire society. Taken to its (patha)logical extreme, how is this different from, say,
literally nuking the nation back to the Stone Age and starting all over? Is that really what people want for their children and grandchildren?
2
Mr. Wehner, while I find much to agree with in this article, your argument still falls short. Given the divisiveness of the day there is not a single thoughtful principled politician of either party that should be considering a tax cut. On this issue, and as a student of economics, I explicitly exclude Paul Rand. He is, excuse my French, an idiot. Until you and your pretend displeased Republican colleagues pull the plug on the tax cut debate, things will just get worse. And, yes, the tax cut being discussed will make things much worse.
2
As long as Republicans are more focused on "winning" than governing to the benefit of the nation, we all lose.
5
I don't understand what you're worried about. Whether it's Bannon or mainstream republicans, you all seem thrilled at the prospect of tax cuts for the wealthy, a resulting deficit, gutting or eliminating healthcare for the poor and sick, and removing regulations on most everything. From my seat, you're all on the same page. Trump and Bannon are just more crude and upfront about it.
4
Maybe the nihilism is a natural outgrowth of this sort of rebellion. It's not so different from ISIS destroying their own history including ancient works from the Assyrian Empire, the Taliban blowing up the 8th-century Buddhist bas-reliefs in Afghanistan. It doesn't take a lot of brains to blow things up, it is building them with a solid foundation that really distinguishes leadership. Instead of pursuing policies that build up and strengthen the US, most of what has been done over the last decade is starving out, disrupting or scuppering any genuine attempt to fix anything that really needs to be fixed in America. It is easier than doing the real job of working. As Thomas Edison said, "there is no expedient that a man will not resort to in order to avoid the real effort of working."
2
McConnell and Ryan and their accomplices in Congress labored for 8 years to make Obama a failed president. Their failure and their lack of positive ideas or polices on anything led us directly to Trump.
Unless they want their party, the one that they always place ahead of country, to become nothing more than a vessel for Trumpism, and the accompanying racism, nativism and white supremacy that it engenders, they need to act and they need to act quickly. Action doesn't require impeachment or the 25th Amendment, neither of which they will do, action requires them to put country over Trump.
Stop comfirming his clearly unqualified, unfit and unacceptable nominees. Stop trying to passs critical legislation like tax cuts for the rich and the destruction of the healthcare system with Republican votes only. Force Trump and his family members to release their tax returns so we know how much they will personally benefit from this sham tax reform. Pass legislation to make it impossible for an unbalanced president to lauch a nuclear first strike.
The list of what the Republicans in Congress could do is long and not very complicated. But this would require them to do something they have forgotten how to do, put country over party. Show some principle. Act like statesmen.
I'm not holding my breath.
186
Resistance is not a good option and his nominees are mostly highly competent, as will be those judges.
Does this mean you're for or against lobbyist Ed Gillespie's racist advertising in Virginia, which after all is but a variation on a theme Republicans have deployed since Nixon. Trump didn't invent it, he just perfected it. Establishment - "good"- Republicans say they are revolted by Trump, though they've long cheered the electoral results of similar divisive tactics. Spare me the sanctimony.
2
It's time for a "radical" moderate/centrist party to coalesce. Tag line: e pluribus unum. Our failed binary politics needs to transform -- the sooner, the better. Enough with the wedge issues, enough with the destructiveness. The US is hopelessly vulnerable when divided into red and blue. Now is the moment. Our great nation is too important for this Trash. Moderates stand up before it's too late.
3
This is exactly what Democrats like Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr argued for in books like "Who Are We?" and "The Disuniting of America, Reflections on a Multicultural Society." Let's hope they are finally belatedly listened to.
1
Like many long-time Republicans, I view this administration as ineffective and misguided. However, reading the comments, I also suspect many long-term Republicans recall the calumny heaped upon the Bush presidents, Reagan, Romney - basically any non-liberal - by coastal commentators. Thus these cavils are viewed as indiscriminate and so contribute nothing to the cause of getting Republican leaders to stand up.
3
What the US really needs is a parliamentary system of government in which coalitions are more common or even the norm. The Republicans would split into two parties, the Wehner old-style internationalist Republicans and the Bannon flat-earthers. The Democrats would also split, into a left-of-center internationalist party and a more classic socialist party. Four parties. Most of our governments would be coalitions. People could align themselves with parties who actually fit their personal philosophies but they'd also have to cooperate.
3
Living in a parliamentary system in Canada i can vouch for the above...many of our progressive laws have been enacted because of coalitions between the liberal and the democratic socialist parties...such coalitions can also be used to defeat regressive policies by the conservatives or if not defeat water them down.
1
Sure Bannon is obnoxious and destructive.
For that reason, Republicans who understand this should make themselves heard.
It would help sane Republicans understand that if they get together, their undercounted, underreported numbers will not be steamrolled by Bannon's media illusion of power and inevitability.
'Herd' is a word implying a majority. Bannon does not speak for the GOP majority.
1
Until a Republican with something to lose comes out and speaks out against Trump etc., the rest of us are going to summarily dismiss any Republican's speech against Trump, etc.
7
The establishment Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, Paul Ryan, etc. are about to pass a tax “reform” package.
It will cut taxes for the rich and for corporations.
By now it has been proven that “tax cuts for the job creators” and trickle-down economics do not create jobs.
It will add $1.5 Trillion to the debt to be paid for by our children and grandchildren.
It will give Republicans the excuse to make cuts to Medicare and Medicaid with their work to make the rich even richer.
But “normal” Republicans like Mr. Wehner don’t seem to have problem with that.
The record show that deficits went up under Reagan, HW Bush and W Bush and deficits went down under Clinton and Obama.
But still way too many voters still think the Republicans are the party of fiscal Responsibility.
5
Time for Democrats and Independents to register as Republicans in all states. Until the nightmare is over.
Time for Democrats and Independents to vote against Republicans in all states is more like it.
1
Time for independents and smart people to vote against Republicans AND Democrats in all states is more like it.
@Chris
Sorry. You're in Berlin. It doesn't work like that here....Anyway, that's how we ended up with the mess we're in now.
2
Good essay that attempts to alert Republicans who think they can "domesticate" the Bannon-Trump nationalist nonsense. Republicans need only review German history of 1932-33 and discover the politicians who thought they would control and limit Adolf Hitler's worst impulses as he assumed control via a democratic process. He ate their lunch. McConnell, Ryan and the gang better learn from history or they( and us) will be forced to relive it. It can't happen here? We'll see.
5
It already has.
3
Right, as if that is going to happen.
2
Peter Wenner is a serious thinker whose observations are taken seriously by us, the Democrats who find Steve Bannon and Donald Trump dangerous and despicable.
The Republicans who believe that they can tame Bannon and Trump by meekly going along with them are fools.
If the power of the Democrats’ resistance and the sheer wackiness of Trump’s anti-government measures leads to failure, Wenner is correct that “a lot of lifelong Republicans would head for the exits.”
The Democratic Party has a sufficiently large tent, and we should welcome those sane Republicans to the conservative (sort of) wing of our party.
2
"It’s politically dominant but increasingly unpopular, particularly among young people and nonwhites of all ages, whose level of unhappiness with Mr. Trump and his administration is toxic."
The level of unhappiness with Mr. Trump and his administration is not toxic.
The level of non stop lies and forced verbal collusion with Donald J.Trump by Chief of Staff John Kelley, Secretary Sara Huckabee Sanders and former press secretary Sean Spicer is Toxic to all that is good in our country.
Stop the segregation of various skin colors ect., in your articles and our country of equal citizens of all shades, sexes, and ages might be finally become great.
As a long time follower of US politics, there is a bit of sense to the drain the swamp analogy, in that many republicans in the house come from gerrymandered districts and many senators have their financing guaranteed - so there is no sense in rocking the boat.
Out of the 535 members in the house and senate, how many are raising their voices about anything. Go along and get along is the philosophy of almost everyone. If you raise your voice, you get threatened with a battle you don't want. Why lose my job over this? I just want my paycheck.
Until the fear of losing their cushy jobs and gagging on the issue while pushing the yes button goes away, nothing will happen. This however will require a significant event and I am not sure if they are up to it given most act like brown nosers.
2
From what I have seen, establishment Republicans have no intention of taking on Trump and Bannon. I truly, truly fear for the future of our country. The politics of opposition and hatred created by the GOP during Obama's presidency culminated in the election of a truly unqualified, treasonous boor. I don't know if those who voted for him have any clue what they've unleashed, but I fear our country may not survive.
4
This is a tricky article to parse. How can Wehner be so vehemently anti-Trump yet fail to name one of his policies that he opposes? Could it be that Trump has ripped the mask off of the Republicans' agenda, the one that has been there the whole time? With any luck the whirlwind sweeps away those who have sown the seeds of bigotry and hate. In the past fair face has often concealed a foul heart. Now the ugly face of a brute is the true representation of the benighted core of the Republican Party.
5
I get so tired of Republicans like Mr. Wehner refusing to acknowledge their part in creating the situation we are currently in. They went along with the Southern Strategy, they didn't complain about the "birther" thing, they did everything they possibly could to demonize middle of the road Democratic presidents (Clinton and Obama, both). They have even made Nancy Pelosi - another moderate - the anti-Christ of their base. So now the base is out of control and they are acting amazed that something like this could happen. Spend decades demonizing the other side, calling them baby murderers and Communists, and then - surprise! - the not very bright base has bought it all, hook, line and sinker. And we are stuck with Trump and his nasty cohorts. Thanks, Mr. Wehner.
10
While I appreciate Mr. Wehner's reflections on the state of the GOP, I remain angry with the Republican Party, in general, since its members enabled this dishonest, mentally unstable con man to gain power in the first place. The GOP has been winking and nodding at white racism since the days of the Nixon team's infamous "southern strategy." White nationalism was the natural outgrowth of this ongoing strategy. The party of Lincoln's newfound concern about its dangers is many years late. Let's hope the GOP establishment's concern is genuine and timely enough to check and reverse its proliferation and to reign in a Commander-in-Chief who is dangerously unfit for office. Unfortunately, right now all we see is a GOP intent on getting tax cuts for the wealthy pushed through Congress and signed off on by the president. This isn't encouraging.
135
"Right now it’s a season of war against the G.O.P. establishment.”What is this? How can a person declare war? Suppose someone declared war on the Red Cross? Does it violate some Law hat this man has declared war on the United States? Does it put him in the same category as North Korea?
1
So Mr. Wehner, could you please, for the sake of our nation and the Republican Party, expand enormously on the impact of your Op-Ed by making a few private calls, to McCain, Corker, Collins and Murkowski, and maybe Graham, and arrange a private meeting to strategize together on concrete, near-term ways to give political cover and encouragement to MORE Republucan Senate colleagues to stand more united and more numerously against Trumpism?! Please, please grab a couple of your most influential contacts and together approach these Senators to launch a campaign to rally "so-called establishment" Republucans into an overt, out-of-the-closet bloc of opposition against the looniest and most toxic elements of Trumpism, advocating a return to bipartisanship in American governance. Yours should no longer be a lonely voice, and the same goes for the isolated, disparate, courageous voices of the few Senators who have so far taken a stand.
6
When you combine a couple of Wehner’s statements such as. “Republicans have all the power but can’t seem to get much of anything done,” and “they have developed a disdain for the hard, intricate work of governing,” one cannot help but cheer. America could not dodge the Trump bullet, but the continuing spectacle of racialized rhetoric, an inability to formulate cogent policies, and absolutely breathtaking stupidity and incompetence suggests that we may all get through this “unpleasantness” with minimal damage to our nation. Trump and his little minions may be vile but fortunately they are also clueless.
2
Ha, ha, ha.
Mr. Wehner should be on Comedy Central.
Bannonism IS Republicanism.
It's just uglier than the Republicanism of the past.
But Republicanism's values are mostly the same.
9
Pressure congressional GOP members to work with the moderate Democrats on legislation that is not radical. Force them to stand up when Trump blatantly lies. Pass campaign finance reform so lunatic billionaires have a harder time bankrolling people like Bannon. Pressure Fox News to tell the truth and report the unsettling stories.
104
Pressure dems not to resist everything. To improve the ACA, which means massive changes that are basically repeal and replace, pass tax reform, pass infrastructure, pass dreamers bill, and many others.
The author is correct to mention Alex Jones and Breitbart. This media fringe, and the slightly-less-enraged Fox, have put "conservatives" in a predicament.
As a nation we tend to forget that we've essentially run the Republican playbook for the past 35 years, while at the same time flogging the "liberals are insane/evil/etc" narrative until a sizable portion of the country literally thinks their liberal neighbors deserve to be dealt with if not violently, then certainly forcefully and as dismissively as possible.
If the center-right has failed this bloc (and oh they have, exceptionally), and anything that remotely sniffs of center-left is viewed as evil, where is there to go? Only further right, towards authoritarianism.
The sane right needs to tear down their media apparatus, stat.
5
This country is in grave danger and most people are too busy identifying themelves in one way or another, to realize it.
This is just what Steve Bannon wanted.
To create the identity-driven chaos we now find ourselves in -- and with Donald Trump, he found the perfect ring-leader.
It's easy enough to point a finger of blame at Republicans,
after all, they're the ones who have lusted over having total control over the government.
And they're the ones who have gone to unspeakable lengths in order to get it...even though they still don't know what to do with it.
And now that they've vanquished any posssible opposition from another party, they are squabbling amongst themselves.
Just like Steve Bannon wanted.
Don't fool yourselves.
His entrance into and dismissal from the White House was just a ruse.
He's been the one controlling the train all along, and it's out of control.
Responsible Republicans who confess to having a patriotic love for this country, now have little or no choice -- either bring this train to a halt.
Or get out of the way.
7
Mr. Wehner fears that Trumpism and Bannonism might cause his Republican Party to “collapse intellectually and morally.” What he fails to see is that this happened long ago. Modern conservatism is an abject failure as a political ideology. It has no answers or policies to deal with our most pressing social, economic, and international concerns. For two generations now, the only thing it has offered is tax cuts for the wealthy. A side from that, it has long been a bastion of white racial resentment, crazy conspiracy theories, and religious demagogy. Just because the party leadership and donor class were able to, more or less, keep a lid on all the vileness from boiling over, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t always there.
8
The present tax bill is being promoted by the GOP based on one HUGE lie and two threats: (LIE) it will primarily benefit the middle class and (2 THREATS) non-passage will destroy the GOP party and collapse the stock market.
After non-passage of three health bills that would actually have caused thousands of Americans to die from non-access to health care and greatly increased personal medical bankruptcies -- the emptiness and corruption of the entire party is laid bare for all.
