Why bother saving it?
63
As the Party of Lincoln is now the Party of Trump, so America has degenerated from democracy, freedom, and justice into decadence, ignorance, and hate.
145
And just like Lincoln, President Trump is saving the nation from Democrats.
5
Sheldon Adelson will “save the GOP”...... make that, buy it!
12
Can anyone save America?
13
If real republicans wanted to rid themselves of trump this is the time. All it would take is 4 senators to convict trump and remove him. If republicans really wanted to take back the reigns they could.
Unfortunately they won’t because they are too scared of the Fox News propaganda machine and all of the old white racists that vote republican. I would argue though that there are a lot of moderate republicans out there that have stayed quiet but would love to see trump gone. Time to man up republicans, unfortunately you won’t because you are spineless.
47
The media has done great disservice by not focusing on Bill Weld’s strengths and presenting him as an alternate to someone like Trump. Instead of assuming that trump and only trump will run as Republican candidate in 2020, the media has set up the stage for Trump’s inhaling the Republican Party, whole! Very sad. While majority of republicans approve of Trump despite his flaws lies shortcomings unethical corrupt ways, there are many centrist republicans who can feel in their souls how harmful Trump is for the country. Some of these republicans have dared to form Lincoln PAC and such, but these lack popular support which is only possible if Trump is exposed for who he is and his abetters and enablers are exposed as well.
We look forward to more exposure like Devin Nunes complicity. Imagine! An intelligence committee not having intelligence on their own panel members! Nunes fooled the entire house intelligence committee impeachment hearings. Every single Republican on that panel whines complained about the process without actually providing substantial defense of Trump’s actions. What a stupid idiotic foolish country we are! The entire world watched and sighed. Outside the US people can see the truth as their noses, but here in the US trump’s followers supporters abetters enablers can only see trump channeling their own thoughts.
27
My cynicism and dislike for Republicans has taken enormous leaps and bounds in the last 20 years. I should have noticed what they've become earlier during the St. Ronnie and Gingrich years.
This Republican Party isn't worth saving, it's entire structure is crawling with hucksters, thieves, cowards and traitors. They have sacrificed their honor, integrity and decency to stay in power. They are no better than the moron who leads them.
Bret Stephens is grasping at straws, I don't blame him. I'm thinking of sending Bill Weld a donation and I've never voted for a Republican.
62
A democracy requires multiple parties. Citizens coalesce around ideas and perceived needs. To run a country with only a party, especially with a leader like President Trump who needs a push back on his worst impulses is very dangerous. During the second world war, we saw that with the atrocities of Hitler. Our new Republican party will have to be rebuilt with the knowledge that we don't have infinite resources. a fairer tax code, everyone is entitled to access to healthcare funded by multiple sources, education for 14 years (2 years of public service, learning skills in the military or peace corps) and multiple incentives to excel in a chosen field, and new opportunities to develop cutting edge inventions to improve the quality of life for all of us. And yes, a new attitude that this will often take hard but rewarding work.
11
Benjamin Netanyahu? Vladimir Putin? Mohammed bin Salman? Xi Jinping?
Or the white European American voting majority going Democratic Party in the next Presidential election. That hasn't happened since Johnson/ Humphrey 1964.
Obama/ Biden won 43% and 41% of the white vote in 2008 and 2012. Clinton won 42% of that vote in 2016.
6
Rural America and its sheer hatred for anything resembling democracy and intellectualism will make sure their crime lord gets another four years. Nice to call yourselves Christians.
52
Can Anyone Save the G.O.P.?
Short answer? No.
The Republican party doesn't exist anymore. It's been consumed by the Dixiecrat parasite it took on 50 years ago. It primarily exists in the slave states. Let it fade away as old white supremacists die off.
38
Is it worth saving?
14
Saving? What are you talking about. This party owns the country and is dominating everything. The country deserves 'saving' - not them. American is simply thrilled about a party that wants to ensure that no one with a preexisting condition ever gets healthcare. Americans applaud when the killer of an unarmed black man is set free. It is not just republicans, but a majority of Americans today worship at the alter of a misogynist thug and serial fraudster, FOX and supremacy. They won, and will be winning for a long time.
24
Bill Weld is a dying species in the GOP; he's still connected to reality, coherent thought and complete sentences.
He's doing noble work offering the tiny number of sane Republicans a sane choice on the ballot vs. our Frankenstein President.
What actually makes up today's GOP outside of New England ?
Wild drunken spenders maxing out the nation's credit cards.
Christian Shariah Law cultists demanding state control of the nation's uteruses.
Suckers for conspiracy theories
Rejecters of the the separation of powers principle and the United States Constitution.
Welfare queens of the first order.
Trickle-Down fraudsters
Science denialists.
Mindless flag-wavers with contempt for funding their own government.
Zero gun regulation champions.
Angry White Male Christian 'victims'.
Enemies of a civilized healthcare system.
Aiders and abettors of voter suppression laws and voter file purges.
Aiders and abettors to environmental catastrophe.
Aiders and abettors to endless Trump Swamp of corruption.
Aiders and abettors of the demonization of non-whites.
White nationalist political thuggery.
Big fans of the Worldwide Wrestling Federation Presidency that conducts all public policy through chair smashing over opponents' heads.
There's nothing worth saving in the GOP except its epitaph, which shall read:
Here rests a political party that tried its best to destroy its own country through greed, power, propaganda, white supremacy, religion and the worst instincts of humanity.
65
No.
Great wealth has become a nation unto itself, and the Republican Party is its lawyer, its mouthpiece, its Roy Cohn.
It isn't a national party, it is an international con, working its magic across many different board rooms in many countries, including Russia.
It uses racism and other divisions to stay in power.
But will it die?
Of course not. Big money, big banks, the arrogant and the astoundingly greedy need political power.
Has any nation rebounded after it allowed corporate fascism take over? We are Rome, circa 360 A.D.
Hugh
30
Is there something very detailed that I can read that explains how the Republican Party got here? Thanks for your help.
1
Why bother?
8
The state of Kentucky would be a good place to start.
22
Yes: Anyone who can rid the party as a comfortable home for the likes white nationalists, radical religious fundamentalists and those who use the constitution as a doormat.
9
Why would anyone want to save the GOP? They were once a positive influence when they were balanced between Conservatives and Liberals. Then came Nixon and the Southern Strategy. Followed by the Regan Purge. The GOP evolved into a Neo-Nazi political organization promoting Racism and seeking Rich White Privileged. With Trump, it has attained it pinnacle. Let it die.
23
Responding to the headline, should anyone try?
5
Yes,
Once the grassroots of the GOP take over
https://RepMyBlock.us
Simple.
1
Nothing about the present GOP surprises me.
Raegan: 'welfare queen in a cadillac with 5 babies from 5 fathers' The message to white voters, then as now; your problems are because of blacks, or muslims, or hispanics ...
As a minority party, their approach has been to divide people.
Fast forward to Obama ... The tea party displays blatantly racist images of Barack and Michelle ... 'You Lie' screamed during a joint session of congress ... 'food stamps president'
... tea party coward spits on John Lewis, civil rights legend ... 'One term president' ... 'Armed and Dangerous' ... On and on,
phony machismo and barely hidden racism ...
The 2016 republican primaries ... Trump brags about 'grabbing' women ... disrespects John McCain ... the Syrian parents, disabled reporter ... on and on, not one republican objects. He lies to cheering crowds of unemployed workers about what he will do for them and the republicans, sadly resigned, strap on the yoke.
Now, 3+ years later: medical insurance? - He promises a plan after 2020 ... North Korea laughs at him ... Huge cash bailout to farmers while 'best trade deal in history' is being 'worked out' ... tax cut to the 1% bloats the deficit ... cutting environmental restrictions so more people get lung disease.
Other than those who have quit, the republicans have nothing else to do or say ... Trump's impeachment? A few will vote to remove him, the rest will dig in.
Bill Weld? Call yourself an independent.
23
Why would anyone want to save them. The whole party needs to die quickly.
14
Why would anyone want to? Let it die.
10
At this point in history..Who Cares?
5
Like the 1987 SMU football season was cancelled, voters should give the GOP the proverbial death penalty by voting blue no matter who.
It’s the only humane method to put this sick animal down.
16
Can anyone save us from the G.O.P.?
Josefina Alvarez
Santa Fe, New Mexico
15
For the most part this is sensible
But the assumption here is one of moderation’s existence
Not sure if that is operational in today's thug ridden GOP where rule of law appears to be for suckers only
5
As my dear Mother would tell me, many decades ago.....”If wishes were horses, paupers would ride”
From your lips to God’s ear... my Jewish friends would retort!
3
A better title for this article might be, "Can anyone save the U.S. from the G.O.P.?" We now have our National Archives, the stewards of the historical record, altering historical photographs so as not to offend Trump and his supporters. This is 1930s Nazi Germany.
30
Can anyone save the hopelessly socialistic, financially disastrous leftist Democrat party?
4
Well they sold their soul and their constituents by aligning with an amoral, unqualified and mafia style President & his administration regardless of the consequences. RIP GOP
16
God speed Mr. Weld.
9
" a president whose support among Republicans was 89 percent last month,"
Just this week I saw another example of how stupid Trump is. First he called the impeachment a "hoax", and then he called it a "phony hoax". He's just throwing words around without knowing what they mean.
What do you call somebody who worships an idiot? Another idiot. And apparently that's 89% of the Republican Party.
22
The Republican Party has been defined by Trumpism, a form of Hitlerism whose message us that of "Blood and Iron" or "Race and Power".
Profoundly anti-democratic, like the fascist movements in the 20th Century, the sociology of Trumpism is openly racist and militaristic while it seems Trump may even choose the "annexation" card dictators like Hitler and Putin have used to maintain a presence in Shiite Iraq which Trump seems to merit charging Iraq.
The first thing Hitler did on taking power was to withdraw from all Treaties and start building a "West Wall" and instituting a draft.
Hitler, like Trump demonized the press, as he targeted Jews and Slavs as "UnterMenschen" or subhuman just as Trump targets Hispanics and Blacks.
Trumpism is modern fascism.
21
Nothing can save the Republican party now that it has finally devolved into it's true self.
It has simply become the party which champions the Red State culture of bigotry: racism... misogyny... homophobia... xenophobia... religious intolerance... and genderphobia.
I have news for this new transparent Republican party... Vladimir Putin will not be able to save your culture of bigotry from the approaching demographic changes coming to America... so you are selling out your American souls for nothing.
You may currently think that you are winning the battle... but none the less you are going to lose the war...for God has already decided that your culture of bigotry must come to an end.
And if you try and make abortion illegal... you will only hasten your demise.
For once again... as usual... the Republican party is simply on the wrong side of history.
17
Stephens actual message can always be found somewhere in his last two graphs...in this case it is Bret really wants to elect a Rockefeller Republican named Hillary Clinton and he will us fear to make it happen.
"Alternatively a Sanders or Warren victory could send the G.O.P. to even further extremes."
3
The Republican Party is already gone. In its place is the Party of Trump, in all but name.
Loyalty is no longer to a party, or its stated values; certainly not to the country. Loyalty is to the one man, Trump. The people who used to be Republicans are willing to abandon everything they once claimed dear: the Constitution, the rule of law, international hegemony, national independence, and even the very structure of our democratic republic, all for this one man.
Republicans didn’t want a President. Republicans wanted a godlike mob boss, and that is what they have.
Party leaders have already telegraphed their intentions to break the careless oath they took this week to act as impartial jurors. They are too eager to acquit Trump (and in unknown numbers, themselves) of crimes they know were committed.
The die is already cast. Whatever the fate of Trump is the fate of what we continue to call the Republican Party. And whatever is left of what used to be our country is left hanging in the balance.
Trump is a mortal man, and his party will perish with him. But as Shakespeare said, the evil a man does, persists.
11
If Warren or Sanders is the nominee from the Democratic party , I plan on voting for Bill Weld (write-in).