Shoddy self-serving bills crafted for their donors benefit and the electorate's harm -- this party SHOULD die.
7
I find the term "white identity politics" interesting. It was the Democrats that initiated "identity politics," which did not include White people, who are still the majority in this country. The Democrats, in a misguided effort to be inclusive, became exclusive by ignoring White America. Now they wonder why they find themselves the resistance party, which means they are not in control. Until they figure out how to be inclusive of White people, they will remain the resistance party.
1
The best thing principled Republican opponents of Bannon and Trump can do for the party and the nation is to follow the lead of Senators McCain, Flake and Corker and of President Bush, by speaking out forcefully against Trump and Trumpism. They should also vote for Democrats they can live with over Republicans they cannot.
151
We hear that the Bannonites are a minority, IF moderates are truly the majority, why can the majority not vote against the Bannon/Trump horror and prevail?
2
Unfortunately, Republicans made a deal with the devil on this one and the bargain is now blowing up in their faces. Those who don’t want to be absorbed by this dangerous development need to separate from it one way or the other. They should split the party, or vote for Democrats if they can stand to do it.
Given the intensity and irrationality of these Bannon types, there is little chance they will be able to meet them halfway. They will get crushed if they stay. The only hope of defeating these people is to make them lose not to help them hold power.
2
Yes except retire. One has brain cancer and surely is not behaving as he might without it, the other is retiring and no longer represents his citizens, and the last I really don't know much about.
You have to begin with the courage of recognizing that Trumpism is the heart of the Republican party. You ran a game of appealing to the worst in your base and then serving the plutocrats with decorum. Now the base wants to live the nihilism that you promised them. Donald Trump is McConnell without the winking.
3
Crocodile tears from Mr. Wehner. He laments the desolate politics wrought by a "trickle down" GOP which he envisions in his mind as blue sky and compassionate politics. And out of the same mouth Wehner excoriates Bannon's vision of more of the same. Bannon's GOP however now represents the natural course of events, the Darwinian course of history and the rightful heirs of the GOP. The modern GOP is now successful, holy, vengeful, merciless, culture warriors begotten by the success of a Reagan 'revolution' and a Faustian Southern strategy.
You broke it Mr. Wehner. Own it.
4
The GOP has spent the better part of the last 40 years appealing to the lowest, most close minded, intolerant portion of their base. They did this to distract from the fact that these people were voting against their own economic interests by supporting the GOP. Give people someone to blame and they won't notice that your policies are responsible for their current problems.
Now that this wing of the party has taken over and can't be controlled the GOP is scared as they should be. Irrational people do crazy things like blow up trade deals just because they can or vote against healthcare repeal because it's not mean enough. You created this monster and you deserve whatever happens next to your party.
The rest of us don't deserve to go down with the ship. We need someone who has a vision for the country like FDR's New deal, JFK's concept of doing for your country, or LBJ's great society. Clinton was Republican-lite and Obama was a corporate America sellout. Both were good presidents but they weren't great presidents.
The next president needs to be someone who has a vision for how we can move forward into this more connected multicultural country we're becoming. Responsible Republicans will need to decide if they are going to support country or party. If they choose party then they don't get to complain about the direction the GOP has taken.
134
You might want this but I and many others want a president and congress that places the benefit of US citizens above everyone else. I assume that leaders of other countries do the same.
Placing Americans in the cross-hairs of a nuclear war, possibly leaving millions without afforrdable health coverage -- while giving tax breaks to ultra-wealthy is hardly placing the benefit of U.S. citizens above everyone else.
1
I would suggest that if Bannon wins, the traditional Republicans take their money and themselves and either form a new party or become independents.
2
The country is in crisis not because of the corrosiveness of Trump, Bannon and their ilk, but because of the silence of "establishment" Republicans. They are a moral disgrace, foolishly believing they will prevail since they hold all levers of power. They are destroying their party and their country.
Here's hoping that they succeed in splitting the party in two. The Republicans have already split the country to a degree not seen since the Civil War, with their scorched earth policies of the last 8 years.
Like all fanatics, they can only tear down; they have no interest in building.
2
The GOP has been using dog whistle politics from Nixon, through Reagan and both Bushes. Remember Lee Atwater and Karl Rove? They have appealed to the worst in people to distract from their policies that benefited only the 1%, and convinced people to vote against their own self-interest for decades. This was done knowingly and brought to its logical conclusion with the nomination and election of Trump, a man smug in his ignorance who campaigned on racism, sexism, homophobia, nativism and more. He is a con man who managed to convince Kentucky coal miners that they would get their jobs back. He encouraged people to hate others rather than better themselves to compete in the 21st century knowledge economy. He chose a religious zealot as his VP, a man whose views are so extreme that it was unlikely that he would have been reelected. The GOP was determined not to allow President Obama to succeed and their stated goal was to make him a failed president. So, you are reaping what you have sown with Bannon as the poster child for white nationalism that glosses over anti-semitism, sexism, nativism, isolationism, and plain bigotry. There is no cheat sheet for POTUS. He is uniquely unsuited for the job: a lazy liar, a narcissist, ethically bankrupt, and unaware of governance or diplomacy. You broke it. You own it. It could not happen to nicer people.
2
If even a small group of Republicans felt this way the election would have had a different outcome. The "never Trump" could not defeat the "never Democrat". And so we are left with a Republican Party with no soul and no morals, sinking into the abyss and dragging the rest of us with them in a bizarre murder-suicide.
9
And worse than that, we are still left with Electoral College system which is guaranteed to produce the same results.
It has outlived its purpose.
Time to shut it down and let the People decide whom they want to vote for.
2
Why are so many non-Republicans replying irrelevantly and irreverently to Mr. Wehner's inquiry ["Any takers?"] directed solely to Republicans..?
Commenter Avatar says, "To be fair, Mr. Wehner has been a Trump denier for quite a while. But he has also been an ardent supporter of the Republican Party...Mr. Wehner can't have it both ways. When you support the cause you need to take responsibility for the effect."
Yes, Avatar, but it Great, Good News that Mr. Wehner has wakened up. He can convince other "conservatives" that they are making a bed of thorns that will destroy them, too. I applaud Mr. Wehner for having the courage to see the truth and speak up publicly. Please, Good People who have recognized the mistake that put The Con Don in OUR white house and his Robber Baron friends in charge of the destruction of OUR government speak up now. Tell your friends. Show them proof. Do not let mistakes in choice or non-action destroy democracy.
1
The GOP has been devoid of true leaders for some time, choosing to divide and cast as 'others' anyone and anything opposed to their orthodoxy.
Along the way, the GOP willfully turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the radical, fear-mongering nationalistic and theocratic elements making their way in to the party structure and seizing control, which allowed the devolution and debasement of the party to the ultimate conclusion of putting an incompetent, bigoted, arrogant, and dangerous narcissist in the oval.
In the absence of true leadership the people will listen to the loudest, most bombastic voice in the room as evidenced by the current know nothing POTUS.
(someone famous said something like this, but I can't remember who.)
The GOP is destined to cannibalize itself because of these choices to wrestle in the mud with pigs and get dirty. And it is likely best that this occur, driving out in to the broad daylight, the dangerous and ignorant who support Jones, Bannon and Trump.
Truth and integrity will win, but it is going to be an ugly ride.
We can't disinfect society of these awful hatreds and fears until we see the disease clearly, and these awful people are exposing the disease in all its horror for us to see.
8
Mr. Wehner, can we please admit that these are the fruits of the labor for the Republican party for the last 30 years? Please, please, please, a simple mea culpa.
11
Just imagine how different things would be if RFK had become president in 1968 rather than Nixon
7
Or Al Gore had become prez. We wouldn't have gone into debt for. 3 unfunded wars, wouldn't have killed, maimed, traumatized so many troops. We would have become the most advanced, clean energy nation on globe.
Total waste.
3
For decades the GOP has used racial dog whistles and religious paranoia to terrorize their base into not noticing that their actual policies are bad for average people and small business.
To win this people back they'll need some real policies that will help actual people and not the Koch donors.
8
Bannon and Trump - make no mistake, Trump holds the veto power with whatever Bannon does - attack McConnell because he is weak. McConnell has neither the spine nor conviction to stand up to them. McConnell doesn't deserve to lead his party.
Bannon and Trump offer no alternative ideology but only the incendiary slogans and familiar tropes of fascism. It is why their attacks are so personal: they are hollow except for their loathing.
6
TRUMP = Public Enemy #1. His margin of victory in the swing states that gave him the electoral votes to steal the presidency, was 1% consistently, which was also too narrow a margin to trigger automatic recounts of the votes. The probability that he would have won all states by 1%, calculated so the votes would not be reexamined, strongly suggests that the whole system was rigged. There is clear evidence that the Russians hacked into a number of voting organizations; but it has been claimed that they were not able to influence the election. I believe that detailed, deep investigation into the swing states that gave Trump his electoral, but NOT his POPULAR victory, will ultimately reveal that Trump had the Russians hand him the presidency. Now I'd say that's the commission of high crimes and treason, the language used in the Constitution to describe impeachable offenses. I'm pretty certain that Mueller has the rigging of the vote in 2016 in his gunsights. What Trumps (pun intended) impeachment, however, his severely deficient language, memory and executive functions of the brain. Meaning that he is medically incapable of fulfilling his official duties, the definition of the trigger for the invocation of the 25th Amendment, which would get rid of Trump overnight. Pence is also on thin ice because of obstruction of justice in the Flynn case. So he's out. Ryan and McConnell, with their high security clearances are probably on the way out too, leaving us with Orrin Hatch.
3
The amazing thing to me in Trumpism is that Christians and parents of daughters support him. Even the Boy Scouts were burned by his words and impact on kids.
7
You Republicans deserve all this. We, the rest of America, certainly do not but we will survive. Nevertheless, you Republicans should realize that Trump's supporters are a minority of the electorate. He didn't win the most votes, just the most Electoral Votes. Trump ran against a polarizing Hillary. Had we Dems nominated Joe Biden I seriously doubt Trump would have won.
Those poor souls who voted for Trump will never be satisfied or even helped; they will forever be the underclass. They will make a lot of noise but I believe most Americans now see the error, the danger, of voting for someone like Trump or a candidate supported by Bannon. States like Alabama may not but the majority will. then all this will end. Remember Newt and his Contract With America? Bannon is just a sloppier dressed Newt, without the Stepford wife
8
A year after the election and another wizened plea to turn the herd, Mr Wehner is missing like-minded colleagues and a strategy. But otherwise fair winds prevail.
Concerning Mr Wehner's "..many of the lifelong Republican conservatives who never boarded the Trump train.." supposition, here's the real 411: If you voted Trump, you boarded his train.
Some unsolicited advice is as follows: Trumpism and Bannonism are from the same vat. Republican incumbants are trapped between undiluted fealty to Trump and his wizard's opposition candidate. So, Republican incumbants who are pledged to represent your constituency, just don't answer whether you will run later as an independent candidate. What's wrong with that? Don't the rank-and-file remember who invented it as a winning strategy?
1
Yes, Mr. Wehner, I agree that "Much of America, including some large number of Republicans waiting to be mobilized, is thirsting for leaders of courage and purpose who, in a fractious and intemperate age, believe — and can help others believe — that one of the high callings of politics is to heal our wounds rather than to inflict new ones, to appeal to our best instincts rather than our worst."
WE are living witnesses to the culmination of the slow-drip attempts to destroy democracy in America and around the world. We have allowed the Robber Barons, through their ownership of media, social media and other forms of communication, to convince us that OUR votes do not count. WE have been lazy and, due largely to suppression of education on civics, haven't realized how sacred and tenuous democracy is. It is NOT a spectator sport and it is not set in stone. Even now the Robber Barons have been able to stack OUR United States Supreme Court with radical "conservatives" who serve their interests.
Those of us, like you, who understand what is going on and who value democracy must fight like hell to preserve it every day. WE THE PEOPLE have the power if we use it collectively to demand the kind of country WE want.
6
The Republican Party may be in a 'strange place', but not a surprising one, considering HOW they got to be 'politically dominant'.
It was decidedly NOT because they simply convinced millions of American voters to decide for themselves that the Republican Party had better ideas for the nation. In fact, the Party has not even been able to convince millions more Americans to actually vote Republican instead of Democrat!
The dirty little secret is that the Republican congressional majority is actually *a national minority party* and has been since 2012, for the past 3 election cycles, due to it's very strategic national gerrymandering strategy (actually called 'Red Map Strategy 2010'...look it up). Every time a Republican complains that the opposition should 'just get over' losing last year's election, remember that this is a *minority party* masquerading as a majority telling you that.
On top of that we have a President in the White House that also could NOT commandeer a national majority of voters! This is what makes our current government so extraordinary, and why the #resistance is a real thing.
This government speaks and acts as if they command voting majorities whose priorities they represent. But they do NOT command ANY national majorities for the two elected branches of government! They are only allowed to govern by virtue of utilizing and expanding the extraordinary electoral loophole of politicians being able to draw their own district maps. It's called cheating.
4
*As the world now knows, these feelings of powerlessness, resentment and grievance are widespread, and as a candidate Mr. Trump tapped into them perfectly.*
In other words, President Snowflake is offering them a safe-room, with Mr Bannon as the inn keeper.
1
Any takers? You've got to be kidding?
Obama choice to fix America's health care disgrace - the Affordable Care Act - was and is a right wing policy. Obama eschewed progressive solutions (eg, single payer) in favour of working within the system. He got results but can you name one "responsible republican" who voiced support. And when Trump launched his, frankly blatantly racist "birther" campaign, can you name one "responsible republican" who disdained its disgracefulness? And now the Kansas reduced-tax experiment has so spectacularly failed, can you name one "responsible republican" who has voiced disagreement, even concern, over Trump's tax overhaul? As for Bannon and his ilk, they've always been with us - they're the mob - always angry, unreasoning, vengeful, violent - the more you indulge it the more furious it becomes. Government and leadership is about NEVER letting the mob rule. The GOP has become a rider on the back of an angry tiger. We know where this is going to end for America. As the supreme leader would say - sad...
7
Republicans need banish Bannon from the party? Then Democrats should also banish Van Jones from theirs.
1
Talking points don't substitute for rational discussion.
If you think what we're now facing all boils down to banning one or two individuals from a political party, you're missing out on what needs to be done to extirpate the ideologies they've come to represent -- therein lies the real problem at hand.
2
"When Mr. Bannon looks for targets as he prosecutes his “season of war,” it is people like me he has in mind. And Mr. Bannon is right in this respect: Neither of us wants to be — or can be — a member of a party the other gets to define."
Many decades ago, the Republican Party was much more moderate. But depending on how you read history (either beginning with Nixon from 1968 to 1974, or with Reagan beginning 1980), the Republican Party began it's far rightward march. It's been marching continually farther right ever since.
It's my opinion that the party marched TOO far to the right in the 1980's. Mr. Wehner, what did you expect would happen? Did you think that the so-called Republican establishment could control the party by making sure it didn't march TOO far to the right? Ever heard of the slippery slope?
The party has spent most of my lifetime co-opting and using increasingly rightward groups in the self-serving quest for votes. Remember the Moral Majority and religious right? Later the Tea Party, and now the always below the surface racism of he party has finally risen above the surface.
Your onward march to the right will only end in the destruction of the party. The question is, in your death throes will you also take a scorched earth approach and take the rest of us down with you?
4
The Republicans cannot produce legislation because their leader is a dictator. Legislation is not needed during dictatorships; in fact, it is suspicious to the leader. So... now... the Republicans are wobbling back and forth between celebrating their capture of the three branches and, now and then, regretting the consequences of their domination. It' going to take a lot of money and arrested demonstrators to undo this miserable fake government.
3
But Peter, Trump is just the fruit of the seeds you helped plant and cultivate. And now you are trying to erase your fingerprints?
8
While this seems noble, it fails to reckon with the seeds of discontent that conservatism protects. Take the immigrant woman, pregnant with a baby conservatives won't help her to take care of if she needs it but also are not just making abortion impossible for her, are smearing her across the media.
This is NOT a new dilemma. It is baked into medicaid policy, TANF, SNAP, and everything else. The woman cannot win no matter what she does. And, noone asked if she's pregnant from unwanted sex from exploitation to outright rape.
It has long been conservative policy to put it most bluntly, if she spread her legs, it's her problem as if she was the only person there. As the stats in these pages relate, republicans believe woman don't have it harder than men by more than a 2:1 ratio.
That's on just one issue. And most issues from banking to housing, to work, the environment, and the culture wars, from framing having a cell phone flaunts disposable income rather than 21st Century (cheaper) necessity.
When this hypocritical, heinous, self-dealing, exploitive aspect of conservatism is reckoned with, come back and talk to me. Until then, your words are a shameful waste of air, now being sullied by what conservatism's legacy has become.
5
Trumpism is a repeat of Pete Wilson's demagoguery. Take a look at California politics to see the future of the Republican party.
3
— then the Republican Party would collapse intellectually and morally, and a lot of lifelong Republicans would head for the exits.
Already happened. And will continue to, but will the cowards vote country over party?
1
Republican politicians no longer represent their constituents. They win by cheating and by destroying important American institutions and venerable customs. They are funded by billionaires who don’t care about anything but profit and a few peculiar hobbyhorses.
Most Americans have been and will be harmed by malignant capitalism but the rich are, too. Great wealth produced Trump, a man who never developed the character, fortitude and moral strength to make an empathetic phone call, never mind govern the USA. The Republican Party is the party of billionaires. White nationalists, racists and hard right antiChrist Christians make up the base but the Republican Party represents wealthy individuals and corporations.
5
If you're expecting the current Republican congress to bipass the money flowing into their pockets and rise above it all to redirect a sewer rat like Trump
Then I have a bridge for sale that you can afford,just drop all pretence of integrity and you're there.
If there was a god that bunch would go up in smoke.
3
Let's hope that this Bannon Baloney will actually be the poison
the GOP might survive to emerge a respectible party rather than the
Gingrich-on-through-Trump festering virus it has shamefully become.
Join the modern world of progressive, humane governing, Republicans.
Your phoney conservatism is not where 'it's happening' in terms
of acceptance and civility.
Dumping Trump before there is nothing left of the U.S. democacy
is step one; step two is exposing Bannon as the political weirdo
he is.
3
Your Republicans birthed this conundrum through 40 years of identity politics. Republicans used social issues including religion, immigration name-calling to create fear, mistrust and hate instead of squarely facing the problems of the working class. Republicans passed very few laws to help the middle class but they doggedly worked to kill all unions. Tax cuts for the wealthy is and has been the one main mantra of Republican politicians for all of those 40 years.
The Republicans raised the rabble.
Now the rabble is the Republican party.
Live with it.
Own it!
12
"....then the Republican Party would collapse intellectually and morally, and a a lot of lifelong Republicans would head for the exits."
I am at a total loss as to what world Mr. Wehner resides in. What further evidence that the intellectual and moral collapse of the Republican Party has already occurred does he require? The degenerate simpleton who occupies the Oval Office as a result of being nominated by a majority of Republican voters isn't enough? The electoral college fluke which enabled his ascendance is beside the point. The Republican Party as a viable, credible intellectual proposition is dead. They have committed intellectual suicide in the starkest terms possible.
8
Trump, is clearly a white supremacist and neo-Nazi sympathizer. He is s but a symptom of our broken, corrupt electoral system. American democracy depends on an honest electoral process and that process has been deliberately corrupted by the Republican Party. A minority of sixty three million voters chose Trump as so-called president, Trump who disgraces our nation daily. Many chose him simply because he was backed by the Republican Party, many because he is an overt racist, many because they are religious fundamentalists who care more about the abortion issue than the survival of our democracy. We can blame the Russians and Comey and the Electoral College but the bottom line is that the Republican Party maintains power through voter suppression and gerrymandering. Their highly coordinated strategy is funded by Citizens United dark money and led by Karl Rove. The forty million voters who stayed home in 2016 played right into the GOP's hands. Until this nation throws out the Republican Party, overcomes our corrupt electoral system and people exercise the right to vote, American democracy will remain an unrealized theory. All else is noting but commentary.
6
And if anything, the name Karl Rove should start to ring off some bells.
Wake-up, AMERICA.
1
If I thought that Trumpism, with its abhorrent nativism and its fascist tendencies, would merely destroy the Republican Party, I'd be delighted. They deserve nothing more after their devolution into vessels for the Koch Bros libertarian dystopian plan for society.
But I fear that Trumpism will actually take our whole democracy down with it. So, I'm left hoping that some responsible, centrist Republicans will start from scratch and form a new Conservative party that envisions a productive, realistic role for government in a globalized world. But I'm not holding my breath.
8
When the GOP accepts reality, you may have some takers. Right now it is simply a religion and the high priests (Trump and Bannon) are calling dictating what is an acceptable belief.
Good luck with getting the low info supporters to start to think. Will never happen.
6
Republicans know how to do one thing. Governing is not it. Beneficial building is not it. They know how to destroy hat good there is in the world.
5
"...What good..."
Those Republican congressmen who fail to speak out against occupant 45’s behavior and the rest of the administration remind me of a line from Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobbie McGee” “Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose”. The Republican Congress recognizes that they still have something to lose, their seats at re-election so they will never exercise their right of free speech and criticize. John McCain and Bob Corker being lonely examples. Even GWB recognizes the chaos.
1
For establishment Republicans, the ethic remains the same: PARTY FIRST - COUNTRY LAST
7
If conservatives were gullible enough to buy into Trump's hyperbole and vote for him, then Bannon will have an easy job getting them to follow him around as if they are on a leash.
5
Can anyone really believe that if Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt were alive today they would be Republicans?
7
Trump was the only candidate that made promises to bring back jobs, eliminate the carried interest loophole, do tax reform and tax the rich and a giant infrastructure program. Those were his promises....and he was the only republican who made them. People voted for change and they chose a bully who promised change
We are getting change - just not any of the changes he talked about.
All of the other candidates promised to repeal the ACA, and cut taxes...the same things that Trump is doing right now...pleasing the donors.
The Republican Party is a big con...and those that vote for the con are racist, fearful, misogynist, greedy, selfish people.
The rest of us appreciate integrity and will vote realistically for an imperfect but not destructive candidate. She would not have destroyed our place in the world or start a war with NK, or implement tax cuts so egregious that the rest of the country falls apart.
There is another place for your ilk Mr. Wehner, it is the Democratic Party and you need to support it to wipe this cancer out.
6
Trump will eventually be gotten rid of. But -- guns, professional wrestling, reality TV programs, tattoos, generations of family breakdown and all -- there is no way of getting rid of his followers.
7
Good and honorable idea. NOT going to happen. Not today, not tomorrow when situations have worsened, not ever.
The Republican Party establishment raised these villains, suckling the little serpents at the breast. Is it any wonder that when a viper like Trump or now Bannon got big enough, it would bite?
7
Because the White House is occupied by a clownish proto-fascist doesn't mean that the GOP is not the party of preening grifters and war mongers.
It still is!
The recent sainthood of McCain and the rehabilitation of George W. Bush, especially by self-identified liberals, is disgusting and telling.
Bush and McCain were key players in the campaigns of scapegoating, paranoia and ginned up outrage on the right that got you into this mess.
Trump is not an outlier. He is what the GOP, and for that matter America, stands for.
Among the county's most powerful, best educated and by far wealthiest ethnic group, European Americans, 2/3 of male voters actually cast their name under Trump, and a small majority of women did the same. European Americans have the highest voter turnout among all ethnically and racially identified groups in the country.
For Americans, power and wealth mixed in with ignorance gives a feeling of superiority. When challenged, the superiority-ignorance complex leads to tribal nationalism and racial aggression, which is the GOP base and now ruling the country.
I think Americans need to wake up to the fact that Trump is who they are as a nation. They aren't the greatest country on the planet, people don't look up to them, they don't have all the answers and 'saving' other countries is code for bombing them relentlessly to control their oil.
Forget the GOP, they are a lost cause, it's the American Left, if it actually exists, that needs to get their act together.
8
If Mr Wehner's wishes are realized, and I hope they are, Job #1 is acknowledging that the current GOP base gets its information from outfits committed to DISinformation and propaganda. It's no coincidence that Laura ingraham is on tour w Mr Bannon. And she's a piker compared to Limbaugh, hannity, Levin, Michael savage and company.
When a site as popular as Drudge regularly headlines nutbag stories from Alex Jones the problem goes beyond internecine republican politics; it's a problem, and a big one, for all of us.
If the GOP 'establishment' really wants to survive and do good it must first combat the torrent of disinformation coming from ITS side of the broadcast dial.
223
Its a battle between those who wear rose-colored glasses. Who see non of the sins of the past, and think raising the dead past will actually work out. (they need to read Pet Cemetary)
And those who might not be crazy about all the ways the future is unfolding, but know all we can do is LIVE IN it, and deal with it on a daily, yearly basis. because going backwards to a rosey-time, that didn't exist for many people, is IMPOSSIBLE, and stupid!
1
Trobo, first they are going to have to admit that they have been lying through their media stand-in Fox News Corp., which is THE Free-Broadcast Station that gets played in way too many public spaces.
They are going to have to admit that their policies that they have been pushing for do not work, and never can work.
They would have to admit that they were totally wrong in blocking everything that Obama set forth, just because he was Black, putting our Nation back decades.
They will have to admit that they enticed the crazy racist bigots to join them, that now comprise 40% of their party, and that is a 'conservative' estimate.
They would have to admit that they have been nothing more than a truly negative force in Governing, that being beholden to Norquist: shrinking the federal Govt to the size it can be drowned in a bathtub is actually a treasonous activity as it is plainly destroying our nation, our people as well as the government.
They would have to admit that Trickle-Down has never worked, and that tax cuts for the rich have never created the jobs that were advertised.
In essence, they would plain have to admit that they were Wrong, that they had been badly corrupted by money and outsized political influence of coordinated monetary attacks on our Democratic Republic.
But to get that group of egotistical, bigoted, old, rich, white guys to admit that is going to happen about as soon as we see Starbucks Snowcones in Hell.
Ok, Coffee Break is Over, Back on yer Heads!
2
The Republican Party blew it last spring and summer when it didn't tell Donald Trump to take a hike, that he was no longer invited to the candidate debates. Sure, the party would have lost the election and Hillary would be president, but it would not have also forfeited its soul, such as it was. Bannon & Co. would have been marginalized and a third party could conceivably have emerged. Even so, America would be in a much better place today.
Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. The GOP betrayed America for a fool's-gold-plated pot-metal tyrant.
17
For decades, since Nixon actually, the Republican party has actively recruited and pandered to white bigots and xenophobes; and as long as whites enjoyed a healthy majority, this strategy worked like a charm. Then, over the past 8 years, "right' wing talk radio has relentlessly pushed the story that non-whites are invading America, determined to take over and treat whites they way whites have trated minorities for decades. Understandibly, whites have freaked out and longed for someone to come along, stop the non-white takeover and reverse it.
Along comes Pied Per Trump, feeding their rage and fear; and they just eat it up!
No, one of two things is going to happen:
Either the 'establishment" Republicans expell the Trump Bannon lynch mob from the party; or the party becomes even more "white" and even more radicalized; eventually being overwhelmed by the "cocoa coalition" of non-whites, legal immigrants, millennials, women and well-educated white males.
6
No one will take you up on this. Why? At heart most Republicans still find something to admire about Trump, Bannon, Arpaio, Roy Moore. We might as well throw in the KKK and the Westboro Baptist Church. Ask any gay person or minority who has found themselves in a room or around a table with Republicans. Every one of them is partially defined by an attitude of superiority over anyone remotely different. I am a gay man, Pete Wehner. Would you stand up against people who would deny me the right to visit my lawful spouse if he’s sick and dying in the hospital? You might mumble a protest but I don’t think you’d believe it really matters. And I don’t think anyone in your herd would either.
8
"Their is a nihilistic strain coursing through the veins of a significant number of people on the American right. They delight in Mr. Trump's effort to annihilate truth and peddle conspiracy theories..."
"As a result, they are bending their will to his ways, seeing the world as he does."
"Their rage at the establishment is off the charts. The want to burn the village down."
So many times over the years the question has been asked of the Holocaust, how could so many people could be conditioned to murder millions of their countrymen, neighbors, and friends? This is how.
I couldn't agree more as to the gravity of the moment. The cowardice of the republican establishment is on full display as they "willfully ignore" the danger Trump represents to 240 years of democracy.
Trump attacks free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly/protests. He surrounds himself with only loyalists - Sessions at Justice, Pompeo at CIA, his court appointees. The generals, or "my generals" as he puts it, one of whom just dishonored himself by going beyond defending his boss. He has a fondness for dictators and ruling via executive order. He defends "blood and soil" white nationalists as "fine people". He lies incessantly. His supporters don't care. As you state, "they want a revolution".
What Trump, Bannon and the Roy Moore types represent is the first act. It closely follows the playbook of the dictator responsible for those millions murdered. Never again, right?
10
One word:
Implosion
1
Bannon needs to be permanently removed from our National Polity. This is the only right solution to gut Trump’s politics.