25
Save the GOP?
How about quit worrying about saving the horrendous GOP, stop falsely claiming the wrath of a Warren or Sanders Presidency, and set your concerns around saving the USA, Brett.
13
Weld got us into this mess with his 2016 candidacy and now has the audacity to want to be a savior in 2020? What an ego!
2
“That could happen if a critical mass of conservatives repudiates Trumpism or forms a new party on the Lincoln model. Weld calls it the Liberty Party.”
Ain’t gonna happen. The Republican Party has morphed into Trump and now acts as his robotic appendages to further his fake glory. They lie, physically and verbally attack reporters, scream and yell during hearings, debase their honor by groveling for dirt on candidates from foreign countries and meet with Putin in Russia on the 4th of July.
“Republican” not the nicest of words.
12
You’re cruising along, winning elections by rights you should have lost, claiming what your political opponents condemn as cruel self-dealing is just fiscal realism reinforced by moral responsibility. Venal hypocrisies? Realpolitic: everybody does it, all you’re doing is winning at it.
Nagging anxiety: maybe a demographic tsunami really is coming that will be proof against all the cunning schemes you’ve been evolving over the decades to prolong minority rule and avoid being washed away to inaugurate Bill Barr’s dreaded secular humanist state.
Come 2015-16 you’re genuinely shocked. That base base you’ve been publicly nurturing and privately mocking since even long before the Southern Strategy has devolved into a raging mob that gives the lie to all that fiscal realism and moral responsibility.
By now very practiced and having been born with politician DNA, of course you just rationalize even harder.
Why wonder for a moment at the support by almost all “responsible” and “establishment” Republicans and most “true” conservatives for a professionally corrupt and personally loathsome demagogue whose lying, cheating, and stealing are precisely what endears him to the mob.
Own up to Hamilton’s worst nightmare? Ha.
4
Weld is a long in the tooth egomaniac motivated strictly by personal pique and jealousy. "How is it this buffoon Trump could grab the brass ring so easily, and I, the smartest man in the room, am ignored? YOU CAN'T IGNORE ME.!" What does William Weld actually stand for, other than his own defeated political ambitions? Absolutely nothing.
6
"Democrats who want to see Republicans recover their center need to protect their own."
This is a pretty self-centered view. Nobody - not even Republicans *need* to see "Republicans recover their center." We don't need the Republican Party, period, in fact.
We need elected officials that serve the people, and don't start a thermonuclear war out of stupidity and bigotry. We need elected officials who aren't criminals or accomplices in crimes who benefit from others' crimes.
The Republican Party of today is corrupt because its elected officials benefit from the crimes of Trump and others. It is also corrupt because they have put into power "conservative" judges who've corrupted our polity with unregulated election campaign funding.
There is simply no reason for the Republican Party of today, the party of Trump toadies, to exist.
10
I would love a challenge to Trump but let us not forget that the party was morally corrupt before Trump. Trump is the disease that has been stewing in the organs of the party for a long time. The racism, sexism, and xenophobia in the party exploded as a response to Obama. Can there be a GOP that actually wants to help people?
308
No, the GOP in their ‘Silence Above All Else’ phase has insured their own self destruction and they insure they will not continue to function as a viable political policy. The president they are shielding is revealing their complicity in his every corrupt action. Trump has stripped Republicans of all credibility.
It is common conversation now that if Republicans were able to vote in secret about the current case for Impeachment they would vote against Trump because of his High Crimes and Misdemeanors. These elected Republicans are too cowardly to understand or honor their oaths to the Constitution, they are sinking and will never return to and credibility. Shame
11
The author's use of Patrick Buchanan as an example is misplaced. Buchanan was an early incarnation of "Trumpism." The anger, racist overtones, wrapping himself in the flag and religion. Patrick Buchanan was an ugly candidate.
14
Looks to me, Brett, like we'd all be a *lot* better off without every single one of them today. The party as it has existed for quite some time (Newt onward at least, perhaps since Ronnie) has no soul to save. Good riddance.
9
Since the moment Ronald Reagan stood up in exceedingly racist Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1980 to declare his candidacy, the GOP has been rotting from the head and only the obtuse are pining to "save" it. Well before 2016, the party had come to promote and defend white supremacy, homophobia, the flow of wealth to the already wealthy, perpetual war, hostility to towards the poor, and a growing penchant for election fraud to stem the demographic tide.
Put a big big sign on the GOP's death bed, Stephen: DO NOT RESUSCITATE.
12
Whyever would anyone WANT to save the GOP?
9
I sure hope not.
6
If (God willing) a Democrat wins. The Republican Party will self-destruct. If McConnell loses he go the way of the wicked witch of the South. There may be more impeachments. Pence and Ukraine seems a likely candidate. And finally trump and the Southern District Courts. And finally Barr, whom I how gets throw into a shredder.
11
As a longtime (50 years) registered Republican - the answer is a resounding NO. The current GOP needs to be burnt to the ground and the earth salted. It is an abomination.
18
Yes ….Bill Weld can save he GOP......so how about interviewing
him on TV....because he plans to upend The Trump and
McConnell take over of the GOP swamp in DC..
Weld plans to challenge Trump in the New Hampshire GOP
primary....please cover this story from now on.
Weld was 2 term Republican Governor of Massachusetts..
so perhaps this is the perfect time to get him to speak out
when the DC GOP is imploding and letting Dershowitz and
Starr back into the fray and need to be exposed for their
own moral failings.
4
BILL WELD? Is he an agent for radical change in a GOP that is in the mid stages of self-immolation? Well, Ross Perot and Ralph Nader both spoiled the chances of both the GOP and the Democrats. Perot tossed the presidency to Clinton. And Nader took the victory away from Al Gore. Or was it the hanging chads that did the poor guy in? Oh what an Inconvenient Truth! It's not inconceivable that Weld could take enough votes away from Trump for a Democrat to be elected. Whether he could breathe life back into the moribund GOP--the latest collective rotting, reeking, stinking political corpse? I think we won't know until the smoke clears. But the enormous weight of the new prima facae evidence given by Parnas may give pause, so that cooler heads can prevail among the GOP leadership? Buckle up your seat belts. We're headed for a stormy ride!
3
While I share Bret's slender hopes for Weld's carom shot, I appreciate his vocabulary even more, an object lesson to all those others who keep dumbing down their language to reach a wider audience. The 'karakorum range' of Trump's lawlessness? I had to look it up, the range of Gengis Khan's Mongol empire, over most of Asia and half of Europe! I'd hate to be the victim of one of his metaphors!
5
Trump cannot win even the GOP nomination now that he is IMPEACHED. Nancy took him out for good. IMPEACHED is forever, and no political party would nominate, and no general electorate would elect, and IMPEACHED President. So the GOP nomination is wide open, just like 2016, and since Bill Weld is the only candidate who has not been IMPEACHED, he is assured victory and a shot in November against Bernie. Nancy is so awesome. And after Trump is acquitted in the Senate, she can quickly impeach him again (perhaps on the charge have one his State Department ambassadors followed because he didn't trust her). And maybe time even for a third quick impeachment before the election. Can you imagine, a Double or Triple Impeached President !!! If a great tragedy befalls America and Trump gets reelected somehow despite being IMPEACHED, next term Nancy can impeach him every month !! She can definitely find some action he took or thought he expressed through his craze Twitter rants that she can deam Unpresidential, an abuse of power, etc. No problem doing that with Trump. Nancy, forever the Queen of Impeachment !!
3
Oh thanks Bill Weld for getting Trump elected in the first place! Thanks to you and Garry Johnson, you took enough votes away from Hillary Clinton in key states to put this maniac in office in 2016. Maybe you and Jill Stein should run as a ticket in 2020. Thanks for nuthin.
4
Hopeless bid? Dewey defeats Truman headlines give me pause.
2
Republicans are all in the loop. They support Trumps racism. They support Trump corruption. They support his voter oppression. They support his baby snatching. They support his Ukraine dealings. They call it godlike. Nothing there to save.
13
Short answer: No.
3
Why would anyone want to?
5
Weld? NeverTrumpers are counting on Weld as their savior? Seriously?
9
Even Jesus would never forgive what they do. The short answer, no.
7
Weld's candidacy needs to come off the op ed pages and onto the news side.
3
why should it be saved?
6
Save them?
Until and unless they're ousted in epic numbers come November, they can pat themselves on the back for having played it exactly right.
Because apparently lying, cheating, fixing the game (gerrymandering, removing voters from the rolls, cutting access to polls, collaborating with Putin, etc.) promoting and supporting the worst,* most venal, corrupt, idiotic president in the history of the nation, refusing to execute their jobs, blocking proper procedure for impeachment trials, the appointment of judges, waging war on reproductive rights, and being raging hypocrites is working just fine and dandy for them.
Not so much for the rest of us.
The real question is this: Can anyone save this nation from a rogue GOP doing visible damage to every institution that once defined us? Deplorable.
----
* Let's drop the absurd qualifier "in modern history." No. He's THE worst president in the nation's history. And that's going down in the history books and is on a GOP that should never have nominated him and that refused to hold him accountable despite staggering evidence of how dangerous he is.
14
He is an intelligent candidate vying for votes from an ignorant populace, namely the Trump folk. Hope he sheds some light to a few.
3
Republicans are all turning into Lindsey Grahms. Little, power hungry weasels who have no integrity or moral compass. It wasn’t too long ago, before he became Trump’s lap dog, that Lindsey was calling Trump an unintelligent liar and con man.
We need people with integrity and a desire to serve - More John McCains and fewer Lindsey Grahms.
14
The Republican Party has been preaching its gospel of greed, ignorance, and bigotry for decades now. Ronald Reagan was its John the Baptist. Trump is its Jesus Christ, its spirit made flesh.
12
I don't expect a single Republican in the Senate to grow a spine and stand up to Trump, whose forte is lies and intimidation...
12
Nope.
3
I left the Republican Party of which my family of Origen was affiliated with since 1860’s in Hartford Ct.
My cousins were Republican Atty. Generals in the 1930’s . One was a judge. Another was the first Commissioner of Motor Vehicles.
We were traditionalists. Never racists. Always involved in our communities. I see a direct line from them to me and my love of politics and history and philosophy. I became a very active advocate for the poor. I directly intervened with ICE deportation officers to stop a friends deportation back to Poland. That was while Obama was in office. Does this sound like trumps Republican mess?!!!!!!
It isn’t.
So I want all my “traditionalists” that cannot really be defined and are still clinging to pre Reaganesque Republican family memories to release themselves from the cult that took our true party away years ago during the Goldwater realignment of Dixie dems.
I am now proudly a registered Ct. democrat. I will vote for any person not in trumps criminal orbit.
We must achieve term limits and remove the electoral college system and all the bloody primaries. Two conventions. Messy and loud and run by the League of Women Voters. My dream come true. Please note trumpism has permeated the local caucuses of all republicans. They call “ never trumpers” like us scum. They call themselves “ the base” at meetings. I saw and heard and experienced it myself. Independent thinkers are not welcome. Local office holders in the caucus tolerate them .
15
I sincerely pray, each day, that nobody saves the morally
bankrupt, entitled, sexist, racist and dangerous GOP.
It's the only hope for the future of the country and this planet.
Everyone - get out and do some part to oppose them. Connect with your local Indivisible group, as a great start.
10
FINALLY! An article by Bret about his own party! The Lincoln Project may be a start to salvaging the “Grand Old Party”...maybe. On November 3rd, 2020 millions of us will be voting to oust each and every Republican from Office! Perhaps, on November 4th Mitch and Lindsey will talk and wonder what happened?
Bret, for years now, Republicans have been the party of hate, lies, bigotry, fear and division. They have appealed to the worse in America, they attract the bigots, those who want a whites only homeland and those who hate the LGTBQ Americans. They claim to be “Christians,” but despise anyone who is an “other.”