2
Rich people dabbling in nihilism is a sight to behold. Today's Republican Party is children playing with matches in a powder magazine.
3
Critical point missed here: the Grand Old Party/GOP has degraded itself into the POG/Party of Greed. Solution? Education, education, education...about corporate responsibility and social justice.
2
Interesting game Trump is playing, doing a good cop bad cop routine with Bannon. He wins either way, while Bannon gets a national platform and the chance for his shallow masked bigotry to be taken as serious needed policy. Done in less than a year.
And we haven't seen them coming.
The idiots are us.
3
Peter Wehner states "that if the blood and soil nationalists were to win a lot of the life long republicans would head for the exits"
If they haven't headed to the exit by now...i am not sure electing some quasi nazi's will do the trick.
5
I think you need to look a little deeper into the relatively recent history of your Republican Party. For the past two generations your party has cobbled together one-issue voters who would sacrifice their souls for the right to own weapons of war, and to deny the rights of others to pursue health and the right to express love for one another. You have denied overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change. You endorsed the pseudo intellectualism of libertarians and and federalists to the point that the Supreme Court is in danger of suborning the creation of a plutocracy/oligarchy. You silently watched the racism against Obama.
Donald Trump is your party's fate!
9
And even more tragic, Donald Trump is now this country's fate as well.
2
Silence is consent.
JD
The Republicans, in their innocence, were co-opted by Roger Ailes. He showed them great favor. He did their bidding and gave them their base. The crazies swarmed to them. Talk radio, Fox, Drudge, predated Breitbart and Alex Jones crazy. Republicans are now boxed in by their base. Tea Party Republicans, who are little more than a torch and pitchfork mob, now inhabit the Cabinet.
Yet country club Republicans all voted with them. Christian values voters, stood side by side with them. Fiscal conservatives, held the flank.
The healthcare debacle is all the proof you need as to these guys. Where is the leadership of this party? McConnell? Ryan? Empty suits. They have ceded power to Bannon. They cheered Flynn, Guiliani, and others who made jingoists cringe with their convention speeches.
I loathe not the true believer, duped into blame and conspiracy. I blame those who know better who continue to vote with this party. To them I say this, if your ethics prevent you changing your vote, stay home. You have done enough damage.
4
Mr. Wehner writes, "When Mr. Bannon looks for targets as he prosecutes his 'season of war,' it is people like me he has in mind." The words of Rev. Martin Niemoeller come to mind:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
2
“Any takers”? None that I can see.
My take is that this strain of Trump supporters is no more than the Southern Democrats (and their Northern and Midwesterns cousins--not all bigots are in the south) who have been migrating to the Republican Party for decades.
These were the worst sorts: backwards in thought, words and deeds. They wanted blacks and browns kept out of their restaurants, women kept in the kitchen and the bedroom, and "edumacation" kept to a minimum.
These were my people. I grew up around them, saw them at family reunions, and got away from them as quickly as I could. This is MY "Hillbilly Elegy."
Good luck getting them to understand anything other than "I'll have another beer" and "Keep that (N-word, B-word, Egghead) outta my face."
Sorry. They'll die out one day. But they've passed on their hate and fear to enough of their progeny that we may have them with us forever, though in ever smaller numbers (I hope).
278
They breed - ideas are passed on parent to child, fox channel to viewer.
1
My Dad and his father and grandfather were all southern Democrats. But my Dad was a decent man and went with the party when the Civil Rights bills were passed in the 60s. He didn't turn Republican. Why? He was a decent man, as I have noted above.
2
The absence of response, save for 2 voices dismissed, GWB &JMc, is deafening!
8
And Bob Corker and Ben Sasse have also spoken out against Trump et al.
Boohoo ! is all I can say about Reps. In my opinion let the dominoes fall and then we shall see where the Republican supporters and the Trump supporters belong. It is just a question of 8 years. Just tighten your belt and recall the Bush crazy years and the golden 8 years that followed!
3
I do not want to suffer for 7 more years of the dissolute libertine degenerate in the WH currently. He must be removed by hook or crook.
5
Fantastic analysis! Dead on
3
I presume Mr. Wehner will forgive me if I don't have very high expectations that the Republicans will be able to break the conservative party free of its deadly embrace with the Bannonites and Trumpists. Unfortunately, this deadly, swirling dance is not a recent occurrence, and Mr. Wehner appears to studiously ignore the source of the problem. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Republicans' problems began when they embraced the racists and white supremacists back in the 1960's following President Johnson's signing into law the Civil Rights act.
Now the Conservative Party, in their deadly dance with the white nationalists and white supremacists have begun an inspiralling orbit of the black-hole of oblivion. They are about to cross the photon orbit, and both can now look ahead to see their backsides beginning to fill their forward field of view. Now they both know by instinct that in order for either to survive one must somehow break the deadly embrace with the other and fling the other into the black hole of oblivion, so that the one may be flung free of the pull of the black hole of oblivion.
I wish them luck.
10
There is no Republican herd. I'd go so as to suggest there are only a couple hundred of the left on the planet that would actuall adhere to the party platform. The rest are Rinos.
2
Rinos indeed. (R)acists (in) (o)ur (s)ociety.
3
I think you are spitting into the wind if you expect principled leadership in the GOP from those who have proven over the last decades to be such blatant hypocrites? Have you listened to Joe Biden lately?
6
When Peter Wehner writes, "Mr. Trump’s victory in the Republican primaries was not an aberration so much as a culmination," he renders the rest of his column moot. There is no saving the party because this IS the party now: shaped by WWE taste, as he recognizes, exulting in crudity and angrily liberated from the American enterprise of improving oneself through education. Don't want to acquire new skills? Write laws to perpetuate dying industries such as coal! Never mind that you're ceding the future to other countries who will lead the way in technological innovation. Don't like thinking about the realities of climate change? Bury the science! Don't like reflecting on what it means to be an American, the sources of the principles the framers attempted to enshrine, the extension and evolution of those principles toward universality? Shut the eggheads up and demean intellectual and humanistic studies; reduce all human activity to domination of others, exploitation of resources, and low-quality, high-quantity consumption.
Genuine conservatives who value tradition and aren't ready to revel in the apocalypse simply cannot be a part of that.
What's needed is a party that values moderation: not expedient centrism or "triangulation," but moderation as a virtue of conduct based on a profound toleration of differences within a coherent system of political and social values—something beyond economic utility. I don't want to think that Americans are too dumb for that. Are they?
18
I would add to that what we need is common sense.
Most people want the same things, a good economy, good education, good job, no drugs, no crime, etc.
Nobody wants to pay for someone to sit at home and collect welfare.
We should all be working together to solve problems.
But the Republican Party has been winning elections with purposeful divide going back to the Southern Strategy in the time of ending segregation and with Reagan and the culture wars.
And it has been very effective.
We are more divided than ever.
And it is no coincidence that income inequality is also greater than ever.
1
It fortifies some vestigial faith in American humanity when a Republican speaks out against crazy, but as in this case, it's usually one with nothing to lose by doing so.
Isn't their real problem more like this: Republicans have nothing. Strip away the flag waving, the god-loving, and the instinctive Hillary/Pelosi hating, what have they offered...in memory? What problem have they solved, or even tried to solve? Their grand plan is to further smooth the path for the already rich and powerful....and that's the good ones.
There are two parties. It's binary...pick one. I suggest you come over to the party that does fight for American ideals and has a long record of actually solving problems. And despite what you've heard on Fox, there is plenty of room for older straight white guys in the Democratic party....am one myself.
32
Bannon spoke at the California Republican Convention last evening. Amidst the booing at the mention of McCain and Bush....one was heard to yell re John McCain "HANG HIM".
Good luck, sir, but whatever conservative dreams of yore you have, they're barely on life support: even the doctors among Congressional Republicans are too incompetent, too greedy, too tied to their patrons to offer resuscitation.
15
Where is the courage and decency among elected Republicans in congress to take up your challenge? They are hiding in the shadows cast by the haters and ignorant that have always been on that right wing of your part, but never before strode the corridors of power. They are exactly the kind of people who voted for Hitler and Mussolini, brought out by their hatred of the emerging non white majority, that has forever displaced their ninety percent white America of memory. In the end, they will lose. The fascists of old never had to worry about what to do about a such a large number of strangers in their midst, and in the throes of cataclysmic war were able to devise a final solution.. Your party, Mr. Wehner, will fracture and melt away, and good riddance. The Birchers of the fifties never had a chance to take over the party; the Trumpists will destroy it. Good night to you, Sir.
16
Republicans unleashed a virus into the world. It was a genetically engineered virus created to acquire political power. It was right wing media spearheaded by Fox News.
Republicans liked their virus. It did give them power. But as viruses do, it mutated. The internet altered its DNA and created the likes of Steve Bannon and others who cannot be controlled. The virus is now attacking all life forms, including its creators.
The vaccine is truth and an independent and honorable press. Unfortunately, the virus has partially disabled those natural defense mechanisms, just as the AIDS virus disables the body's immune system.
The vaccine is being weakened each day. Trump is destroying the stockpiles of what vaccine we do have.
Viruses continue to spread until they kill their hosts. This virus is killing us. The virus creators are unwilling and unable to create an effective new vaccine. The prognosis isn't good. The truth is now an endangered species.
50
"Your silence will not protect you,” a quote from a black lesbian poet, Audre Lorde, an advise most Republicans should take to heart
14
All the Republicans I know, and know of, come in four flavors. There are Ayn Rand devotees who believe in the the "free market God", knuckle dragging, Confederate flag waving racists, butter wouldn't melt in their mouth country club classists, and folks who think the Bronze Age superstitions of nomadic goatherds should inform everything.
I want some of all of that.
12
The base of your party is a small army of zombie racists, bigots and imbeciles, Mr. Wehner. You helped build it that way. They don't respond to the real world. They only keep demanding brains. More brains.
All of the efforts to mobilize the zombies . . . solely to make rich people richer. You have nobody to blame, but yourselves.
The party of Lincoln is now a memory.
36
There is no daylight between Bannon and Trump. They are creating a white nationalist fascist 'Republican' party. Bannon refers to himself as a Leninist, one of the most evil men to ever come to power.
Establishment Republicans have to decide whether to stay, go, become Democrats, and/or form another party.
22
The 50 state obstacle course to formation of new political parties in the US is effectively insurmountable. The two labels, "Republican" and "Democratic" are shells to be occupied by hermit crabs.
2
In the early 1930s the leaders of the "traditional" conservative movements in Germany, in politics and business, held their nose and supported Hitler with the idea that he could be controlled to put forward their [articular agenda and his unpleasant tactics and more extreme ideology were not key to his politics. Let me be quick to say I am NOT in any way equating Mr's Trump, Bannon, and others of "being" Hitler. No that there aren't a fair number of neo-Nazis in the "movement".
To the point of this article, any Republicans who think that the Trump/Bannon/etc elements that are attempting to hijack conservatism can be controlled, manipulated, or used in some way are deceiving themselves. Like the conservative politicians, monarchists, and industrialists of late Weimar Germany, they will find themselves consumed by the same forces they sought to control.
20
For years, the GOP has been the "Party of Hate."
You name a group....they hate it.
I said two years ago that they likely even hate each other....prescient, it seems. Now one part of the GOP is openly at war with other parts of the Party.
Scary.....and fascinating.
10
They hate sociability. Nothing rankles them more than the sight of happy people having good clean fun.
1
One of Franklin Roosevelt's political goals for post-World War II America was to realign the Democratic and Republican Parties. He wanted to make common cause with the Bull Moose Republicans who were detested by mainline Conservative Republicans of the Robert Taft wing of the Party. And FDR wanted to rid the Democrats of the Solid South Confederate Democrats who were racists to the core.
Now Bannon is making FDR's dream come true. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Southern racist Democrats have become the Southern racist Republicans -- Nixon's Southern Strategy fully realized.
Bannon and Trump are making possible, even likely, the consolidation of lesser educated Whites, White supremacists, disaffected KKK members and other fringed elements into the Republican Party.
Old line Republicans and true conservatives can either become independents or Democrats.
This realignment is long overdue. Today's GOP is simply not worth saving.
18
As a Southern Democrat, I don't think 'conservatives' know what they did when they helped throw away the Party of Lincoln. They still say they're the Party of Lincoln but it's just a Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy lie.
It's a shame and a disgrace they forgot the noble history of the Party of Lincoln as they become a conglomeration of fringes - conservatives, fundamentalists, libertarians, and Dixiecrats - and just used the Party of Lincoln as a brand.
How ironic that they have been subsumed by a man who is nothing but a brand slapped on a hat.
Wish you the best sir. But .....given the ethics of McConnell and Ryan there is little hope. Thanks exceptional nation of grifters and colonists.
7
I'm afraid there won't be any takers.
6
In four short years, the Republican Party went from Eisenhower's Farewell - a pinnacle of common sense and warning - to "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice"; it's pretty much been the Bobsled Run to Hell ever since. Responsible Republicans have become virtually extinct - and as this piece details, playing footsie with the wackos hardly constitutes a winning strategy.
The normal curve of distribution places two-thirds of a population within one standard deviation of the mean. That probably describes the American political spectrum perfectly. So where are the leaders to galvanize and organize that group of us who are the true heart of America? Our country deserves a compassionate and efficient government that lives up to the promise of the Preamble, and neither party appears nearly as interested in that role as in merely serving as the other's foil.
12
Ike just played golf for eight years while the military-industrial complex became the cancer he lamented at the end of his term.
Honestly, there is little to no hope that republicans who currently have a seat in Congress can be rehabilitated. . . they have been corrupted by the poison that now defines conservatism - the obstruction and the lies. And this is where Leader McConnell comes in, he has engineered the movement that impedes anything resembling good governance with words that soothe those angry white folks who resent anyone who's not a real American, along with legislative tricks and maneuvers to take unfair advantage.
Our government is rotten to the core as the maggots fight each other over who gets more, while the inciter-in-chief throws his Twitter bombs, desperate for attention and kudos. And while we are gaping at all this melodrama, the players are making big plans to steal trillions of the people's wealth by taking healthcare from us. When they are successful at that, then they will come for our Social Security and Medicare.
So far, the maggots are winning . . .
18
Nice thoughts and very well written, but, come on! It’s basically a white wash ( no pun intended). You’re not confronting the “why”of how your party got to this point. How about the lies for going to war, the lies about trickle down, the lies about compassionate conservatism, and, well, the lies. Now it’s up to the McCains of your world to attempt to bring you back from the cliff. What you’re really saying is where are the Lindsay Graham’s, the Lamar Alexander’s, the Murkowskis, the so called main streamers? People in the comments have been begging for your party to step up and fight this scourge. Maybe you, Dear writer, should organize an intervention.
34
They insist that everything they say is true, but you haven't taken enough of it for it to work yet.
"Any takers?"
Sorry Peter, the time for "brave" coservatives to speak out has long since passed. It passed well over a year ago.
Among your ranks, you will find mostly servile cowards.
Honestly, what did you all think decades of race baiting, grievance stoking and out right lying was going to lead to (see Palin, Sarah)? Trump is not an abberation so much as a culmination.
28
Okay, we know this about republicans....but where are the democrats....Schumer and Pelosi aren't taking us anywhere...they are so weak.....who is going to speak up from the democrats side. Who is going to get us out this mess...where are the democrats....the news is filled only by republicans....TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP....every day.....WHO WILL SPEAK UP FOR US ON THE DEMOCRAT'S SIDE..I hear nothing from them!
14
Hmmm. Seems like Bernie is speaking up for rest of us.
I can only guess you are getting your information from right-wing media if you don't hear them?
But the Democrats don't have much bargaining power.
Especially when the Mitch McConnell takes advantage of the rules to make sure the bills he puts for a vote only need a simple majority.
There don't seem to be any Democrats with an understanding of the functioning of mixed economies organized well enough to articulate.
No mention of Mercer? The Kochs? Breitbart and the neo Nazi movement is nothing without their funding of the propaganda and extreme candidates. Bannon is a mere puppet.
39
I wonder what would happen if Fox News were off the air for even a sixty day detox.....
16
Retirees would regain their critical thinking skills.
6
Too late for that. Anyway -- in order for it to work you'd have to ban Breitbart, social media, and every similar toxic platform out there.
2
Someone needs to come up with an anti-Duck Dynasty that connects the dots between Maw's inability to get her diabetes treated and the changes to ACA, Paw's cancer and those unregulated EPA chemicals, Junior's becoming cannon fodder because of his lack of education and Sis's baby from when Uncle Joe molested her at thirteen and she couldnt get an abortion. Trump voters aren't stupid- they are ignorant. The only means they have of educating themselves is media. Bannon knows this and so do the Russians. Currently, thier go-to media is limited to FOX, fundementalist religion and the Kardasians. No wonder they are unfazed by the sheer corruption of the president when the outside world is presented by those role models.
34
As long as Trump holds the presidency, it is difficult to go against him full-bore without further fracturing an already teetering government. This is especially true for Republicans, whose very opposition forms yet another fissure that Trump can exploit to weaken checks and balances.
BUT, there IS actually one effective way for Republicans to oppose Trump while retaining a position of strength: side with Democrats.
In fact, both clever anti-Trump Reps AND Donald Trump himself have already realized this. When either one needs to notch a win against the other, they reach out an olive branch to the mostly-marginalized Dems (who actually represent more than half the voters let’s not forget).
Dems of course are primed to make inter-Party deals right now, so a lot of these compromise efforts actually pan out.
The biggest advantage of this strategy is that it creates stability and progress rather than dysfunction and collapse. A governing coalition between Rs and Ds in the legislature would hold real power and the capacity to do work of its own choosing.
Republicans right now don’t really have the option to form a powerful movement against Donald Trump and simultaneously against Democrats. It’s one D or the other. Better pick the right one.
9
It is a good idea.
But Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have never had any interest in working with Democrats.
Just the opposite is what we saw during Obama.
And it is one more of many things the Republicans have done that has resulted in Trump.
A senator on his way out (McCain) and a former president (Bush) have nothing to lose by speaking out against Trumpism.
I'll believe that ANY of the Republicans are interested in truly governing to benefit the entire country when those who have something to lose, i.e. their elected or appointed positions, start speaking up in very loud opposition to 45 and his enablers.
16
To be fair, I’m pretty sure Jeff Flake wants to remain a US Senator.
1
How to get rid of Trump:
The majority of Trump supporters receive all their news by watching television. The best way to sway their opinion in through advertising on television. Ads should be run on programs that the Trump demographic watches (other than FOX news). These ads should have white working class men and women complaining about Trump. The complaints can be one liners such as: "I no longer like Trump now that I know how he has treated women in the past." Or, "My job is not coming back no matter what Trump says." Or, "I am afraid Trump might push us into another war." Or, my favorite, "I just don't like the guy and I think he's in over his head."
With enough repetition white, working class men and women who voted for Trump will talk about these ads. It would also help if popular entertainers who are known to be Republicans lend their voice. Americans love to follow lifestyle choices of entertainers (or sport figures).
29
Trump is an entertaining sports figure to his fans. He could be a better golfer than Tiger Woods at this point.
The Republican calculus is simply to try to get the only two things they really want done: Eliminate as much taxation and responsibly for society that the rich have to bear and, second, destroy those government programs like Social Security and Medicare (and of course Medicaid) that succor the ordinary American.
Beyond that impose conservative Christianity and the job is done.
23
It really is a vision out of The Dukes of Hazzard, with every county ruled by its own Boss Hogg.
back in the days of Nixon(good grief that anyone would be nostalgic for Nixon nostalgia-the pain from an old wound according to Don Draper) but i digress
back then we had the weather underground, the simbonese liberation amy etc. now we have the tea party, fox news
the big difference being the internet
a method of spreading ideas that the weathermen hadn't even dreamt of a continuous stream of information with no mechanism to check veracity and no identification of source
our political parties are being pulled apart from inside by forces over which they have no control i have always thought that a parliamentary system with multiple parties is a better way to go
but i don't see how we get to that without some sort of violent upheaval
1
I'm sorry, Mr. Wehner, but the vaunted virtues of "traditional conservatism" led to the Republican Party committing the sin that has brought them low: the Southern Strategy. It has been 50 years since the Republican establishment decided to fling open their doors to the racist, nativist, as well as anti-science, element in our politics.
My parents remained Republicans through most of the 60s because of the (relatively) more socially liberal stance of the party in those days, but once the segregationists rushed over to the GOP they switched to the Democrats without hesitation.
And what is so wonderful about a political philosophy -- conservatism -- that is essentially about saying no? Clean up the environment? No. Help keep all our citizens healthy? No. Keep our citizens as safe from gun violence as they would be in all the other leading nations of the world? No. Redress inequalities and put all our citizens on an equal footing when it comes to opportunities for education and employment? No.
America was founded on liberal principles, not conservative ones.
518
Conservatives seem to not notice how complex life and our society has become. Its no longer little towns, and smallish cities...its large "little" towns, and ever expanding cities, that require a lot of work to keep them functioning. With needs that far outpace a small Fed govt, yet ever increasing intrusion into our personal lives, esp.women, and a ridiculously large military complex.
The GOP as it is now, is a dinosaur that forget to lay down and die with the others. No new ideas, no new anything.
While the Dems are like an old auto, gas guzzling, and the parts are no longer available. But one that can fixed with some serious upgrades.
The people who brought us the Iraq war under false pretenses, spent our blood, unleashed horrors in the Mid East and eroded our liberties are far worse and far more radical than Bannon and his crew. Stop making these criminals look like the "Good Republicans."
13
Who are the leaders who can challenge Trump? As you said he won the Republican nomination easily. I don’t know of anyone on the left or right who has the following Trump has. Though 60% of us despise him we will be divided and the Trump cult won’t.
8
Well said...I would venture however, that many Republicans, moderate or not, see Trump as a means to 'winning' and power and little else. Many, including the supposed establishment, sold their souls a long time ago and do not seem eager to get them back, regardless of the costs to the citizens they supposedly represent and to the nation as a whole. In reading a passage from Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning," he states that the roots of nihilism are that an individual lacks meaning and purpose. Trump provides that and unfortunately, the meanings and purposes derived by his followers are dark, the need for power, control and greed. The small few who are willing to stand up for what is right are sadly drowned out by the many.
10
The Democrats are outgunned, media wise, money wise, coverage wise:
its why we have to argue about "truth".
Republicans are being herded also.
It matters little what we say and do here. The giant machine of the radical Right,
the one that put Trump in office, is what is running the country now.
5
There is a tone of dispair in this piece. Mr. Wehner has come to realize that he is nearly alone. The GOP base loves Trump and only a couple of Republican members of Congress, most with nothing to lose, are willing to stand in Trump’s way. Reagan famously said that he did not leave the Democratic Party, the Party left him. Now the Republican Party has left Wehner, the Bushes, McCain, and a tiny handful of others. Dispair for the nation, not for party.
10
Perhaps there has always been an atmosphere of disunity and schism with American political parties. In decades past, it could be hidden away (those cigar smoke filled back rooms, maybe?). Today with social media, it has burst onto the public stage like an overripe tomato, splitting apart with its lifeblood oozing out.
The election primary process revealed that there is no one GOP and the nomination of Donald Trump was the end result. There is no united Republican Party.
For 8 years they had one goal which was to block anything President Obama tried to do. President Trump was elected for that very purpose. The GOP leadership, rank and file, and Trump voters had not thought past getting rid of Obama and erasing his Presidency.
The Repeal and Replace mantra was flawed because the GOP never took the time to even think about a replacement. If they had, there would have been some fleshed out offerings; instead the GOP offered disjointed vague ideas of doing something, anything, just so they could puff up and say they had erased Obama's achievement.
The budget working its way through the House of representatives was thrown together so that the GOP could move on to tax cuts and tax reform. Why do they not already have something solid that they can expose to the light of day for the American people? They looked to President Trump for guidance and got bullet points with words like great and amazing, fluff not substance.
GOP, you won. Now do something.
5
Mr. Wehner's commentary on Trumpism and its effect on the Republican Party is dead on. But here's the problem with his solution. Basically no Republican leaders have shown any inclination over the last year to to go to war against Trumpism. So while Mr. Wehner realizes the soul of the Republican Party is at stake and is ready to take action the rest of his party cares not a whit. You can't save what doesn't want to be saved.
Trumpism is like an uncontrollable wildfire sweeping through the Republican Party. There is no telling when or where it will be end and it will cause serious long lasting damage to the party. It is unavoidable given the current state of Republican leadership.
12
Finanally, a republican who acknowledges what is really going down. I agee with most of what Mr. Werner says. Trump's base is not about governing, it is about burning the house down. I also think the traditional GOP base is afraid of breaking ranks with the revolutionaries because they will lose power and power for their own selfish means is what they seek more than anything. The traditional GOP has been using the poor white voters to give themselves tax breaks and free up corporations to maximize profits for years. So I say that until the GOP traditionalists put country over personal economics and politics, we will be dealing with versions of the tea party. The Tea Party may actually success in toppling the world order for no other sake than the chaos wrought by no government is better than any form of government. This has its roots in the nostalgic portrayal of cowboys riding free in the Wild West.
7
I agree with the substance of your analysis however, where you hold hope that it is not too late for the party to change course, I believe it is. It took 30 years to reach this point so what makes you think it can be changed? Which brings me to the most interesting part of your piece:
“then the Republican Party would collapse intellectually and morally, and a lot of lifelong Republicans would head for the exits.”
Tell me more about the exit. Would a new party be formed? Would lifelong Republicans consider voting with Democrats? What would entice them? Would they sit-out the elections?
It’s not too early to view your options.
4
Wonderful article. There are few politicians, Republican or Democrat, who hold on to their principles once elected. Once in office, they vote based on how it will affect their re-election chances. They think short term and not long term. The moderate Republicans representing “safe” districts through gerrymandering are concerned with primary challengers who will be supported by Bannon. If they speak out against Trump, i.e. Senator Flake from Arizona, they are targeted by the Far Right and will lose in the primary election, although they would cruise to a general election victory. Republicans in Congress see this and have zero appetite to challenge the extremists in their party. Only those not seeking re-election - Corker and McCain, or from swing states (Collins) are standing up for their principles (with the exception of Murkowsky). It’s easy to have courage when you have less to lose personally.
We need to VOTE in the midterm elections to elect Democrats, especially in 2018, so the electoral maps can be redrawn. Only then will our elected officials consider compromising. The goals offered by this writer will not be achieved until the Republicans in Congress have more security that standing up to the extreme right wing in their party will not lead to their political demise. Obama realizes that change cannot occur without reducing the degree of gerrymandering and will focus his energy on this for the sake of our country.
195
Silence means consent. The Democrat Party has always had protest groups and been a big messy party that negotiates its internal dynamics out in public, usually coming up with alliances such as the rainbow coalition or reaffirming its values in different generations such as equal rights, women's rights, the environment, supporting safety net programs and healthcare and a range of forward looking goals from infrastructure to research, technology, and education.
Then look at the so-called grassroots GOP movements like the Koch and Fox fueled tea party. It started well enough--focus on Main Street not Wall Street, be fiscally prudent and fight corruption. But those same tea party voters are supporting a tax plan with 80% of the benefits going to the top 1%, a trillion and a half dollar expansion of the deficit while middle class and lower class taxes would rise.
All of those protesters saying 'Get your government hands off my Medicare!' don't care when this same tax bill cuts $500 billion out of Medicare and a trillion out of Medicaid. They don't care about the corruption in Trump's White House and cabinet. They screamed endlessly about Benghazi but don't care about Niger. Their concern about private emails doesn't extend to the Kushners or White House officials.
The current GOP only cares about Trump's latest fight week with people of color or women or the media or whoever constitutes this week's tweet enemy. The GOP has already swirled down the drain.
11
Long before Bannon, the person,the process,the range of outcomes,was a daily culture,from micro to macro,to even mega levels,of a violating WE-THEY weltanschauung.Believed in,and practiced, by ordinary folk as well as influential-agenda-bound individuals and systems.Bannon-Trump did not "patent" dehumanization.Stigmatizing.Excluding.Marginalizing.Neither their violating words and deeds "caused" its broad,ongoing acceptance.And if, and when, these two base-humans are overcome WE-THEY is likely to continue. Many people will study the WHYs. Papers, books, lectures, media presentations, and a growing group of expert analysts will continue to make a career of describing, which poses as explaining.A myriad of primary factors. Linear or nonlinear.Interacting or not.Predictive or not.Generalizable or not. Amidst them,perhaps,will be documented willful blindness by many ordinary folk about words and deeds which divide.Create unnecessary pains. Physical. Psychological,Spiritual ones.Economic-inequitable onesThe non-sharing of human and nonhuman resources needed for creating and maintaining well being for all of us and our systems.For BEING a civil society with mutual caring.Respect.Trust.Documented willful deafness to the many types of unnecessary pains experienced by many.By family.Friends.Neighbors. StrangersVoiced as well as muted ones.And the unending spread of willful infectious ignorance-its implication and consequences-for daily, menschlich living.Bannon? "US" owns what IS!
"Count me skeptical."