Good luck Bret, it will take a generation or more to heal the wounds, the division and the bigotry the Republican president has spread and infected our nation with!
11
This and many other articles should be placed in the political humor section.
4
You can Bret!
The premise, the GOP is broken, the GOP Senate must do it's job, Trump has stolen the GOP, it is all a crock.
As a Trump supporter, I can not believe the MSM. Before the 2016 election, every truck load of dirt on Trump was brought out. The favored Democrat, guaranteed to win, with biblical certitude, had every short coming, obscured by the piles of dirt foisted on Donald Trump.
Three years into the repair of America, the President's support is said to be a solid 42 percent. The President gets 93 percent negative coverage. I suspect his real approval rating is closer to 60 percent, or more.
The economy is so good, the 11 Democrats still in the race, don't talk about it. Weren't they told, this was delivered by Obama? How's the war with Iran going? Have they beaten us, yet?
Only Trump can lose his supporters. I haven't waivered. His rallies are still going gang busters. When will there be a Bill Weld rally? CNN and MSNBC should cover it. All the reporter needs is good wifi service and an iPhone. That is if there is a plan to save the GOP and not just talk.
2
No one can save the GOP. It is so rotten and so corrupt it has to be liquidated, it run its life pan. No requiem for this abhorrent beast.
10
Here is the flaw in this argument. The problem isn’t just Trump. Stephens and Weld act like the rest of the party are hostages to Trump and when he goes all is well. Wrong. Trump saw a diseased and weak party and took it over. The pre-Trump Republican Swamp of crazy donors (Mercer’s, Koch’s, Adelson etc), Tea Party and anti-tax nuts (Norquist), lunatic lawyers and judges (Federalist Society), Evangelical and 2nd Amendment zealots, neocons, homophobes, bigots, Fox News and other right wing outlets and weak and corrupt pols (Nunes, etc.) is not with saving.
If the Republican Party was strong, Trump wouldn’t have won the primary and the Senate wouldn’t be working overtime to acquit a traitor to this country. But it will.
Tell me how THAT is worth saving please.
11
" In politics, as in nature, forces always come in pairs. ". you best stick to politics. yiu're understanding of nature and science is pitiful.
2
Brett good men like Bill Weld were driven out of the Republican Party many moons ago accused of being Republicans In Name Only AKA 'RINO"S'.
The irony is that for many of us who know what being a true Republican represents, Trump and those who follow him are in fact the true 'RINO"S".
Now we need to figure how to banish Trump and company and take the Republican Party back to an entity that I freely admit to never supporting. But none the less I was always respected and accepted their right to an opposing point of view. Trumps Republicans on the other hand I view with disdain.
7
With a mafia boss wannabe who only sees the law as an impediment to his greed and fortune in the White House, surrounded by cowering toadies, I think the focus should be on the question of saving our country, not a political party.
8
I will sing the praises of ANY Republican who dares to stand against Trumpism. Go Bill GO!!!!!!
3
Can anyone save Bret Stephens?
Here is what Bret said in his conversation with Gail Collins.
https://nyti.ms/35PGkVE
Bret Stephens: “But while I would never cast a ballot for Donald Trump, there’s no chance I’d vote for either Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.”
November 3, 2020: Bret Stephens awakens knowing that he has already ruled out voting for Donald Trump or for Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Party's choice to run against Trump.
What will he do?
Stay home ? A Times columnist who chooses not to vote in the most important election in my 87 year lifetime.
Vote for a Michael Bloomberg independent candidate?
Why didn't Gail ask him? A puzzle.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
8
Bret, I guess you have to be told AGAIN! Th G.O.P no longer exists. It is now more accurately referred to as the "Trumpublicans".
7
By "saving the GOP," do you mean bringing it back to its globalist past? You know, Reagan's amnesty, the Bush open borders and Middle Eastern wars, the globalist international treaties, and the like? In case you've forgotten, this is how we got Trump. Whatever form of the GOP may have existed prior to Trump, it's been rejected by the Republican electorate, and for good reason. This has ruffled some feathers, but the change isn't necessarily the bad thing you make it out to be. Megan Kelly said it best: "Trump is a bull in a china shop, but a lot of that china needed to be broken."
2
the GOP cannot be saved
3
NO!!!!!
NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!
Weld went neo-liberal on Massachusetts in the early 1990s and precipitated disastrous consequences. He's a proper Trump, in proper clothes, with the proper pedigree, and the proper heritage. Don't fall for him. The GoP is toast.
2
The Republicans as they stand today are a dysfunctional mess. They pretend to stand for something but their strange loyalty to an idiotic outlier is not American loyalty. Their patriotism has gone down the drain along with their self respect.
10
Gop's already dead. My former party died the day they all first grouped together and threw my Constitution under the bus in order to save their own jobs instead of honoring their oath of office to ""support and defend the Constitution". What the new party should be named y'all can decide for yourselves.
7
I wish CNN or the NYT would sponsor a GOP presidential debate in NH. Who cares that Trump won be there? It will give Weld and the others some exposure
4
The Republican Party was great when it had a Whig-Progressive streak. Now it's the Know-Nothings cum Strom Thurmond Southern Conservatives. It is no longer the party of Lincoln.
5
Here's a picture of the current GOP. This is from a black woman who recently attended a Trump rally. "Yesterday, I attended the Donald Trump rally in Milwaukee at the UWM panther Arena. There were over 11 thousands rabid Trump fans in attendance. The reasons I wanted to attend were numerous, I wanted to see what kind of people would support a man who is clinically insane, morally bankrupt, functionally illiterate, a buffoon, a racist, a liar, and a danger to the free world. As I walked around the arena, I couldn't help but notice people who were there to be entertained, as if it were the World Wrestling Entertainment Association, and in a way it was. Never mind that it was an appearance by the President of the United States. I remember the couple of times, then president Obama appeared in Milwaukee, how dignified the crowds were, how honored they were to be in the presence of a man who respected the office, and the men who preceded him. What I saw instead was a court jester, a clown a poor comedian who wasn't funny, but a sorry soul, to be pitied. As he strutted around the stage, showing his lack of intellect and lack of humanity. The more vulgar he became, the louder the roar, it was almost as if he were a bull fighter, preparing to thrust the final dagger into the helpless animal, who did nothing more than be an animal."
15
Why? (Save the G.O.P.)
3
Bret: You're shocked that your party was cheating on you? Get over it. And become a Democrat.
5
A Party saved, is a party Burned. To the ground. It’s the only solution.
November.
9
Can I beg a gratuitous question: why should it be saved? I get it that two or more political parties are needed to successfully run a balanced, civilized country. But the GOP is closer to a criminal enterprise than a bonafide functioning political party. They have abdicated any legitimate claim to authority of any kind, fiscal, legal, and moral. And that abdication began long before Trump came slouching toward the Capital.
18
A more import question is can anyone save our country?
15
Anyone sufficiently motivated and amoral can save the GOP. The question is, will any Republican bother to save the GOP?
4
The Republican Party can be saved, but not by a somebody. The Party can only be saved by crashing and burning. There has to be a total and complete disaster. It will have to be so bad that there will be a unifying conclusion that they will never, ever, do that again.
I just wish they would not bring the rest of the country with them. But they will.
7
Can anyone save the GOP is not the question, the question is should we bother to save a party that doesn't care about the US Constitution, laws, or the truth.
14
Well, it would be nice to see more remorse from GOP supporters for what that party became. Good luck to Bill being the voice of protest and vision.
Now the real problem is not just a GOP problem. The real problem is a two party system with enormous amounts of money raised and spend to elect their representatives. The power of polarize media to punish people not falling in line.
If Trump did not create such a fear with this ability to retaliate upon GOP congressmen and women, there would have been more than a few votes to support articles of impeachment in congress.
Another huge problem is the ability to deny reality in our split media system where news is entertainment and we pretend both sides of every argument deserve an hearing (like global warming deniers having no idea of what they are talking about - like flat earthers after the world has been travelled around in every direction).
Saying refusing to provide any witnesses to the impeachment inquiry in congress is a "normal" executive prerogative...since it was done it must be legal until proven illegal … is nuts. Yet 40% + of the people listen to TV that has no problem repeating this lie over and over again.
4
As a fiscally responsible, socially liberal Republican, I feel lost in this Republican party.
I come from New York originally. I remember Sen. Jacob Javits. Where would he find a political home today? Certainly not in the current Republican party.
All so very troubling when you think of the anti science, anti thinking, and fiscally irresponsible Pols that are at the head of the Republican party today.
I am lost.
12
Can anyone save the GOP? Is this serious? Dude, you gotta get out of the echo chamber.
The GOP has the Presidency, one of the two Houses of Congress, a conservative majority on the SCOTUS, and has rapidly growing numbers at the appellate level. And a slate of candidates vying to run against Trump that even a lot of Democrats are somewhat nervous about.
Don't you get it? The US is more than just NYC and LA. Like it or not, Americans have given the vast majority of federal political power to the Republican Party.
Asking whether anyone can "save" the GOP is roughly equivalent to asking whether anyone can "save" the Communist Party in China.
5
If Stephen Skowronek author of The Politics Presidents Make, the leading presidential scholar of our times, perhaps of any time, is right and Trump is in the position of what he calls a "disjunctive" president, like Jimmy Carter or Herbert Hoover, that is, a late regime affiliate (Carter of the New Deal Democrats) at a time when that regime has lost its warrant for leadership, then Bret Stephens is not correct that it is possible for the conservative Republicans to be saved. William Weld can help Trump lose, and he is right to try, but save the conservative Republicans? No one could do that. Is it asking too much that our times op ed columnists would have read the top works in the field they're commenting on?
3
The GOP is not worth saving. It has been 50 years in the making. Trump is a culmination of all the hate, fear racism and inequality that the party has pushed.
Because it is important that there are at least two parties, the GOP will have to rebrand and start over,
7
What caused the dinosaurs to become extinct? Probably an asteroid, or comet. What will cause humans to become extinct? Humans. What will replace humans? Robots.
1
If 89% of Republicans support Trump, the Republican Party is 89% corrupt; 11%, what are you going to do about it?
7
Weld is on a futile quest for the Holy Grail.
No Republican who voted for Trump in 2016 has sufficient intelligence, knowledge, morality and patriotism to vote against Trump in 2020.
So, Weld must hope that there lots of moral former Republicans who refused to vote for Trump and will return and vote in the Republican primary. I am unaware of any statistics that suggest that fantasy can become a reality.
The G.O.P. is morally bankrupt. All Republicans who voted for Trump in 2016 are morally depraved; few, if any, have recanted.
There simply are not enough former and current Republicans who are decent and patriotic enough to make Weld's strategy workable.
1
The GOP-controlled Senate has not budged. Like it or not this is the USA now. This is us. Perhaps in 2024 when a new generation will become dominate it will shift and there might be something to salvage but in the meantime we are a beaten people who tolerate the obvious corruption of our government, homelessness, environmental degradation, investment vultures who own our cities, cuts to school lunches, abysmal health care while the most desperate among us are addicted and drugged. The spectacle of Donald Trump is the perfect backdrop for our condition.
1
"Save"? Can't get rid of it. Too much money.
2
I fully expect Bret to write a negative article about a Democrat or the Democrats next. He is like a ping pong ball-back forth vacillating constantly. An article lamenting Trump and Republicans followed by an article fearful of Warren or Bernie etc. This guy and other Republicans need to see their lack of progressiveness is in itself the problem. Ditto for David Brooks by the way.
10
It's not about saving the GOP, which is not worth saving, It's about saving the United States of America.
5
the Republican Party like the national socialists before them need to be crushed out of existence..... then a new party formed that is less corrupt, rejects evangelical over each, understands science, has compassion for immigrants and makes decisions based on actual facts and statistics. if this happens none of the people currently running the party will be involved.
5
Republicans have always been what they are now. More to the point...can anyone save the Democratic Party?