Count me skeptical as well Mr. Wehner. Though you challenged Trump's legitimacy early on, you ignore the historical Republican legacy that got us here. From Nixon and Reagon to Bush I and Bush II there is a cynicism and a disregard for truth that created the political DNA which gave birth to Trumpism. Your latest champion Mr. Romney gives us a perfect example with his infamous "takers and makers" speech for wealthy donors in 2014. For the modern era GOP the end always seems to justify the means. Stoking that entitled sense of Christian self-righteousness in hearts of the base leads to the passionate fervour which excuses any political, legislative or judicial perversion in the name of fundamentalist principles that are clearly now values in name only.
Mr. Wehner's concern for the soul of his party is, perhaps, admirable, but decrying Trump without acknowledging the christian conservative lineage that begot him is not just cynical it lacks courage. Until and unless you, Mr. Wehner, recognize Trumpism's politcal ancestry, you, sir, are complicit.
9
Yes. Occam's razor: a unifying explanation for why this situation occurred. Belief-based politics and religion-Christianity for sure, but also equally delusional other two--are the source of the problem. This problem is not going away any time soon.
1
Sorry Mr, Wehner, but I don't find your crocodile tears very convincing. And your historic memory seems conveniently short. But some of us do recall the past. Republicans started down this path, not with the Trump movement, but nearly 50 years earlier when Richard Nixon tapped into white resentment directed at the civil rights movement and launched the southern strategy. Reagan then followed up and built upon this foundation, Some of us also remember his campaign launch in Philadelphia, Miss. and his dog-whistle references to "state's rights" and "Cadillac welfare queens" -- in the same town where three civil rights workers were brutally murdered by the KKK, aided and abetted by the local authorities.
So let's be honest. The entire GOP establishment has used the politics of division and repression as the foundation of its' electoral strategy for as long as most Americans can remember. Given that context, the success of a Donald Trump within the party was entirely predictable. Buyers regret or not, you and your other GOP fellow travellers are in no position to complain about that outcome.
11
Peter I appreciate your message and intent, but you must reckon with fact that Trump is a consequence of Republicans slyly throwing their base patriotic and ethnically and religiously discriminatory scraps, while deviously feeding their corporate and billionaire backers a banquet of high immigration, deregulation and tax cuts, for decades. They base cried "enough!" - and felt the alternative - Clinton - was too much of the same without the scraps. Trump expressed his and their prejudices openly not slyly and made outrageous promises to them and got himself elected. To counter those of his ilk Republicans must represent an alternative vision for the good of the many - not the few - to that of the Democrats. Ever smaller government conservatism must go the way of the dodo fast.
5
If I read this correctly - the only way to save the Republican Party is to ensure that Trump fails.
OK - then please get started. Join the resistance. Perhaps you should meet his rhetoric head-on: admonish the idea of the wall, mock it and those who have pinned their flag on this brazen rhetorical fiction. Or, yes, reform the tax code to eliminate loop-holes used by the wealthy. And address income-redistribution through higher taxes on the wealthy to fund those promised infrastructure projects and the better-cheaper healthcare. Deliver on the campaign promises that won over the disaffected Trump, but which he has abandoned in all but speeches. Or just vote for Democrats in 2018 - openly.
8
I will never forget the complicity of the Republican Party in the Trump administration or their unwillingness to work with Obama for 6 years.
The Republican Party is not leading or governing or making American great in any way. They are about tearing America apart. Every candidate running against them should be running on their inability and refusal to do their jobs. It really is that simple. Like a bad boyfriend, the Republican Party is just not into 98% of us and we all need to move on to someone knew that wants to be a true partner.
9
While my sympathies are with the humanism of the Democratic party, it would be so nice to have a Republican Party that respected the truth, that respected the rights of all Americans, "regardless of race, color, or creed," and believed that a spirit of compromise, and listening to what the other side has to say, would contribute to a better USA.
4
The constant exposure to Fox News, I think, is one of the biggest reasons we have what's his name in the White House. In my area of Texas Fox News is the default station in most fast-food places, car dealerships, even in the local hospital. Complaining about it doesn't do any good. I'm told that that's what the owner/manager/boss likes and it will stay that way. I'll occasionally ask the person at one of the desks at the hospital to please change the station and I'll get a look of complete bewilderment, as if that's surely the strangest request she's ever heard. Of course, the next time I peek in it's back to Fox.
Listening to years of derision about Obama and, certainly, Hillary, took its toll.
That coarseness ate away and we are left with the consequence.
487
You are completely right. Fox News is really more of a propaganda outfit than a news organization. This is shown by the fact that there isn't one big Democratic scandal that was broken by Fox News. They are too busy trying to twist regular news stories into fake scandals to actually do real investigative work. Most big stories that reflect badly on the Democrats are broken by the MSM(NY Times, WaPo, CNN) and they then pick them up and try to make them look even worse. Fox News propaganda is what has lead directly to Trumpism. Their regular viewers are so divorced from reality that they think that compromising with the Democrats is worse than death.
5
Fox News plus Limbaugh.
Pat, I live in the central valley of California, a red enclave in a blue state. My wife recently spent the morning at the county courthouse with many others waiting to see if she would be picked for jury duty. The entire time, 4 TVs all on Fox "News". This is the new county courthouse paid for by the people, not McDonald's. I have no idea who decides the channel but I am sure if they polled our locals it would be Fox.
1
Mr. Werner has a valid point which raises a question any politician of any party must ask themselves: Who, exactly, are they representing? Do they represent the Party, whose focus may or may not be on the constituency being represented? Do they represent the “Base”, a group of voters are closely aligned to the party but are still only a portion of the constituency? Lastly, do they represent their district, as a whole, which could include up to 49% of people who did NOT vote for them?
That last question is very important as no politician gets 100% of the vote. What I am seeing on both the Republican AND Democratic sides is that politicians are forgetting that the 3rd question is their reality, and completely ignoring the minority who didn’t vote for them has its perils. Those perils may have been what has created the current situation.
11
This week, at the annual Alfred Smith dinner, Paul Ryan tried to make a joke about Trump. During the campaign, Ryan said, many people expressed concern that Trump was too coarse. Clearly, Ryan deadpanned, Trump learned his lesson.
That conclusion was meant to be ironic, but Trump has learned that he can act with impunity. Since he has no limits for his own behavior, Trump would have to meet real consequences. To date, he has mostly heard mild rebukes from the likes of Ryan and McConnell, and stronger encouragement that he will do Republicans' legislative bidding. Bob Corker is a lone voice in the wilderness unequivocally condemning Trump's irresponsibility.
And until more Republicans fear Trump's indecency than his wrath, the Bully-in-Chief will continue learning a terrible message.
55
The way to check Trump is to challenge his primary tool used in his ascendancy. Lying. Force him to testify under oath about everything he is lying about. Threaten him with consequences for using this unpresidential tool for governance.
I wish Mr. Wehner could define the principles and policies around which the establishment Republicans should rally. The reason why Trump is at the helm of the Republican Party is that the Republican Party has for long lied to and misled its followers. A look at the Republican Party’s score card during the past few decades shows its total subservience to the ultra-rich, and its eagerness to enter devastating budget-busting wars without our national security being at risk. The Republican Party has championed big money to enter and corrupt our politics, and it has turned its back on science by ignoring climate change. It has backed insane gun laws, backed away from immigration reform, and made it much harder for the minorities to vote. In short, it has been transformed into an obstructionist, reactionary and extremist party.
158
Amen! The Repub's need a Martin Luther (the first one). Someone that can redefine conservatism for a modern world. One that extracts those traditional values that can transcend and place order around the reshuffling of values that is defining this modern era and lead to stronger communities, families and citizens.
14
You have described one of the major contradictions of Trump supporters. That is the Republican Party's "total subservience to the ultra-rich." Middle-class Trump supporters don't want to see that while he seems to speak to their interests, he acts only in the interests of the ultra-rich. He tells supporters they are getting tax breaks, then instead plans to lower the taxes of the ultra-rich. Instead of draining the swamp, he's appointed only the most elite and ultra-rich to cabinet positions. Trump's "populism" is a sham, a front for the increasingly authoritarian plutocracy he is working to establish. He's convinced supporters that they can't trust the media, which allows him lie with impunity and then say that reports correcting the lies are fake, so supporters are kept in the dark. But, maybe his supporters just can't handle the truth--it's hard to admit that your savior turned out to be just a lying, pandering charlatan.
1
What Wehner refuses to acknowledge is that we have reached a watershed moment. The traditional frameworks and assumptions we've made about American democracy may no longer be valid - we are reaching a point of no return and none of us can predict what comes next.
The one thing that's clear is that the GOP has reached an end point, a dead end. If not ethnonationalism, what does it stand for? There is only nihilism at its core - racism, government minimalism, tax cuts, anti-science, fundamentalist hypocrisy. I do not see how a positive, forward-looking philosophy and vision can emerge.
113
Failure to make every vote count equally in presidential elections puts the lie to American pretenses of democracy and equal protection of law, here and abroad.
7
The Republican Party keeps talking about governing and then at every turn proves that it does not know how. They have no moral guidelines and have tried to destroy the government set up by the Founding Fathers. They should all be charged with treason for their efforts in destruction of the three branches of government.
That the already fractured and divided Republican Party made even more toxic and ineffective by obstruction for so long will now be challenged by Steve Bannon, backed by Mercer's money, is almost poetic justice. Will the Republican establishment mount a meaningful defense? We'll see. Do they understand Bannon's self described mandate to "destroy the administrative state" by tearing it down and rebuilding in Trump's image? I'm not certain about that. So many have boarded the Trump train and have remained silent during the attacks on the constitution, the judiciary, the intelligence community and the free press it may just be too late to correct. Russian interference in a U.S. general election doesn't seem to bother Bannon types or establishment Republicans. Trump's lies and distortions are met with shrugs from Republican leadership and applauded by Trump supporters. Republicans have no credibility left in any area of governance or promises but their constituents continue to elect them and then express anger about nothing meaningful being accomplished. Conservatism in the country now equates to the complete absence of any moral compass as is demonstrated in their positions on healthcare, taxes, immigration or infrastructure. Not even the deficit matters as long as they can stoke their anger at incompetence they themselves support at the ballot box.
Which group of fools will emerge as the victors? For certain it won't be the nation as a whole. It's all fake news.
47
Don’t hold your breath Peter. Despite Trump’s dismal performance as president, his approval rating amongst Republicans remains at a high level. Until that changes, and there is no reason to believe that it will, the Republicans in Congress will not step up even if they find him repugnant. Unfortunately, the first priority of many politicians is to remain in office.
33
Grover Norquist has been a thought leader for the GOP for a long time. The GOP push to "broaden the tax base" has been about eliminating progressive taxation which must increase taxes on the middle class. Repeal and Replace cannot create better access to health care. Dynamic scoring of tax cuts doesn't reflect what happens in the real economy. We are and have always been a nation of immigrants.
Trump is forcing the GOP to codify the longstanding mindset of conservatism and the process is exposing the fact it is mostly based on magical thinking. This is what drives the establishment bonkers. If eliminating progressive taxation were a good thing, if immigration was really the problem, if there was a real system to replace ACA, if tax cuts really drove economic prosperity, would you be complaining? Trump is making the GOP do what it has been saying for decades and it's about to ruin everything.
You don't want to fight Trump, you want to abdicate yourself from the consequences of what you have been fighting "for" for decades. It's no wonder that you have confusion among the ranks.
53
The whole Republican Party operates in denial of the fundamental law of economics that defines the slopes of all of its curves: the Law of Diminution at the Margin: the more of anything you have, the less each unit of it is worth to you.
1
Peter, this is not simply about Trump reconfiguring the GOP but about the two parties independently taking a step back and looking at their core positions. The two political parties have engaged in a cultural war, and the average American sees government as an economic and security apparatus: think Maslow's hierarchy but mostly the bottom sections.
A wise Democrat could pull the same disruption on the other side of the aisle by stressing the most common interests of all Americans: not their race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation but the shared transcendent interests that underlie all other things.
I think Trump is merely a canary.
6
You understand that a canary stops tweeting when the oxygen becomes deficient? Trump must be lifelong Republicans' "special" canary.
First, he's a tweeter!
Second, the rank-and-file could have voted for him, and not be on his train. Such "special" powers that the rank-and-file give themselves and their 'won't shut up' canary.
"As you sow so shall you reap."
I am 79. During my life the Republican party has supported the Rich over the poor, the powerful over the weak. When I was 10 father told me, "Leonard, the Republican party is the party for the Rich. The Democrats are the party for the rest of us."
But perhaps even more important, the Republicans have denied the data, denied reality.
They have denied climate change.
They have denied the superiority of the universal government run health care systems of other countries.
They have denied the historical fact that ALL 6 times we have eliminated deficits for a while, that period was ended by a terrible depression.
They have denied that study after study has shown that the revenue collected by the federal government after a tax cut was LESS than it would have without the cut.
They have denied that economic mobility in the US is lowest among developed nations.
They have denied that the ratio of corporate taxes actually paid to the Treasury to the GDP is among the lowest of developed countries.
They have denied the correlation between inequality and financial speculation.
They have denied that the estate tax has little or no effect on family farms or truly small businesses.
The have denied that political gerrymandering is a violation of equal protection under the law.
The have denied that the first clause of the 2nd Amendment has any relevance in spite of decades of precedent.
And on and on and on.
196
Republicans obviously see themselves as enforcers of the will of a deity created their own narcissistic images, and believe sheer willpower backed by money can alter the laws of economics and physics.
3
Your list makes one wonder just what the "conservatives" are "conserving". Their own power?
1
Do not ever forget that the Republican establishment could have stopped Trump early on had they not feared he would mount an independent run. Do not ever forget that the Republican establishment understood then that Trump was completely unfit for the presidency. Do not ever forget that the Republican establishment put party before country. Do not ever forget the thorough moral cowardice of the Republican establishment.
70
Has the statue of Lincoln at his monument started shedding tears yet? I know it's physically impossible, but some cartoonist somewhere must have drawn it. I wonder if current Republicans would even tolerate his views, except to parrot the Gettysburg address and ignore its meaning, just like they do in the Senate after the annual reading of Washington's Farewell Address.
Times are changing and we shouldn't expect the GOP to heal itself. In the fight or flight dynamic it's much easier to see the emergence of a center right wing of the Democratic Party than it is to see the GOP fix itself. The reason is simple, it's far, far easier for middle of the road GOP-ers to to decamp, to vote with their feet than to deal with a faction that doesn't submit to the rules of debate and logic. There's no hope in the GOP today, it's a powerful group held together by the possibility of crippling tax cuts for the rich; absent that you don't have a GOP. Come next November you might not either.