Who is not exhausted by the Democrat’s mendacious partisan ‘resistance’ efforts, ad nauseam, to oust their arch nemesis, Donald Trump?...to say nothing of their confused agenda, which will seal our future as an overpopulated, culturally and linguistically divisive, environmentally overburdened, and politically chaotic third world country.
Their hypocrisy is breathtaking. As such, after 40 years, they’ve lost my vote.
2
There can be either
1. Constitutional rule of law and pluralist American democracy;
or
2. A Republican Party with political power.
America simply cannot be both American democracy and Russian-Republican tyranny.
9
"Can Anyone Save the GOP?"
A better headline would be "Why Should We Want To Save the GOP?" At least why should we want to save the GOP that is envisioned and promoted by people like Bret Stephens. That GOP, the former GOP, is the party of dirty big money and corporations, all of which is greased by media outlets like the Wall Street Journal, where Stephens used to work before the NYT hired him to pretend to be a conservative voice of the people. He isn't, he is nothing more than a mouthpiece for corporate profiteers.
Like all of the US political establishment, Stephens is fighting a desperate rearguard action against people like Bernie Sanders and, yes, Donald Trump, who have put that cozy crony establishment in their crosshairs. Let's hope either Sanders or Trump end up in the White House at the end of this election process so that corporate shills like Bret Stephens don't succeed in selling America out to the Clinton/Bush/Wall Street Journal political establishment once again.
1
Try Mother Theresa. It’s a long shot given the gravity of the inhuman treatment of children and the blatant perjury of many of the leaders. However it’s worth a try
If you are a Republican voter in Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, South Carolina or Virginia you are forbidden to even make a choice about who your nominee will be in 2020. In Minnesota and Georgia they’ll at least let you have a ballot. And you may even be allowed to vote for a candidate other than the incumbent. But you won’t see any of those other candidate’s names on the ballot and there won’t be any place on it for you to write them in. While the NYT and Stephens gaze dreamily at pictures of Bill Weld and Joe Walsh, similar schemes are being arranged in other states at the direction of the Republican National Committee and the state committees.
Who can save the GOP from themselves?
4
Just today, over at Fox, Newt Gingrich wrote an op-ed screed about Pelosi "trivializing the Constitution"- that she was "giddy" pronouncing Trump's forever impeachment.
So the guy who 30 years ago was one of the head actors in the Clinton impeachment and who actually WAS "giddy" has gained not a single bit of insight in decades despite acquiring a thick crust of religiosity in those years.
Gingrich was in the full midst of cheating on ailing wife #2 with the woman who would be wife number 3 and the someday envoy to the Vatican. By day he was on his hind legs lecturing Clinton about his immorality. Irony is the air this guy breathes.
The leaders of today's GOP have lost the powers of introspection, of self-critique and look exactly like the lost tribe of hypocrites that they are. They have nothing to offer America right now because they are lying to themselves about themselves and about Trump, another liar.
Weld is wise to start over- this version of "Lincoln's Party" has zero to do with Lincoln. Lincoln Rockwell maybe.
11
It is high time for today’s Republican Party to implode under the weight of it’s corruption. Trump the Cruel, Lindsey the Weak, and Mitch the weasel have turned the party into a hollow, rotted tree that makes it vulnerable to the forces of nature. The hate they give will be returned to them by the pushback of people who have lost faith in their over the top self-righteousness. It’ll be a good day when the spell these (ahem) men is broken.
4
The Republicans lied themselves into this situation.
They will lie themselves out of it.
They will probably blame the Trump Presidency on Hillary, fluoridated water and the Measles vaccine.
6
I deeply regret to opine that the Republican Party might survive Trump.
If Trump loses next year, especially if the Democrats retake the Senate (that they will retain the House is a given), it will be a generation before the Republicans can mount a serious effort to regain power. That will not be as dangerous to our comity as another term for Trump, but it could open the door to excesses by triumphalist Democrats. Nobody on their horizon of power is remotely as stupid, ignorant or cruel as Trump, but there is a lot of mischief that could be done by well-meaning liberals in the aftermath of a Trump defeat.
Romney is a possible vote to convict. Murkowski and Collins less so. But I cannot imagine another Republican Senator voting to convict unless they are willing to give up office. Even a far-sighted Senator not up for election again until 2024 has to raise money next year.
Dan Kravitz
1
McConnell also needs to go.
10
The Republican Party, since 1920 has given us: Henry Cabot Lodge; who kept US from entering the League of Nations that Woodrow Wilson fought to get. The result was WWII.
Then we got Hoover and the Great Depression. Famously there was Joe McCarthy in the 50s. He redefined American as only the long, cheating, stealing Republicans and declared everyone else a Communist.
The good old “Your President is not a crook Nixon. Close to 50 Republicans went to prison then.
Ronald Reagan couldn’t remember violating the law that Congress passed to keep the Iran-Contra affair from happening. Good old boys went to jail for that one, too. George Bush and Dick Cheney are still looking for the weapons of mass destruction. Only 5000 Americans dead, 25000 wounded and 4 or 5 trillion dollars, and counting, to pay for these lies and the Republican cheats and thieves who got the kick backs from the death and destruction that the Generals were continuously tell them couldn’t be won.
Vote for more liars,cheats, and thieves, vote Republican, so ignorance, hate, and crime can continue to govern the American people.
9
People like former Governors Weld and Kasich and pundits who should know better imagine an philosophically diverse Republican Party that no longer exists. See the link below to a June 2019 NY Times piece by Sahil Chinoy, documenting the radicalization of the GOP -- a piece cited in a current Washington Post op ed by Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein: "Five myths about bipartisanship." hhttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/opinion/sunday/republican-platform-far-right.html The Post op ed can be found at https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-bipartisanship/2020/01/17/35853dca-3873-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html
5
Rob Portman? Check out how much he has taken from the NRA. And then ask about his integrity.
3
Improve GOP:
Eliminate RINOs like Bret Stephens.
Does anyone seriously believe the core GOP beliefs of lower taxes, smaller government and self determination have changed?
Does anyone believe the Democrat Party is as center left as it was 20 years ago??
1
Harry Truman lost in 1952?
With supporters like Stephens, Brooks and Douthat - who no one in the gop pays any attention to - it's too late to save an extinct organization that lives primarily inside their heads only. The damage was done when their pal, formerly of the national review and for a short time on the nyt (eminently forgettable, and his name slips my mind) was wowed by Palin and insisted she be on McCain's presidential ticket. What a joke, the disconnect between their ideology and the reality of the gop! Yet, they persist in their fake punditry.
1
Well, as concerns the Democrat Party "go-to" base as concerns scaring the faithful, unemployment is at a 50-year low for persons who identify as women and an all-time low for non-Asian minority groups. Maybe the country club Republicans want more non-union migrants doing their dirty work at non-union wages.
Why would anyone want to save the GOP?
3
This is a ridiculous question. There is nothing about the Current GOP worth saving. That would be a waste of effort. They should be disposed of.
2
The headline question begs for an unequivocal one word answer: NO.
Nor is there any point in trying to save it.
2
Would anyone want to save THIS GOP?
2
Donald Trump is a destructive force for both his party and
his country. That's absolutely conclusive. Convicting him in the Senate is the last chance Republicans will have to save their sorry lot.
I admire Weld, but he’s made a decision to run as a liberal-moderate Democrat rather than a Republican. If people think Trump is a fascist, a liar, or what-not there more likely to vote for a Democrat than a Republican challenger. There’s a spoiler role, perhaps, but is that really the best way to approach it?
1
If the G.O.P. dies at the hand of Trump, that just might be the only competent thing he's ever done.
4
If the past 3 years of the Trump administration and the GOP don't raise your hackles you're already leading a posthumous existence.
4
The GOP cannot be saved because it was never good or moral or ethical. It was always a vehicle for the wealthy to utilize for lower taxes and less regulation. It was never about better security or infrastructure or healthcare or education - the GOP has been exposed for the fraud that it is and the only people still supporting it are the racists and greedy.
6
Bill Weld? Really?
The guy who helped siphon votes away from Hillary Clinton in 2016 and who apparently watches reruns of "The Last Hurrah" to fuel some need to be on or even close to the playing field of politics. That Bill Weld?
You are truly out of ideas.
Drop your pen.
Turn off your word processor.
Sit this election out.
4
Vladimir Putin saved the GOP in 2016 and he’s working hard to do it again now. Putin-Trump in 2020!
10
Can anyone save the Democrats!
That’s the question.
1
Donald Trump is delivering what Ronald Reagan promised. This is why the bigots love Trump and why I detest Reagan and every Republican who came after.
4
That Bill Weld is being offered up as the GOP's salvation by the likes of Bret Stephens is an official announcement of the Republican Party's death.
G.O.P.—R.I.P. Jan. 17, 2020
2
The GOP is not worth saving. It should be wrapped in a shroud, buried, and forgotten.
2
There will always be people who fit into the Republican Party.
White supremacists, people afraid of anyone who isn’t in their FOX church, phoney religious, pro “business” owners with no consideration to employees, environmental destruction or social justice, fair wages and the survival of the next generation.
The Republican Party is the party of extremism. They are now supporters of Putin propaganda and Trump criminality.
They need to be voted out in November with an historical reckoning.
8
Um, yeah, Mr. Stephens, how about you!
Since you've supported innumerable Republicans, including the president in a roundabout, weird, not really, but maybe, way.
You, like Mr. Brooks, are the scariest of all opinion/political commentators. You ask the Republican party to reconsider its very identity, but you, yourself, have continued to support its onerous and backward thinking...there's no global warming!
Stop, Mr. Stephens. Reconsider everything you hold truthful.
7
Saving the current GOP from itself is not our job. Our job is to remove Trump's criminal enterprise from the White House before he drives American democracy and and American values off a cliff.
I applaud Weld's hopeless bid to 'derail a president whose support is 89% among Republicans'. How can we not respect a guy who is willing to publicly call out our lawless and corrupt president while the rest of the cowardly, spineless GOP cheer Trump on?
8
Will no one save us from these unethical, immoral, anti-patriotic Senators?
5
Apropos of this column, and the piece a few places down on today's Opinion section: Hey--Little Marco: Even investing in China is better for America than your own long position in Trump!
1
can anyone save the GOP?
yes.the Democrats!
1
I'm a Republican praying for Weld to make a difference.
1
This begs the question, should any one save GOP? and Why would anyone want to? The answer to both is no. Tspectrum courting the ignorant and easily lied to and the wealthy looking to buy protection to create further inequality.
Even self-appointed virtuous conservatives like your self are incapable of the task. The answer is No. It's not worth saving and no one should do it.
You can't stop twisting out of all context the wishes of the founding fathers that has made the Supreme Court a laughing stock before the combined international courts of advanced countries. Enough of cheap use of handing out bootstraps to the poor while allowing the wealthy to cut off bootstraps on all boots. Enough with allowing corporations to write their own laws through ALEC and K Street and tear down the revolving door between them and Congress. Most of all, clean up corruption of voter rights protections, gerrymandered districts, behind the scenes funding of candidates from out of jurisdiction pac money that twists the electorial college.
You have about the chance of a rich man getting into heaven or a camel threading a needle. So no, get out and shut up.
5
Mitt and Jeff Flake should get in there as well. I would change parties to vote for any of these guys in the primaries. Gotta splinter the vote and get this guy -- and his band of thugs (looking at you Pence, Pompeo, McConnell, Graham, Nunes, McCarthy, Collins, Jordan, and so many more) -- gone. Patriots, indeed.
3
Hope springs eternal.
i thought this was going to be a short column, with the answer being, No. No one can save them from their own iniquity.
1
Where is the Bush dynasty in all this mess? The only one that ever spoke up against Trump was Barbara Bush.
Are we to take their silence as an endorsement of what's going on?
270
"Trump’s trial in the Senate, whose result may not yet be a forgone conclusion."
You're kidding, right? Trump's trial is the very definition of a forgone conclusion.
5
Weld represents my parents’ Republican Party, the one I was born into. I supported his type of Republicanism for a long time in an increasingly hopeless effort, but I finally had to abandon the party in 2003. That was when Bush and Cheney lied us into the invasion of Iraq and ignited the Middle Eastern firestorm whose global impact has now brought us Brexit Boris, Trump, the German AfD, and their many “populist” allies. The lines have changed so drastically since the 1960s that I now find myself in the Democratic Party, with a large number of ex-Republicans, and supporting the liberal wing of the party. While I would like to see Weld succeed, there is no way under the present political circumstances that he could ever bring back the old moderate GOP, because that is now represented by the Democrats!
4
This is the wrong question. It should be- can the Union be preserved? Because as things stand, the parties are set to pull us apart, which seems to suit a great deal of the GOP base just fine.
6
In Live Free or Die New Hampshire, I would rejoice in a new, central party, as I would rejoice in a Bill Weld (or a Deval Patrick, or a John Hickenlooper, or someone in that mold) as a candidate.
I was a Republican (for 40 plus years) who left the party when the current occupant of the White House won the nomination in 2016. Here in rural New Hampshire, I know a boatload of people who would vote for a rock before they’d vote for Trump. But rocks don't win elections. I wish Bill Weld well, and I think I he’d make a fine President, but in my rural, farming (yes, I run a farm) zeal, I’ll cross and vote for Biden in a couple weeks.
This conservative believes in saving first for what you want to buy and working darn hard for what you want to achieve. That's what Republicans used to stand for but, it seems, no longer. Getting rid of That Man is the highest priority.
1297
@James What Weld is asking you to do though is hurt Trump by voting for his rival in the NH primary thus tarnishing his shine. Weld has no illusion that he will get the nomination; his goal is to make him a one term president. We DEMs will welcome your vote in November but we need you to vote Weld in next month.
94
@James The real question for disaffected Republicans is not whether they would vote for a rock but whether they would vote for a Democrat (any Democrat) for president? Writing in a name does no one any good.
76
@James I am a liberal democrat who loves Biden but he is just too old. Please vote for Weld because if gets enough votes that will kill Trump's chances for winning. As to the democrats we need younger people, not just because of the vitality needed as Mr. Biden looks more like a cadaver every day, but because people of my generation (a am 72) will long be dead when the catastrophic climate events come and they are now unavoidable and it must be the young who must live through them--if possible. Besides, young people of all classifications I find so incredibly impressive that they outmatch people of my generation in ability. Let go Boomers and pray for those who need to take charge.
69
The Republican party lost the popular vote for President by 3 million. They lost the popular vote for the House by 10 million. They'd lose the Senate if it depended on popular vote.
Meanwhile our Constitutional system protects them (as intended?) allowing them to wreak havoc on the majorities who most certainly didn't vote for them.
If they don't figure this out, and soon, they will become irrelevant. The Constitution slows things down, but eventually the majority will push back.
As of now that Constitution is the only thing keeping the party afloat (along with gerrymandering, stealing SCOTUS appointments, withholding judgeships, etc....)
5
So . . . what? Anything is possible? Well, yes, in a world where no one knows what came before the Big Bang, anything is.
But no one with two halves of a brain to rub together can be in much doubt about the outcome of the Democrats' partisan effort to unseat President Trump through an illicit and unlawful use of the impeachment power. As a matter of law, precedent and respect for the outcome of the 2016 election result the Articles of Impeachment should be dismissed by the Senate. But partisanship begets partisanship. It now appears that some sort of trial will follow. And yet in the end the Senate vote will likely acquit the President primarily on partisan grounds.
So be it. He should not have been impeached in the first place. We really do not have reason to be in doubt about at least that much.
The real question is not whether anything can save the Republican Party. The Democrats have managed to do that all on their own. If there were a question worth asking now it would be: at what price to themselves?
There has not been one single part of this impeachment process that has been illegal. And the illicit parts are confined to Dump’s actions. Disagree with the lawful process the Constitution provides for, but stop deluding yourself and please spare us all the mischaracterizations. It’s so boring.
7
"Can Anyone Save the G.O.P.?"
No. The rot is too deep. But the more important question is this:
Is the G.O.P. Worth Saving?
Again, no. The G.O.P has turned their back on Democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law. They have gone all in on racism, voter suppression, and foreign interference in elections to maintain power at the tail end of their multi decade strategy to demonize the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population.
Political parties die. And the G.O.P. has earned a death sentence. America needs a vibrant center right party. But they need one that still believes in an inclusive democracy not some hybrid authoritarian/theocracy/kleptocracy.
Personally, I think they need to throw out everything and start again. New name, new platform, new letterhead, everything. But most of all they need to throw out the politicians that stopped believing in America -- the one that really exists -- not the one the whitewashed one they wished existed, but the real one with millions of people don't look like them, pray like them, or love like them but are every bit as American as they are.
Weld can't save the G.O.P. Nor should he. But maybe he, and a few other right of center citizens, can help save America.
1812
@LT
I agree. And I think the GOP is dead.
Paradoxically, I believe that is why Trump has such high support among Republicans; many (likely most) Republicans that are wedded to Conservative ideals no longer identify themselves as Republicans.
64
@Steven
I agree. There is no Republican Party. These Congressmen and Women quit working for the benefit of us Americans and are employees of Donald J. Trump's real estate company.
92
@LT
"Personally, I think they need to throw out everything and start again. New name, new platform, new letterhead, everything."
Good sentiment but its odds are too long. Can they start over with hate radio and "Fix News" still in place doing their thing? Trump is really not the reason the GOP is the way it is today. The financially healed dark forces behind hate radio and Fox News are the real enemies of American democracy. Add Putin in the mix (tolerated and even cheered on by some American imbiciles) and you can see where things may end up.
87
I'm not sure why Bret Stephens is so anxious to "save" a party that has gone so far off the rails.
The ugly forces lying deep under the surface but tamped down for so long--racism, misogyny, autocracy--have become reigning principles under this president.
But the problem isn't the party per se but the fact that so many have willingly ceded their wills and belief in a charlatan. This is a crisis that goes well beyond any one party--it's one that threatens our whole system of government.
When one party stops playing by the rules to protect a lawless president, and that party has majority control of the most powerful branches of government--executive, judiciary, Senate--we are no longer a functioning republic.
What's needed isn't to inject sense into one party but to recapture the hearts and minds of the people who follow it.
371
@ChristineMcM
Why can't your typical Times reader see that Sanders and Trump represent the same forces? Look at the yellow vests in France or any number of other movements across the globe.
Do you think free trade, open borders and military entanglements helped citizens of the united states? Do you think these things would be reconsidered if either Hillary or Jeb! had been elected? They'd have simply tinkered with the 5% of the budget that's discretionary in different ways and used Identity and social issues to manipulate us.Vote Sanders Yang or Trump.
I guess I never have understood the depth of party loyalty, apparently for the Republican's it clearly exceeds their loyalty to our country. But they have been losing ground for many years, and seemed destined to defeat in the last election. They were a wounded animal, and after he was elected, made a deal with him to get what they wanted, while he focused on setting American citizens to war against each other, so that the wealthy and right wingers could proceed to destroy the EPA, sane immigration laws, trust in the authority of the entire government itself.
I think it is certain that a continued Trump presidency will destroy much of what I care about, including trust in the Government, and set us so far behind dealing with climate change, wealth distribution, health care, etc, that we may never recover. But the real destruction will be the loss of the faith of Americans in their government and the press, and even the notion of truth and justice. The Republicans will have "won", but I am not sure whether a governable country will be left. The real winner in the end may be Steve Bannon and his ideological cohorts. I shudder to think about what that will mean.
949
Lost faith in government has become the GOP/Faux News brand, Trump it’s ultimate product. His base are angry at the wrong things, out of touch with reality and are victims of a Con Man.
227
@Patrick McCord I think you're right. The quandary is that people who depend on government programs are often enthusiasts for killing them. Health insurance in Florida. Obamacare is unpopular, but an extraordinarily large portion of the state's population gets its health insurance through the law's insurance exchanges. Watch Trump win Florida by a generous margin next year.
62
@Hydraulic Engineer you bring tears to my old eyes.
Tears not of sadness - though I am sad we've allowed our Nation via apathy, selfishness, cynicism, ignorance, gullibility, complacency, etc to come to this mess.
But tears of joy; joy that probably you well represent a solid majority of citizens.
A majority that in some form instinctively understands and holds dear the ideal upon which we were founded as a Nation.
A majority that in their heart knows our obligation is to perfect and defend our Nation's existential premise: secular liberal democracy.
That knows intellectually that rational honest By and For the People government is the only legitimate government and that power must serve equality, liberty, freedom, opportunity for all and not just the privileged.
You give me hope that many out there recognize the existential danger the GOP poses to our ideal objective.
That recognize the 2020 election will be pivotal.
That maybe just maybe will cast aside their parochial motivations, apathy, cynicism to vote and to vote existentially correctly.
Right now patriotic America MUST vote D - we can properly and sanely sort out implementation differences down the road.
But we cannot easily correct the existentially devastating IEDs the GOP will implant given another few years in power.
54
The only Republican I have ever voted for was Jacob Javits but I would vote for Weld in a heartbeat if it meant Trump was history.
204
@nzierler : I am an unenrolled voter, which in Massachusetts means I can vote in either primary. While I have my preferences, I can live with any of the Democratic candidates as the nominee. So, don't think that I haven't thought about doing just that. It would give me a chance to vote against Trump twice.
27
@John Leonard I have voted for two Republicans in my lifetime - the Clintons.
8
It is a sad commentary on the state of the Republican party and of the nation in general that the few remaining GOP never-Trumpers would turn to Bill Weld. He is at best a throwback to the time when New England politics was a diversion for the WASP ascendancy, and didn’t really matter very much. He covers over an irrational mix of positions with fractured Latinity and white-shoe manners. When one closely examines his career, the only clarity to be seen is his ambition to maintain the ascendancy and his position within it. But go to it, Bret-he is still better than Trump!
1
LBJ won the New Hampshire Primary but by such a small margin he concluded even if he were to win the nomination, he would loose the general election. Also he absolutely dreaded the thought that Robert Kennedy would enter the Democratic Nomination contest (contrary to the assurances he gave Eugene McCarthy) and actually win.
What does the GOP stand for?
What has the GOP ever done for the American people?
The GOP has captured the government and the levers of power to turn them into a business.
It’s all about making money for the rich through exploitation of the American people.
It’s a plan that has worked well for them and they don’t want to give it up.
This explains why they are willing to betray their oaths to the country and constitution.
12
"In politics, as in nature, forces always come in pairs."
I presume the author is referring to the idea that, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction -- Newton's Third Law.
That definitely doesn't have corollary in politics, at least not as practiced by the Republican and Democratic Parties. If it did, the GOP's 50-year drift to the right would have been balanced out by a Democratic shift to the left. In fact, the Democratic Party just drifted right, as if sucked along in the GOP's draft.
The Democrats are finally at least debating ideas like Medicare for All, but don't kid yourself: the modern Democratic Party is further to the right than the pre-Nixon Republican Party.
6
Mr. Stephens,
Let's imagine a Sanders presidency for a moment. Would it result in a Marxist takeover of the government? Would it result in private property being seized and redistributed? Would it result in a massive exodus of corporations and a 20% unemployment rate? Of course not. None of your worst fantasies about such a presidency have even a remote chance of occurring. Still, you prattle on about how you won't vote for it. The fact is, and you seem to know it, another four years of Donald Trump is not sustainable. This much we know. By contrast, four or even eight years of Sanders will be, at worst, debatable executive actions and a return to some civility. Is there really any choice here at all?
12
Today's GOP represents the interests of Trump & Co., Rupert Murdoch & Co., Fossil Fuel & Co., For Profit Prisons & Co., Climate Change Deniers & Co. etc., etc.