12
I have come to the conclusion that the only way to save the Republican Party is to destroy it as it currently exists. Living in a district represented by a Repubican in the House, I will work to elect a Democrat to that seat in 2018.
7
When I read this, it makes me angry. Mr. Wehner provides a great analysis as to the fissures within the Republican party, but he needs to accept that it was the Republican establishment that created Trumpism. Modern conservatives turned away from pragmatic and common sense practices in the 1980's with Reagan and have since used dog whistles and right-wing media to rile up a radical base that they can no longer control. They have promoted policies such as tax cuts and deregulation of everything from our banking industry to our environment to our healthcare; said policies have done nothing but cause wealth disparity and destruction upon our every day citizens, thus resulting in such a radical base that does not have enough common sense to realize it is not immigrants who took their jobs away. It is the Republican establishment's fault (to include their wealthy benefactors) we have Trumpism, and now the rest of us have to deal with their Frankenstein monster. And the final bit of irony is that Trump's base wants to "make America great again" but they are too obtuse to realize that they are going to destroy everything that made America great through their application of authoritarian policies and principles. It reminds me of the dog that chases the car but has no plan what to do with it when he/she catches it. Dear God Democrats, get out and vote in 2018.
90
Must reply to"dear God, democrats get out and vote in 2018". Who who is there to vote for?
2
Republican plutocrats leave no doubt of their own venality by whom they shower with political money.
1
A couple of years of Latin as a foreign language and Roman history class in college taught me that one of the downfalls of that civilization was its bloodlust for violence in the Coliseum and Circus Maximus to name just a few of the venues. It was during this time that the teeter totter was invented not as a toy for children but for two people in a fight for survival against a lion or other animal on the verge of starvation and fed only human flesh from time to time to keep it alive. Rome kept its citizens entertained for months on end this way and collectively their society rotted until there was nothing left to govern.
In a way a similar side show has now developed that is eerily similar to what took place centuries ago. Oh sure nowhere near as bloody but the end result will be equally disastrous for our society as a whole.
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Fifty-six percent of those Americans eligible to vote voted in 2016. A little better than half of those that voted cast their ballots for HRC and a little less than half voted for Trump, so the election was actually decided by roughly a quarter, or 25%, of those eligible to vote. Had HRC worked to capture just a sliver more of the vote in a few states she ignored the result would have been different. The fact she lost to Trump shows the importance of not putting up a candidate apparently seen as being as toxic as Trump.
Trump’s overall approval rating hangs a bit below 40%, with a bit more than 60% disapproving. How motivated is the 40% to vote versus the 60%? Trump is, relatively speaking, more popular than Congress, the Republican Party or the Democratic Party.
I don’t think a lot of those who tell pollsters they approve of Trump actually share his ideas—as he hasn’t any core principles. Instead, Trump is sheer anti-government entertainment in an era when “nihilism” permeates society’s view of government institutions. A vote for Trump is acting out, except since you don’t have to tell people who you voted for it is safer than breaking a bank window or punching a politician.
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The Electoral College actually nullifies a majority of the votes cast. Ask that math whiz Bob Mercer, he's probably the architect of Trump's winning loss by 3 million votes.
1
But what would a non-extremist Republican be for? Repealing Roe v. Wade? Turning away refugees? Gifting tax cuts to the rich while running up the national debt? Domestically speaking, there is little difference between traditional Republicans and Trumpism. As a Democrat, I applaud the idea of a Republican movement that rejects ethnonationalism, but if Republicans were to take a stand against it, what would their domestic policy platform look like and would it be better for the country than what’s coming out of the White House?
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Which is why those who would long for a Trump dethronememt know and fear we would only be left with Pence
2
Ironic that this column appears on the same day as the Time's editorial on heroes.
Republicans and most others consider people who volunteer for military service to be heroes; they risk their very lives for the American cause, and some lose their lives in that service.
And yet Republican incumbents stay cynically silent or quiet on Trump, who is the definition of existential threat and of self-serving immorality.
Republican leaders ask young people to serve and sometimes die, in service of the Constitution and the American idea. And yet they won't themselves serve the country by making the case against Trump, when all they risk is a primary loss followed by a subsequent corporate or lobbying career.
To extend the title of a P.J. O'Rourke book, this is a "Parliament of Cowards," led from the rear by Republicans.
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This ethnonationalist wing of the Republican Party is not likely to moderate anytime soon. For that matter it will continue to foment growth so long as Trump sits in the Oval Office. And there will be more Roy Moore's.
The Republican leadership has failed to take up the challenge going on 2 years now without so much.as a peep. They thought and still do think this Trump will self destruct. He won't.
My thoughts are, there are enough moderate Republican voters that are appalled at Trump and its senior leaders they will drift a little left and the Democrats will benefit by it.
It's rather sad reading op-eds of this nature. A party destroying itself from within and the leaders just sitting on their hands and praying the nightmare of Trumpism will somehow evaporate.
9
You had your chance. Everything you criticize about Trump was on display during the campaign. Despite the decades of vilification directed against her, Hillary Clinton was an experienced, responsible, moderate (cf. Sanders, Bernie) candidate. Where were you when your voice against Trump and for Hillary Clinton might actually have made a difference?
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Trump is the most blatantly transparent con artist I've ever seen.
4
I remain staunchly independent out of disgust with the two prevailing parties and their fringe peculiarities. I need to see cooperation and fail to see it. I need to believe in our government and only worry more about it’s negativity. At 70 years old I remember decorous, hard working politicians, and knew several well enough to feel their sincerity. I know very few now and even those I’d call friendly are nowhere close to their predecessors. I’d run for office myself but fear the opposition and a hungry press would butcher me and mock my every word.
4
Although I oppose Republicanism in any form, whether mild or obnoxious, Mr. Wenner is prophetic. Nearly everybody thought the Republican party would implode. Then came Donald Trump who tapped into the underlying anger of the Republican masses. What practically nobody saw — except a few like Mr. Wenner — is that the Republican Party under Trump and Bannon is in the process of imploding. Only those reasonable Republicans can head this implosion off.
It's up to the Republicans who are willing to govern to stand up and boldly say,"No more!" Unless they do so now, can civil war be far off?
4
The Republican Party has stood for nothing but federal nihilism since the Reagan Revolution.
1
The Republican Establishment hasn't had a positive message for decades. Low taxes and less regulation are philosophical positions that destroy government, not heal wounds or appeal to the best in us.
As the world becomes more complex, we need ever more complex regulations to deal with that complexity so less regulation isn't a governing strategy.
Low taxes is a slogan that wins over people who don't think deeply about the role of government. Of course, paying less taxes for effective government is great in theory, but when considering taxes, you should always start with the question: What do you want government to do and how do you want to pay for it...The Republican Establishment has pushed low taxes so it can destroy Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. How is that a positive message?
There's no way the Republican Establishment can make a comeback without a governing strategy. And that is what they're clearly missing.
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I agree. My question is: If the shrinking establishment wing of the GOP becomes ascendant again, 1) all we get is tax cuts for the rich which the establishment GOP is pushing in Congress right now, and the elimination of the social contract with the 99% (Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid), and 2) where do all the nihilistic crazy Republicans go? From my perspective and evidently Robert Salzberg, it wouldn't be much of an improvement. We had "establishment" ruling GOP under Bush II and Wehner, and they created a huge debt that the "establishment" GOP blamed on Obama and the Democrats in Congress. Again, not much of an improvement over Trumpism for the majority.
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The Republican Party is in denial of Gresham's Law too: in the absence of enforced minimum standards of conduct, the bad will drive the good out of any human activity.
2
The interesting thing about the Republican dilemma is whether they are able to run both Trumpist candidates that move to the GOP center and GOP centrist candidates who embrace Trump on judges and the like while rejecting other aspects. If the democrats continue their hard-left turn they may be able to pull it off despite their own divisions.
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Not a Republican, but if I were, I would readily accept Mr. Wehner's offer.
If the appeal is to universal ethical norms, then I do accept the offer, assuming such norms exist.
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And if my Dad were alive, he would grasp for it like air to a drowning Eisenhower Republican
The factor which Bannon et al have in their favor is that anger is a great energizer and motivator. In addition, sneering, name-calling, and outrageousness are all very entertaining. Being thoughtful, reasonable, discerning, and willing to compromise (all, IMHO, qualities of truly good leaders) often is far less energizing. It is certainly less entertaining to a TV/video oriented world, which thrives on action and short bursts of entertainment.
The dissatisfied anti-Trump crowd will have to get angry enough to be moved to action. I grew up in a Republican household surrounded by mostly GOP neighbors, but those folks are not (or not likely to be) the Trump/Bannon crowd. They are the old GOP in favor of limited government, lower taxes, and "personal responsibility." They also were/are folks who believed in decency, kindness, welcoming the stranger, and immigration as the backbone of this nation. Most of them were only a generation or two away from immigrants. They would have been appalled by Mr. Trump's boorishness, his foul mouth would have disgusted and outraged them. Those are the folks - and they are legion - the GOP must find and re-engage... or lose its soul for good.
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That the Republican party needs to excommunicate Trump to survive as a party worthy of governing goes without saying. But why is it that >70% of Republicans are still supporting that abomination? The Trump opposition inside the party is a feeble minority at this juncture. It is not just Bannonism that needs to be rejected but the enablers McConnell and Paul Ryan who assumed a servile posture in the hope that it would advance a Republican agenda that is likely to be just as destructive of the commonwealth as the clumsy efforts of Mr. Trump.
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It must have already occurred to Republicans that Trump is in control of their voting base and cannot be excommunicated. They are the minority in their own party. Years of exploiting ignorance, intolerance and irrationality are now coming home.
We can only hope that it is only the Republican Party that will be destroyed and not the rest of us.
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I reject Bannonism. There, I stood up. I’m also not in favor of Harvey Weinstein, Adolph Hitler or Stephen Paddock, so I guess that makes four in the ‘stand-up and be counted” column.
More to the point, perhaps for a Republican, I also reject Pelosiism, Reidism, Bernieism and Warrenism. And razor blades in apples on Halloween.
Republicans should focus more on making just enough sausage, among themselves as well as Democrats, to make undivided government count, and less on deep-dives into the contemplative navel or on Steve Bannon, who never saw an unbombed discussion that he liked.
And Mr. Wehner might consider that giving hostages to fortune on the Opinion Page of the New York Times won’t win us a legacy or unite the “herd” effectively. Watch out for those elephant-gifts on the lawn.
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Love the image. Too bad the rest of it didn't live up to it. Just a tired rehash of stuff we've heard to death and no effect.
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"I’m not sure if it’s a winning one, but I’m certain it’s an ennobling one. And that should be enough."
There are really now three wings of the Republican party: the Bannon wing of ethno-nationalists, the Wehner wing of American moralists and the Luettgen wing of transactional realists. Most of the lily-livered Republicans in the Senate belong to the Luettgen wing. Some, like McCain and Corker belong to the Wehner wing. The Bannon wing does seem to be in the ascendant, however. The midterms will tell their tale.
Mr. Luettgen has demonstrated time and again in this forum that there is little if anything he won't swallow from Trump in order to keep the party in power. And, as I've remarked often and with dismay, if Trump were to announce tomorrow that he was switching parties a good 70% of Democrats would suddenly discover they could work with him. Luettgenism is a disease that infects both the right and the left. I disagree with Mr. Wehner on a good 90% of policy, but he's a man of honor and his wing of the party is the only one with any remaining dignity.
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Wehner writes:
"Some so-called establishment Republicans, alarmed by the rise of the ethnonationalist wing of the party, comfort themselves with the belief that this movement can be domesticated, absorbed into the traditional coalition with its sharp edges sanded off. According to this narrative, the Republican Party will weather this storm and emerge in a modified but recognizable form. There are bound to be tensions, but civil war can be averted."
This describes exactly the establishment Germans in the 1930s who thought they could manage the rise of another underestimated clown who turned out to be a madman.
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A clown who never had 40% support until Germany was attacked. Trump's rise to the level of power he desires can only accomplished through war, for which he aches with all of his being. The man harbors an urge to kill. How'd' that work out with Cheney? Trump needs to be removed from power, smooth or rough, but now. If the self-serving cowards who supposed to protect us from the likes of Trump won't do it, we have to, by declaring Removal Day and for calling a general strike that lasts until he is led away. He is lucky we don't liven country where people like him are carried out feet-first.
3
I think it also shows the continued GOP of denial that there's nothing wrong here, folks, just keep doing what we've been doing - not change anything at all and, if possible, drag us back to some mythical fairy tale of when American was "great," - and continue to self-immolate while also watching the country immolate with it.
3
I hope there are millions of Republicans out there who share Mr. Wehner's sense of alarm about Trump and who will work hard to recast their party along responsible lines. We need two strong good parties. But I'm not hopeful that today's "better" Republicans are capable of owning up to the dark forces they unleashed, which brought us to this place - from Joe McCarthy to Goldwater's "extremism," Nixon's criminality, Reagan's government bashing, the nihilism of Gingerich and Norquist, the lies behind Iraq, McConnell's radical obstructionism and the racially inspired war on voting rights. Deploring Trump is easy. Acknowledging the many shameful things the party did that made him president is hard but necessary.
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Excellent observations !!!
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@Charles Michener: If there are "millions of Republicans out there" they certainly aren't showing any sense of alarm by their local, state and federal voting patterns.
You've convinced me, Mr. Wehner. In fact, I've been right there all this time. Now all you have to do is show me the leaders or courage and purpose. I haven't seen one since Mitch Daniels retired.
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Bob - cancel your membership. Re-register. If Republicans start to leave - the leadership might act. If you have one of those hats, "Make America Great Again", get a T-shirt to wear with it, "... by saving it from Trump".
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You are completely, utterly misreading establishment Republican politics. There is only one thing that matters. How much are their wealthiest contributors taxed? How little are their wealthiest contributors regulated? All other concerns and issues - health care, voter fraud, states' rights, supreme court, abortion, Russia, war and peace, and so on - are irrelevant except for their potential roles as steppingstones to greater wealth for their wealthiest supporters. That's why so much right now is riding on massive tax cuts for the rich, disguised or not, accompanied or not by other inducements to get the necessary votes, absolutely nothing else matters. That is a common objective of Trump, McConnell, the whole lot of them. Maybe three senators will vote no. That would be monumental politically but still a negligible fraction of Republicans in Congress. If they deliver, their continued support is assured, and they'll laugh all the way to the bank at all the insults from Trump to them, the country, the constitution, and all of our highest ideals. It is laughable to think that they care whether ordinary citizen supporters will be satiated. It is actually better for the Republicans if they are not. Then they, and Breitbart and Alex Jones and conservative talk radio and Fox News, can continue the story line that any remaining government and governance (Medicare is in their sights) needs to be taken off our backs. There will be even more taxes to cut.