To do so they have subverted the Founders intent by elevating Evangelical interests above other Christian denominations, other religions, and atheists in contravention to the Constitution of the United States. Also by dividing this nation against itself in the most base manner, by the most base President in memory.
The corrosive nature of Trump on the present GOP was on full display with Mitch Mitchell signing the Oath of Impartiality, after stating forthrightly his unalloyed partiality in this matter of Impeachment. Yes, Lindsay was right there too... self-interest before honor.
The GOP should be relegated to the dustbin of history. Lincoln is dead, as is John McCain... apparently so is any worthwhile value to the continuance of the Republican Party.
11
? is, what is the GOP? Who are "GOP"and who are "Trumpsters"? What is the a OP bout? less taxes. less regulations, No environmental laws, More military, no health plan, obvious corruption that is accepted by all?
I never have understood what the GOP was about except for the above. Come on, you don't want to be part of that group then vote DEM.
4
The GOP must GO.
Trump is not THE problem. I've been watching closely now for nearly forty years.
The GOP always favors the rich and never goes against the interests of the rich without a fight. The notion that the rich are our benefactors must die.
Trump did not make America the least equal, most incarcerating, most militant nation. The GOP did that over the last forty years of Reaganomic republicanism.
Now, as they see the writing on the wall, they are willing to pull off a coup, essentially ending democracy.
5
What's being missed in these "one-upmanship" of NYT articles is that around 47% of the country views the condescension, hyperventilation and cultural wars from the left with as much contempt as they see Trump's shenanigans. So as the human nature would have it, they're rationalizing Trump's actions!
2
@GV - 47% of the country is imagining things.
1
How about just let the Democrats sweep so they can then split into two parties? One that's like the Republicans I remember and one that's like the Democrats I remember. It'll be like old times!
5
An acquittal for Trump in the Senate will doom the Republican Party.
With the relentless string of revelations, just since the impeachment, and the likely nonstop series of revelations to come in this year as various courts make their inevitable rulings, if the Republicans vote for acquittal, they will look, at best, as willing dupes and as coconspirators at worst. Either way, the Party is done.
5
Just how does the GOP plan to save itself? The party of climate change deniers and slaves to the NRA have zero appeal to the youth of this country, the next generation of voters.
They are saddled with debt from college loans, cannot afford to purchase a home, are loathe to start a family, and if over 26 either go without health care or spend a substantial part of their income to purchase healthcare insurance. Issues the GOP either opposes solutions or denies their existence.
For the GOP, apparently ignorance is bliss. Just look at their leader.
4
"Can Anyone Save the G.O.P?"
Sure. The voters can. But that still remains in doubt.
The point I'm having a hard time grasping is how widespread the malfeasance prompting the impeachment is. With Nixon, it was him and a few in his cabinet and some operatives. A motley crew for sure, but still relatively limited. With Clinton, is was pretty much just him. But with Trump, it's looking more like it's entirely pervasive, and runs through wide swaths of his administration in one way or another. The scope of misconduct is breathtaking.
And the really tragic part of this is that the Republicans are so thoroughly complicit in it. They are so deeply involved in the coverup that the Party has essentially disappeared, and has been replaced by overtly Trumpist thugs who don't do a thing toward being true to their oaths of office, and don't care. All they care about is protecting Trump. And HE is more than happy to throw each and every one of them under the bus if it helps him to continue defrauding the country. Trump is death to the GOP, and they are too invested in their own self-protection schemes to realize it.
The Constitution was designed to deal with a single malfeasant in office, not such a large crowd of them. It may take a few election cycles to sort through all this. But I have confidence that the Constitution will win in the long run. Trump has stained our history, but will ultimately collapse in ignominy.
6
Last I looked, Trump's job approval rating among Republicans was 88%. That leaves 12% of Republicans from which to form a "Liberty Party." Mr. Weld will require direct divine intervention to accomplish anything.
To believe otherwise is to believe that racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, bigotry, etc., as personified by Donald Trump, hold no attraction for Republicans. That underneath it all they are open-minded, loving, and tolerant, looking for a leader to show them the way out of the wilderness. Don't think so.
4
Once upon a time, I was a proud Republican but that changed when the Bush Administration look America in the eye and lied about Sadaam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction that led to an invasion and destruction of a sovereign nation and the loss of millions of lives, including our beloved soldiers. I realized then that the Republican Party had lost its way, opening the door for thugs like Trump to exploit. As far as I am concerned there is no Republican Party only a Trump occult, which I am happy to help destroy with my vote, time, and money.
6
Why would they want to? I hope the GOP completely melts down. Seriously, can anyone remember the last time it did something worthwhile?
2
The GOP s preventing Republicans fro ruining against Trump is several states. God forbid the actually have a debate. Their one person party is the first step to a one person state. Decent law abiding Republican should be outrages, instead all we get is the silence of the lambs, The GOP is dead it dies when they accepted Trump. lets hope and pray 2020 is the death knell. Hopefully a crushing defeats will give rise to something better by 2024.
1
I'm still sticking with Amy Klobuchar for president, but I would be ok with her picking Bill Weld as a VP. I imagine every republican with the sour face is somehow involved in Trump's "schemes", they are just trying to end this to stay out of jail...
"Can Anyone Save the G.O.P.?"
The better question is, who outside the starched boxer crowd wants to save the republican party of Brett Stephens? When country club "conservatives" like him are willing to support a socialist like Bernie Sanders to save themselves its time to pull the plug.
The GOP does not want saving; only the representatives belonging to it want saving, one by one.
A Weld victory in NH would be amazing! Fingers crossed...
1
I have an old truck sitting in my driveway. Battery is dead, leaks oil, seats are ripped, floorboards are rusted through, has a funny smell coming from somewhere. Even when it did run I couldn't get it above 30mph, it chugged horribly, and belched blue smoke. Brakes are shot, too, and it could use a paint job.
If Bill Weld would like to come over, fix it up and get it running, that's fine. But I'm really thinking I should just haul it to the junkyard, because even though once upon a time it ran pretty well, it's a pile of junk now.
9
Nice wish. Unfortunately, once you sell your soul, it is hard to figure out buy it back. So far it seems there is little seller’s regret for Republicans with the 90% approval rate for Trump.
3
There is just too much money to be made in the sixty minutes after Sean Hannity steps out of his makeup chair each evening. He will never walk away from that fortune.
2
I think that the more pertinent question should be: Can the United States of America be saved? With millions of my fellow citizens willfully ignoring and not caring about the dangers that Trump represents, it is our country that is in danger. Either too frightened or too greedy, they are my worry. Trump will go away someday, one way or the other, but the right-wing media machine with all its ranting and misrepresentation will be harder to tame. The founding fathers gave the power to the voting populace, so all those citizens who are too apathetic or lazy to vote also bear responsibility for this sorry mess in which we currently find ourselves.
4
Bill Weld is allowing the rank and file Republican in NH to be heard across the land, and my guess is that many will take the opportunity to voice their displeasure with DT and his enablers in the upper echelons of the Republican party. New Englanders can be an ornery bunch.
1
We need to ensure the Blue Tsunami in 2020. That way we can achieve Grover Norquist's dream of shrinking something useless and utterly dysfunctional (in this case, the Repulsivian party) to the size when it could be drowned in a bathtub.
4
I find it hilarious that while pro-Trump evangelical Republicans seem to consider the President the second coming of Jesus, others like yourself are casting about for a savior. There is no savior, however. The rot in the Republican Party runs deep. There is a gaping divide between 99.9% of Republican politicians and the great mass of Americans. On the Republican side the only thing really connecting the politicians to ordinary Americans are Trump's perpetually raw scabs of grievance, and deep-seated racism. No doubt Trump is legitimately angry at something on an emotional level, his development is stunted. Most of us look at his material circumstances and wonder why he always needs more. He even tried to figure out how to make money off U.S. troop deployments during his first term. The racism seems to be baked into U.S. history and is deeply rooted in the current Republican Party.
6
I keep seeing a fantasy about Senator Portman. Portman understands the Republican Party and its media auxiliaries and will not be at all honorable. Stop with the fantasy. The GOP is all about culture wars and racism. My father’s gop is gone. Read some political history; the literature is full of insight.
3
As a former Alaska resident the Republican Party should be going more toward Lisa Murkowski types and less toward the even trashier mob-tainted version of Sarah Palin that is Donald Trump.
4
Naaa. The GOP voters love Trump with a passion. Weld will get at the most 5% of the vote.
3
The issues confronting the Republican party are profound. Rather than mature the platforms and confirm to the reality of the growing ethic diversity and embracing it, they cheat. Well cheating may work out for a time. like any crime, it catches up to the criminals. They will in each election represent a smaller piece of the pie until it is so small that it just cannot grow. If the intend to survive; they should have public forums, something akin to South Africa's reconciliation after apartheid and see if they can reestablish meaning in the American people.
3
Trump is not the cause of the problems with the GOP.
He is the logical outcome of decades of disinformation, propaganda and psyops by right-wing media funded by people like the Koch brothers and the Mercers.
Unfortunately the mainstream media including NYT has been far too accommodating to them in their quest for "balanced" news.
When one side says the earth is a spinning globe and the other says it's flat, it's not balanced journalism to give both sides equal time and credence.
7
Save the GOP? How about saving the environment, voting rights, women's rights, and the Constitution instead?
7
@Chris Rasmussen
It would appear you cannot save any of the things you mentioned and save the GOP as it is currently constituted.
People need to understand that and vote accordingly.
Why would anybody with a conscience want to save it?
1
In the candidacy of William Weld, we see what I would call a Rockefeller Republican. It seems in the United States Congress, moderate Republicans are virtually extinct. This can be traced to the purges in the party of the Reagan years, where the voices of moderation were cast out of the Republican kingdom like the angel Lucifer was banished from heaven.
The GOP seems to be doing fine taking our country down with them.
Bret, for the past 30 plus years the cast of Republican power brokers has been the dubious likes of Lee Atwater ( blatant appeals to racism as a viable campaign strategy) , Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey ( cutting off the poor from food stamps as a negotiating chip in policy debate), Carl Rove ( deny, deny, accuse), John Yoo(pro torture), Bush/ Cheney ( lie to take the country to war), McConnell ( deny Obama a supreme court pick) . Those are just the obvious examples which to come to mind off the top of my head. And only just now you are becoming concerned about the Republican party? !?
The only fix at this point is for Republicans to lose big. Like every single election big.
4
IT IS APPALLING that the mainstream media is extending saturation coverage to the spat between Sanders and Warren, and completely ignoring the Weld campaign.
4
Translation: Bring back the country club I fell in love with.
2
Can anyone save the GOP? The answer is why bother, they have sold out everything for power!
1
Yes. Mike Bloomberg. He should’ve run as a Republican and split the vote.
2
Why!!
The GOP broke the COMPROMISE in politics.
Just start over, after Trump, the GOP will be the South of the 19th Century.
1
Only the GOP could have saved the GOP. But that should have started when Donald Trump hired actors to pretend to be supporters. What candidate is so insecure that he has to buy apparent supporters? What political party is so cynical that it doesn't stand en masse to say, 'That is not us!'
If not then, then surely when the Access Hollywood tapes came out, principled Christian Republicans would stand to denounce such execrable, misogynistic words!
No? Well then, absolutely 100 per cent: when a man who would be president is caught covering up his adulterous affairs with porn stars and adult magazine models, then surely the GOP would stand as one to condemn such acts! They impeached the president for less than that just 20 years ago!
No?!
Brett, the GOP is not only dead but buried under the shame of the current office holders and the 89%, who enable a criminal sociopath's wholesale destruction of the government specifically and American democracy generally. Point out to us the heroes who stand for liberty, who call out the legion of Republicans who pillory Democrats for being democratic, who insist all must bow before Lord Trump, who condemn house Democrats for doing their duty, and praise Mitch McConnell, who stands poised to be foresworn in defense of a man who knows less than a sixth grader about the United States government.
So, short answer: No.