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A lot of truth in this comment. It cannot be emphasized enough that benefits to very wealthy donors is a driving force for Republicans. When it comes to tax "reform" we are seeing them explicitly acknowledge what they want.
They've been buying expensive and effective public relations for years to win elections. The Trump administration is proving to be not very effective in fulfilling their desires despite the presence of all those oligarchs and toadies in the cabinet.
I don't think Trump cares, he's just a performer, but Republicans in Congress care very much. Those media outlets mentioned have been effective tools up to this point. Social media does change the picture, but people are still learning how to use it.
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"All representative governments display a natural tendency to degenerate from republicanism toward monarchy, principally because of the unequal distribution of wealth among the people."
--William Branch Giles, US Representative (VA), 1791, Thomas Jefferson protégé
"We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in them hands of a few, but we can`t have both."
--Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis
1
Donald Trump and Steve Bannon have uncountable failings to answer for. However, the fact that Merrick Garland is not a Supreme Court justice is not among them. The fact that Republicans in Congress spent 7 years lambasting the horrors of the ACA, and then could not come up with a better, nay *any* alternative, is not among them. While Trump has supported a tax "reform" plan that is a giveaway to the wealthy, that idea didn't originate with him. The many trillions of dollars, the rivers of American and Iraqi blood spilled in the desert - those are not the fault of Donald Trump. Donald Trump certainly took advantage of Republican scorn for a black man as president, but he didn't invent it. (In that context, is only fair to note that, to his credit, Mr. Wehner was never a birther.)
The Republican establishment has been a dead, rotten tree for a long time. We must all pray that when the wind of a real crisis arises, as it surely will, the tree will fall away from the house. But this notion that there is a core of moral, responsible Republicans just aching to take up the reins, well, it sounds like fake news, to coin a phrase.
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A dead tree is dangerous and it`s only positive future is to be used as firewood, if it can be cut and stacked before it gets to rotten. A dead tree has no future, it has no leaves to blanket the ground and provide haven for winter, it has no seed or fruit to feed nature and provide for it`s own future and it`s visage provides a negative view of the future.
3
Nixon's Southern strategy.
2
It speaks to the bankruptcy of the Republican party that at this late date, someone of Mr. Wehner's standing has to write a call to arms because so few of his fellow Republicans have been willing to make a stand against the blatant lying, fomenting of resentment and division, dismantling of our institutions, and the puerile infantalism that is at the core of our current executive branch. I am personally disgusted with any person, Democrat or Republican, who will not actively speak out against the existential threat our republic is facing. This needs to be taken seriously. There is nothing new under the sun, and history is strewn with the despicable enablers who looked the other way while catastrophe inexorably developed under their noses.
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Please keep pressing the “never-Trump” Republican leaders to go public with their concerns and to take all actions available to stop him. Why are they such cowards? Do they not see that our way of life is at risk? 60% of Americans are appalled by Trump and disapprove of him and the job he is doing. There’s a lot of support, therefore, for leaders to stand up to Trump and do all they can to stop him.
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This is a ruse. They all pretend to dislike Trump, but support him in private. As a Republican, I know how it works. One prong acts all cuddly and sympathetic ( compassionate conservativism you might call it ), while another works the press to make twisted liberals with their BLM and their Harvey Weinstein look evil.
This paves the way for the Ed Gillespies and the other milquetoast moderates to win just enough swing elections to put them over the top.
It's how Rob Portman and Pat Toomey held on, despite being the epitome of the DC swamp Republicans allegedly wanted to drain.
Well, the joke is on them, because Trump, Mercer, and Bannon are using them, and are about to destroy them, a bit like the fate that Ernst Rohm met some time ago.
So yes, this is a ruse, but Wehner and his ilk are being double crossed. Can't say I feel sorry for them.
2
When Saint Ronald proclaimed government to not be the solution but the problem, he set GOP on the slippery slope to abandoning any idea of the common good (otherwise referred to in the Constitution as the General Welfare) on the sacred altar of tax cuts. Your party sold the voters on the idea of something for nothing, then it was only a few short steps to the tea party and trump not even offering "something" except to its rich and powerful benefactors.
Sorry, Peter, you can't get away with presenting trump as a Republican outlier. He is the natural product of a trajectory that your party very deliberately chose. Now you own him.
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You mention "General Welfare" in the Constitution. Several years ago, I was discussion constitutional issues with a hardcore right-winger, someone who believed that the government should do nothing outside of the military. I asked him "What about promote the general welfare as mentioned in the constitution?" His response was that the constitution said promote the general welfare, not provide it. I guess he thought that the government should be going "Rah rah, sis boom bah. Go welfare." Scary stuff.
4
Reagan convinced half the US that tax cuts are free money.
3
"It’s politically dominant but increasingly unpopular, particularly among young people and nonwhites of all ages, whose level of unhappiness with Mr. Trump and his administration is toxic."
And why shouldn't it be? Trump and Bannon have pretty much done everything in their power to undermine their goals and interests.
I find this column interesting, because of its errors more than its truths. Unlike you, Peter Wehner, I don't think Trump is an outlier for a new wing of the Republican party but a symbol for all of it--its crushing failures and focus on money and greed at the expense of the middle class.
Speaking of money, the fact that Donald Trump, grifter par excellence and Steve Bannon, backed by one of the wealthiest men in the country, are hardly populists. Isolationists and nationalists (white nationalists, surely) maybe, but populists no.
When you call for somebody to usher forth from the increasingly bankrupt GOP, I could relate because what you're describing is a Democrat--not in the mold of Clinton or Obama, but of Democrats of yore, ones who weren't coopted by money or too timid to be bold.
I'm thinking of groundbreaking Democrats like FDR or the Kennedy brothers. Where are such men, of either party, who can speak to basic fairness and universal justice despite their great wealth?
For me, going bold these days means unifying, not dividing, and standing up for the middle class, with a good dose of passionate charisma to boot.
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Let's not forget that, in those good old days, there were Republicans who stood for more than tax cuts and deregulation. They voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and supported parts of the Great Society. They recognized that tax cuts, although they wanted to be careful spending our money, were not always beneficial. They were not out to "starve the beast," but they wanted to make government more effective.
Those people have been discarded as RINOs.
17
You touched on something I remember well. There was a time when people of
great wealth showed respect, concern for fairness and compassion for the less fortunate. Maybe it was because of the depression and the havoc it caused, but out of it we had wealthy men, Roosevelt, Rockefellers, Kennedys coming to the fore, running for office, creating the decent and ethical ways we once knew. Today, the
big money guys hide behind their beliefs, offering us cripple-minded thugs like Bannon and his ilk. They are racist and un-American. What a shame..
3
Yes, there were republicans who put their money where they
mouths were - they did support the great society, social security and medicare. Too bad they are mainly a memory now. They left a party of bigotry and racism - They stood mute during the state of
the union when a Black president had "you lie" tossed at him; when a faux Republican, Trump, gained the presidency with the mantra of "birtherism" and a new form of hate was nurtured in a
party that was tossed to the winds, A shameful legacy for the Republican party. Religious fanatics are also thrown into the mix
along with lack of respect for the 1st amendment. So much to
stir into this terrible time we're in. The gutlessness of congress on
all sides, etc, etc., etc.,
2
"If they were to triumph — if the tribalistic, angry, anti-government wing of the party turns out to be the vanguard rather than an ugly and unfortunate parenthesis — then the Republican Party would collapse intellectually and morally, and a lot of lifelong Republicans would head for the exits."
Peter -- while most Republicans have not headed for the exits, it's hard to see that Trump et al have not won already within the GOP. Who is standing up to him? Where is the Congressional wing out of alliance with what he wants? They may think they can make him accommodate them, but, so far, he has been making them accommodate him.
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Megadonor billionaire Robert Mercer is bankrolling Bannon. There would be no Bannon campaign effort without Mercer's millions. Americans should know that the 2018 election is being bought my Mercer, and Bannon is merely his handmaiden.
Unless we get severe election reform all of our elections will be up for the highest bidder. Mercer's views of the world are extremely odd. He is also paranoid and reclusive. Bannon is having a merry time spending his money.
But maybe the Mercer threat will finally get the more sensible Republicans to enact campaign finance reform before Bannon, with Mercer's largesse boots them out of office.
229
The Money Industry is running our Country. Our new motto should be " a Government of Money, by Money, for Money. Money has attained personhood through the SCOTUS. Money, and the Money Industry that controls it, is more powerful than our Military, has the power to bring our Representatives to their knees like beggars and holds a higher status than God himself ( obviously Baal and his golden blood has won ). Until we take our Government back from the Money Industry it is a waste of time to discuss anything. Whether we debate health, guns, S&S, schools, elections or ANYTHING Money allows and controls the debate as it sees fit. We must put our focus on running the Money Industry out of DC tared feathered and riding a rail. Only then can the actual people get back to debating our future.
3
Mercer is not merely odd but dangerous. Read the article about him by Jane Mayer of New Yorker magazine (who is doing outstanding work bringing to light the tangled web of big money in politics):
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-t...
3
Those of us on the left coasts have seen this coming for a very long time Mr. Wehner so I wouldn't get your hopes up for a change soon. They are well described by a title of one of their favorite books "Left Behind". The only question is whether they'll succeed in dragging the rest of us down with them.
60
Their eschatology isn't quite clear on who gets raptured up to Heaven and who inherits the Earth in the Apocalypse.
3
“Thirsting for leaders of courage and purpose who, in a fractious and intemperate age, believe... that one of the high callings of politics is to heal our wounds rather than to inflict new ones, to appeal to our best instincts rather than our worst.”
I think we had that guy. His name was Barack Obama.
Maybe Republicans like the ones that Mr. Wehner advised should’ve been a little kinder to and more satisfied with President Obama, even if they did not support each one of his policies.
I look forward to the day, which I am optimistic will come again soon, when Americans will value a person of class and dignity as their leader.
259
Perhaps it is time for the GOP to radical change the goals of the party no more looking out for the uber rich.
34
Republicans have this idea that the citizens of the USA, through their elected representatives, should be able to regulate immigration. This is now denigrated as "ethno-nationalism." And you wonder why people voted for Trump?
6
And what do you suppose Democrats believe in- "open borders"? If so, why did Obama expel more undocumented immigrants than any president before him? The difference is that Dems don't want to keep Muslims out simply because they're Muslims. And we don't believe in a wall (especially not if American taxpayers are going to be funding it) that can be easily bypassed by anyone with a shovel. Regulation with compassion goes a lot further than regulation without.
226
No - not just Republicans think that. The difference in opinion is what those regulations should be and how they should be administered. And I do not wonder why people voted for Trump: it was because they thought he would look out for their interests - I just can't understand why?
19
Theoretically, immigration is regulated. But who do you suppose is hiring these illegals and paying them under the table? I'm willing to bet that at least 90% of them are people who vote Republican. And who is applying for all those H1B and H2B visas while laying off American workers? Companies like Microsoft and Disney and the Trump organization come to mind. Has Ivanka opened an American factory or is she still manufacturing her clothes and shoes in China and Bangladesh? And how many green cards have been awarded to wealthy Europeans and Chinese and Russians who bring in their maids and nannies? Which CEOs of American companies were born and raised in other countries? You might be surprised at the answers.
26
Republicans have made their bed, and now they have to lie in it. And they’re very good at lying, so that shouldn’t be a problem. They’ve been lying to the country for decades, using resentment and grievances to energize the low-information voter. They made government so painful during the Obama years that the clueless crowd would have voted for a declared Nazi if he promised to bring back coal and stomp on hippies.
So now they’ve got what they wanted: an idiot is in charge, disconnected from reality, unable to get anything done except to sign defective executive orders (when he remembers to sign them), play nuclear chicken with North Korea and post inflammatory tweets like a snotty adolescent.
The Republican sweep of Congress and the White House hasn’t produced any results because Republican legislators are still working under the old rules, where you had to pretend to care about the populace. Bannon is out to change all that. Installing a moron in the Oval Office was phase one. Check that one off the list.
Phase two is to stuff the halls of Congress with insane Republican zealots who won’t bother to look reasonable. Build those walls! Keep out anyone who’s browner than a grocery bag! Medical care will be for healthy people only! Fine anyone who leaves home without a gun!
Conservatism isn’t the answer. It’s what got us here. We need to energize the dispirited Democrats to VOTE in 2018. End the insanity!
773
What both parties or even all parties need to seek is comity, and efforts to return to an America where upward mobility is possible.
4
If upward mobility is defined by more consumption, then it is the problem not the solution.
1
Even Trump's extravagantly contrived signature is part of the con.
5
It seems to me that the honorable thing to do in the face of a Trump/Bannon takeover of the GOP is to join the Democrats. You'd have to tolerate being dominated by folks who are supportive of reproductive rights and opposed to tax cuts for the wealthy but it's either that or capitulate to an enfant terrible and his band of willfully ignorant Deplorables. BTW: how does one delight in a President's effort to annihilate the truth if you're able to recognize the truth in the first place? Trump's legions are mostly enjoying his prejudices, essentially because he validates their own. I can't imagine that any of his supporters truly believe that all Mexican immigrants are rapists (just to cite one example of his toxic hyperbole). What pleases them is his willingness to insult the same people whose presence in our country feeds their own spite and sense of alienation. They're all just waiting for their fearless leader to give them a "sign": not that all is right in America again but rather that they can go back to using the "N" word in public.
416
Supporting Mr. Freeman's proposal that moderate Republicans should ally with the Democratic Party, it's worth noting that there was just one true conservative running last fall: Hillary Clinton.
She's also a liberal, of course. (I can't help it if people are confused about what "liberal" and "conservative" mean.)
62
To be fair, Mr. Wehner has been a Trump denier for quite a while. But he has also been an ardent supporter of the Republican Party. This party has been fomenting white resentment and divisive bigotry since long before Trump. Nixon's Southern Strategy was the beginning and Trump is the consequence. Mr. Wehner can't have it both ways. When you support the cause you need to take responsibility for the effect.
360
Yes, Avatar, but it Great, Good News that Mr. Wehner has wakened up. He can convince other "conservatives" that they are making a bed of thorns that will destroy them, too.
I applaud Mr. Wehner for having the courage to see the truth and speak up publicly. Please, Good People who have recognized the mistake that put The Con Don in OUR white house and his Robber Baron friends in charge of the destruction of OUR government speak up now. Tell your friends. Show them proof. Do not let mistakes in choice or non-action destroy democracy.
3
An interesting and well-written article. The photograph.artwork is also very-well done. Bravo!
16