You can't save that which is already gone.
1
The title of the piece is what gets me. Why would anyone want to save the GOP? Save it for what?
Come what may, one outcome is certain. Donald Trump will cause the G.O.P. to implode. He is a master manipulator and destroys all things around him- as if a spoiled toddler- when things don’t go his way.
1
The Republican party as represented by its politicians, at least those leading the party, Congress and the Supreme Court justices, does not want to be saved. They are not stupid. They know exactly who Donald Trump is and they have made peace with his lying, his ignorance, his cruelty toward anyone who does not show him loyalty, even the harm he has done to America's image and standing in the world and especially the example he is setting for our country's youth. In exchange for their loyalty they are thrilled with what they have gained -- a windfall for their pocketbooks both from lower taxes and curtailed corporate regulation, 2 Supreme Court justices with the hope for a third changing the court and the country long after Donald Trump is gone, severe abortion restrictions, no action on gun control, keeping immigrants at bay etc Hopefully their day of reckoning will come..
2
Not to be picky, but Harry Truman did not “fail in his bid for re-election.” He chose not to run.
Recall when in 2012 the review of the Mitt Romney loss concluded the GOP needed to reach the Hispanic voters and get their votes? Trump did the opposite and demonized Hispanics.
When Pete Wilson did that in California earlier he planted the seeds for the destruction of the GOP in the Golden State!
The GOP is terminal dead man walking. They just don't know it yet.
1
Convince me the Republican Party is worth saving.
I may be a lifelong liberal, but I'm a strong believer in a two party system. My problem is that the current GOP is no longer a political party, it has become a crusade by grumpy old white men* desperately clinging to their faded past and fading privileges.
(*Full Disclosure: I'm a grumpy old white man)
Rational conservatives need a party of their own that isn't beholden to a history of racism and misogyny. The Republican Party of today doesn't qualify; they've given up on long-held conservative beliefs such as honesty, fiscal restraint, an abiding faith in the Constitution, and an understanding of America's role in the world around us.
Let the Republicans sink under the weight of their moral corruption. Build a new party. I doubt Bill Weld is able to do that, but I sure as heck hope someone can.
Liberals don't have all the answers. We never have. We need sane, contrary voices to keep our crazier dreams in check.
Remember to vote.
2
The GOP should fervently hope that the likes of Weld gets some traction in this election. If they don’t manage to separate themselves in some fashion from Trump, there is close to half the U.S. population who will continue to vote against them, almost without thinking. Their enabling of Trump is enough to get many people to vote straight Democratic tickets by way of punishment. Don’t be confused into thinking the hatred of Trump is a hatred caused by hating Republicans, the opposite is true. The cancer that is DJT is a cancer infecting Republicans and they would do well to excise it from their midst.
1
Republicans have dug their own ditch to dive into. The hatred of against having a black man in the Oval office was so deep, that nothing matters any more. Trump was shrewd enough to personalize that hatred and anger and appeared as the "deliverer". Of course, the Democrats shot in their feet through focusing on diverse issues palatable to different groups. And then there was Mr Putin dishing out to the US what the US has done to many smaller countries in the name of "regime changes" and "human rights". Stephens blows the horn for that hateful and deceitful rhetoric as the clarion call. Meanwhile we as a country have to wait out this phase of history and pay the price just as Rome paid after Caligula and India paid after the reign of Muhamed bin Tughlok.
All Trump has done is tear off the genteel veneer that people like Bret Stephens have been successful in pasting onto the social Darwinist, bigoted, cruel policies of the GOP that have always been there. It's not that they rue that Trumpism exists, it's that it has exposed who they are and always have been.
1
The GOP has morphed into The Trump Party, for which there is no salvation. Trump is a pathological liar who misleads the American people for personal political gain. He scoffs at the law and Constitution. He and his family profit from his office, thumbing their noses at the emoluments clause.
Trump identifies with ruthless dictators like Putin, Duterte and Kim Jong-un, and like a tin pot third world despot puts family members in senior adviser positions.
Sorry, Bret, there is no saving The Trump Party if they blindly support this President. But we can help save America and Planet Earth by showing them the door in November.
4
Where does Weld stand on the issue of cannabis as schedule one drug?
The Weld Professor of Law wants to know. yes to a planned event.
eon
The GOP is a corrupt machine. Weld seems to be a decent, honest guy and he was a competent governor of Massachusetts, but if he tried to do anything to cut the power of corporate interests, toxic fundamentalism, and racism to create real conservative government by the people, for the people and of the people, I think the monied interests would align against him and he'd get nowhere.
It is worth a shot, though. The evidence against Trump is overwhelming and I wonder how long every single GOP senator who swore an oath of impartiality can hold their noses and support the corrupt, incompetent mess in the White House.
The Republican Party is devoid of ideas and has no interest in governing the country. Their only concern - and you can see it clearly even in the comments from Trump supporters here - is to stick a thumb in the eye of the mythical “liberal” who’s aggrieved them so. Trump is a gigantic cry of despair and frustration from these people. Why do we expect them to think rationally about what’s best for the country when they are so emotional they’d destroy their own home while lashing out?
That’s today’s Republican Party.
2
This is beyond silly. Weld won't win anything or even spark a hint of change. Liberals don't vote as a rule, and even if they did, not one red or swing state would vote for any Dem, with the possible exception of Biden. That being said, Biden's physical frailty, and his son's horrible personal and professional behaviors, have hurt the former VP tremendously. The only hope the Dems have is if a big recession hits before the next election. However, DOW 32,000 means certain doom for the Dem ticket, regardless of any and all magical thinking.
1
No. America needs a new conservative party that is philosophically conservative and politically pragmatic.
Today, "Republicans" are power-mad opportunists rallying hatred among the more ignorant masses without any genuinely conservative principles. (Hint: "We are toadies of the world-wide oligarch" is not conservative.)
Republicans can only be superseded, not fixed.
Do you think anyone in the Republican party has given a thought to who would run in 2020 if Trump was removed from office? Or is that considered treason?
This is not about saving the GOP, this is about saving the Republic. This is about condoning lying, criminal behavior, and hypocrisy on steroids. This is about what values that we, as a nation, bring to the rest of the world. We have become an untrustworthy ally and if not abated, a pariah.
This is about a critical mass of American citizens who have been duped by a reality television star and con man. (For the record, there is no reality in reality shows.)
This is what the ultra-wealthy oligarchs around the world want, a nation divided, a consumerism culture that has abandoned any values beyond that of money, a religious culture that is speeding away from everything that doctrine espouses. The disinformation campaigns are meant to undermine any faith in those institutions that are the foundation for a healthy society: science, compassion, wisdom, truth, and so on.
The Republican party is merely a convenient vehicle to create a diseased culture that a parasitic elite can prey upon and suck dry.
2
Wishing elderly "David" (William Weld) luck against elderly "Goliath" ( Donald Trump) this year. The guys are the same age but a world apart in character and background. A hae me doots that Weld will appeal to Trump's G.O.P. base, but hey, no one predicted our last presidential election right! Right? Alt right.
It is not a loss of any value if the Republican party goes down. Any group of politicians wo can defend the outrageous contempt for decency by defending Trump are at the least, amoral or power and money drunk. Senatorial leadership from South Carolina and Kentuckey is nothing but disgraceful, underscoring the death knell.
Can anyone save the Republican Party? I hope not.
Too late, the G.O.P. has already completed its metamorphosis into Trumpism.
2
The Republucan Party is alive and well, there just isn't any self-respecting conservatives left in it.
3
"The best conservative case for rooting for a Democrat to win... — any Democrat, including...Sanders or...Warren — is that it might be the only way to save the Republican Party from itself."
Silly me...and I here I thought Mr. Stephens was going to say, 'is that it might be the only way to save the U.S. and the planet from the Republican Party.'
1
The GOP is now the party of mobsters, plain and simple.
All you have to do is remind yourself of the extent to which Trump's entourage is unethical, corrupt and downright criminal:
Cohen, Manafort, Flynn, Parnas, Price, Zinke, Acosta (Epstein's protector), Giuliani, and now Chris Collins, the first in congressman to back him who was just sentenced to 26 weeks in jail.
Can Weld take on and beat the mob boss Trump and his mafiosos between now and the GOP's convention?
It's very unlikely.
2
The GOP has been bent on destroying itself for a long time: when it wrapped its arms around Nixon and almost wouldn't let go; when it lauded Norquist, Gingrich, and other divisive, unreasonable, angry guys.
The GOP has long been sick with its racism, misogyny, xenophobia and hypocritical views on taxation and spending. Post Saint Reagan, it was anything goes and everything went.
The Saint broke the unions and the party was euphoric. The Saint had his very own impeachable Iran-Contra scandal and the GOP was oblivious. The base would forgive anything if politicians just spouted the right addled, quasi religious, empty rhetoric.
The two Bushes added lying and profound ignorance as virtues. But thick as W was, trump beats him hands down. W didn't insult people en masse, at least not in public.
Then the party unleashed and promoted the tea bags.
Now the GOP has tainted and mortified us all with trump.
The question should be why anyone would want to save the GOP. Maybe put it in an immigrant-style cage, with a Chernobyl like cement seal all over it, as an artifact to remind us of our barbaric, despicable past.
And then do our best to forget it.
2
America is far better off without the Republican Party.
“Save” it? -no thanks!
1
Why would any want to save the G.O.P.?
Johnson did not run for re-election in 1968.
Noam Chomsky summed up the evil and decades of selective-ignorance on behalf of the GOP; Chomsky has argued the Republican Party is the most “dangerous organization in human history” and the world has never seen an organization more profoundly committed to destroying planet earth.
The GOP destroyed the planet, end of story.
2
The current republican party is now a crime syndicate. Former GOP House rep and Trump sycophant Chris Collins just got sentenced to 26 months in prison for insider trading and Former republican House rep Duncan Hunter just got convicted of conspiracy to steal campaign funds. Consider too, all of Trump's associates like Manafort. Michael Cohen, General Flynn and on and on that are either in prison or going to be. Why would anyone want to save that motley crew known as the GOP?
1
Who says they need saving?
Which party is the more powerful, right now?
They certainly have strong support.
2
While Mr. Stephens asks can the GOP be saved, the more salient question is whether is should be saved. Republicans under Trump have shown the US electorate that they do not support the Constitution or universal suffrage for Americans. No Republican serving in Congress, with the possible exception of Romney, Murkowsky and (possibly) Collins deserve to continue in the Senate because of their "see no evil, hear no evil,speak no evil" approach to Congressional oversight of the Executive branch. Let us vote all Republicans out of office and allow a new, ethical, honest party steeped in Constitutional ethos rise in its place.
4
If Democrats move left with Bernie, maybe there’s room in the center for moderate Republicans who currently got nothing with the Dems approving free trade deals, military budget increases, extending Bush tax cuts, embracing private healthcare, bailing out banks etc.
The question is whether the loyal Republicans, who will never vote for a Democrat ever, are ready to embrace a moderate again, say Nikki Haley.
I’m not too sure. The tea party and Trump were once fringe, now embracing the Don has become their purity test.
3
@Liz After listening to Ms. Haley I am pretty sure she is not a moderate.
1
In 2008 and in 2016, Democrats selected moderate candidates who wanted to work with Republicans. I remember feeling appalled when Obama posited his so called Grand Bargain with the Republicans, which offered up Social Security to try and strike some kind of bargain. Fortunately for Obama, the Republicans were never serious about engaging with him.
I see no evidence of Mr. Stephens’ conclusion that moving further to the left will move the Republicans even further to the right. They are already to the right of characters like Marie LePen and Ghengis Khan.
5
WHY THE GOP NEEDS TO BE SAVED
One of the reasons democracy has flourished in the US for over 200 years is that the Constitution was well-designed. The separation of powers into legislature, executive and judicial branches was a stroke of genius. It allowed forums of the discussion of issues, that made better decisions possible.
Democracy proceeds in several stages. There was an election. But the actual laws were made in the legislature, where the will of the people as expressed in the elections was made precise. Unrealistic ideas were discarded at this stage even though they were popular at the earlier stage. Negotiation allowed differing groups to achieve what they wanted most. It was compromise that made democracy work.
Excessive partisanship has destroyed the spirit of compromise. It has become common to simply shut down the government to force the other side to give in to demands.
Trump is certainly the worst president the US has had since at least the second world war. But the Republican party does have good ideas that need to be considered in negotiations over precise laws.
Thus we need a replacement for Trump that is willing to negotiate with the other party, and allow the country to heal.
It is for that reason that I am leaning these days towards Mike Bloomberg. Joe Biden is not the strongest of candidates, but he seems open to negotiation, so I put him in second place.
Sanders has the right vision, but I worry that his policies might be extreme.
1
The best conservative case for rating for a democrat to win in November is NOT to save the GOP from itself. It is to save the great experiment in democracy from today's GOP. If Trump wins again in 2020, he will only grow bolder in his flouting of the constitution, his disregard for anyone other than himself, and his disgracing of this once proud country.
The Republicans in the Senate and on the Supreme Court who continue to do nothing to check his authority are complicit in the impending downfall of America's promise.
Mr. Stephens, please stop looking at current events in a "what can we do for Republicans" prism and start thinking about what we can do for Americans.
7
Most New England Republicans would prefer Weld but they are not representative of the national Republican party. If the impeachment trial cause some Republicans to change their votes Weld has a chance but 20 to 1 odds seems about right. I suspect in Jan 2016 the odds of Trump being president were similarly long so it's for sure possible
1
I've been a Republican for many cycles of up and down. I wish Weld well, but I'm going to vote in the Democrat primary. I'll vote for the person I think A) can beat Trump and B) strikes me as being able and willing to work across party lines.
5
The GOP credo in a nutshell:
1. Lower taxes on the rich, then lower them some more.
2. Embrace Christian values wholeheartedly, as long as they don't involve Jesus's actual teachings.
3. There is no such thing as "the higher good." It's more like "What's good for me IS the higher good."
4. Lower taxes on the rich even more.
5. Isn't there a war we can start or support somewhere in the world?
6. Lower taxes on the rich yet again.
7. There is no money in the till for "bleeding heart" causes.
I have never understood what attracts people to this party.
Nothing worth saving here.
20
@TM you forgot on thing - load the federal courts with far right wing judges.
3
There are more than a few of us that left the GOP out of exasperation and disgust with the direction it was headed and maintaining. In order to thrive a political party must be dynamic and adapt to the changing norms of society that reflect the realities of the time. The GOP seems to be mired in the perception of a society of the 1950s and early 1960s that never really existed in the first place. Those holding power within the party do so with scare tactics, bigotry, and scapegoating. They ignore science and the possibilities of the future by promising a false nostalgia. Climate change must be addressed head on. How people earn a living and thrive must also be addressed. The workplace at all levels is going through dramatic changes. Automation, Robotics, and data driven algorithms are drastically reshaping careers. Rather than promising people to turn back the clocks, a party with responsible leadership would be preparing people for what will be and not what never existed in the past anyways. The needed leadership and courage is woefully absent in the GOP.
12
Can anyone save the GOP?
Really the question is, should anyone save the GOP?
They've strayed too far to the Dark Side, and won't be coming back.
13
What Weld should do is run as a placeholder for a GOP moderate nominee. Weld should make it clear that a vote for him is really a vote to replace Trump with a normal Republican moderate. If Weld places well, then others such as Kasich and Jeb can step in and make a go of it. That should increase odds to >20 to 1.
1
If the need to recover the center is so important, perhaps the reason that it's failing is its relativist refusal to acknowledge liberty -- like Einstein's energy -- literally what matters, en masse, when framed by the squaring of enlightenment's due speed. Not something exclusively driven by money.
After all, money's too zero-sum. Too absolute.
The huge CENTER between either having it or not, can't feel that it even exists.
"Can anyone save the G.O.P.?" No. In its current state it will die as a result of demographic and social factors, but mainly demographic. But it's an interesting question: Given the racial divisions in the United States, and with the right populist leader, you cannot rule out a shift of traditional white voters from the DNC to the GOP.
1
Just an interjection here. 1. The more Democratic Candidates the better. Good for the Party. Exposes future potential young leaders. 2. The Impeachment Trial - rules - no electronic devices. Assume that includes tape recorders. So, back to school days of old -- taking hand written notes. 3. A good exercise that brings focus to the facts. Pay attention kids.
4. Then, Democratic Senators gather to compare notes. 5. Compile a collective reviewed and full final set of notes. 6. Accuracy critical. 7. Have the final product ready to disseminate to the press and to the American Public. 8. Who said what? Full attribution a must. 9. Knowing this is being done will help with decorum. 10. Use Sharpies!!
1
The GOP needs no saving as they are thriving. The fundraising and war chest of Trump's reelection campaign alone puts it atop the heap. The DNC better get substance and progressive or we are in for 4 more years of President Trump.
1
@Nature
The GOP is thriving NOW. A longer term view shows they are like a star in super nova state. Their fear of change has galvanized them like never before. But change is coming and its effects will be felt in the coming decade, as older more conservative people die off and they are replaced by a more diverse and opened minded generation.
The GOP fear and desire to hold on to power is so strong they are willing to lie, cheat, suppress voting, and hold a totally partial impeachment trial. In doing so they are showing the American people they have no respect for the rule of law, fairness or the principles of the United States Constitution.
Most ethically and morally decent people are outraged at the GOP's modus operandi.
At this point the GOP is foundationally rotten. Rotten foundations don't last. The GOP as it is presently constituted in the midst of having its last hurrah.
1
The GOP much like the Coal Industry jobs they keep insisting are coming back. Are in a word 'Done'.
Time for a new party that caters to the political middle Moderate on fiscal issues , and socially Liberal.
If a political party like this came into play, both the Republicans and Democrats would be in trouble come election time.
8
The problem is that the Republican party since Goldwater has increasingly moved to a right wing stance. In the age of Fox, Rush and Sean, moderate Republicans are and have been bullied, demeaned and defeated, i.e. McCain, Romney, Etc and moderate Republicans have been and are derided by “the base” as RINOs “Republicans in name only”. Effectively, there has been no true united GOP since the Reagan win and it finally collapsed altogether with the ascenscion of Trump by the Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Tea Party base.
While there has been a somewhat similar fragmentation and splitting in the Democratic party, Barack Obama postponed the progressive moderate split, but it flared again in the Hillary/Bernie fiasco and is now again pretty clearly splitting Democrats which is why Trump will win this fall.
It may be that center lefts and center rights of the existing parties can coalesce to a true Middle party...call it the Sensibility party. Or I think it may be that the Democrats effectively split in two, Progressive and Center and the Republicans effectively split in two, Liberty and Trumpites. But the polarization is driving the two parties in a four eay split, not a three way, which may lead our government to a more parliamentary, minority led, coalition building style than ever before.
4
Finally the question conservatives need to be asking themselves. We’ve too often seen never-trumpers like Stephens ask this question of Democrats who are more interested in their own soul searching but never to solution within their own party. Republicans can only return their party to decency by finding and electing decent Republicans. It’s about time moderate Republicans demanded more from their party and took and active role in primary elections.
4
Reagan, Romney, Bush, Trump - Democrats have been reflexively crying wolf about Republicans for decades, regardless of “character.” I don’t think the GOP is at risk at all - being perennially lectured at by progressives who are certain of their own superior virtue and uncompromising in their views, guarantees a Republican vote. And the Democrats, who can barely get along with each other, do not exactly inspire confidence in their leadership capabilities.
2
@LTJ ah yes, let us follow a party that has no respect for our constitution and only believes in tax cuts which gives us larger deficits, load the federal courts with far right wing judges that even the ABA rate as not qualified, and more tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations. Sorry, I vote for democrats across the board.
1
Anyone in NH can vote in the Republican primary if they change their party affiliation to independent/unaffiliated. I did that in NC so I can vote against Trump in the primary here. Can't wait to vote against him twice!
3
Since 89% of Republicans support Trump, there is no “saving” them from themselves. The best we can hope for is to save ourselves from them.
This country is split on culture more than anything else. Voters of both parties are unhappy with the economic system, but they still disagree about issues that are largely unaddressable by politics. They involve how individuals live their personal lives.
Of course, the corporate power that makes so many unhappy is more than satisfied to keep stoking the cultural divisions.
15
Well, just about all hope is lost in the a Democratic Party, too, if the moderates can’t get behind Bernie, because Biden, Pete, and Elizabeth will never get back the blue-collar voter the Dems lost by way of Hillary. And they’ll never win without them. (Isn’t our country and it’s founders and our system amazing for holding all of the states together!). Maybe this is when those in Washington return to serving the people or get a swift kick out of there!
2
The inclusion of Lyndon Johnson on the list of incumbents who "failed" in their bid for re-election is historically inaccurate. Johnson did not run for re-election. One can certainly argue that McCarthy's strong showing in New Hampshire contributed to LBJ's decision, but that is not the same thing as his failing to be re-elected.
I also believe that Johnson's decision was motivated more by an unwillingness to face more years of anti-war protests than by a fear that he would not win. He couldn't stand hearing "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" being shouted up at him from the street every day. Johnson had many flaws, some of epic stature. But unlike Nixon and Trump, he also had genuine feeling for his fellow humans and compassion for those who suffered.
15
Truman also withdrew from the race in 1952; granted, after he lost the N. H. primary, but he didn’t actually “lose” a re-election campaign. Given Mr. Stephens’ known propensity for inaccuracy, I’m surprised that the fact-checkers didn’t correct this.
There is no saving for the GOP. They've spent 25 years, at least since the days of Newt Gingrich, transforming themselves into what we see today.
What Donald Trump has done is give them permission to stop pretending and hiding. So we see that the GOP does not really believe in morality, Constitutionality, the rule of law,, fiscal probity, national security, separation of church and state, or any of a number of things they've traditionally claimed. We see, instead that they care about just two things: (1) racism and (2) the short-term looting of the country by the very rich and powerful. That's it. With 40%-50% of the voters backing this, I fear we are doomed.
20
Trump's almost certain acquittal by the U.S. Senate will expose that body's mal-apportionment as the base of the Republican Party's dis-incentive to reform its appeal to conform to changes in the US. population. That is a long-term danger to the political stability of the whole country.
But Trump has also exposed the raw edges of existing social, moral and economic conflicts--and shown that the G.O.P. is face-to-face with a "base" that rejects aspects of its historical roots in blind free enterprise economics and globalism.
I can't wait to see how the country heals after he is gone, but what he represents won't disappear after he goes. The Democrats will be well-advised to heed these facts and shave off the raw edges of their own cultural extremists, who have driven millions of people to prefer Trump's repulsive features to a "liberal" alternative. This, too, is dangerous and reckless.
4
@David A. Lee
“The Democrats will be well-advised to heed these facts and shave off the raw edges of their own cultural extremists, who have driven millions of people to prefer Trump’s repulsive features to a “liberal” alternative.”
I respectfully, no heartily, disagree. The “liberal” alternative that drove just barely enough voters, in just a few electorally important states away (regardless of what Trump continues to lie about), was as much a corporate tool as those Republicans you say the GOP base rejects. This sounds like Tea Party gospel. Reject the Democratic Party because it cozies up to international bankers, Wall Street, i.e. Globalism. Yet always give Republicans a pass because they have your needs at heart. Needs such as corporate and the .1%’s tax cuts. Trying to push an economy that had already been growing for 7 years running, to squeeze even more self-indulgent profits, while driving the deficit to heights never seen before.
This part is so blatantly obvious, I can only conclude that your eyes are closed. This is from the party that has repeatedly counseled how dangerous the National Debt is when a Democrat is President, and then doesn’t just ignore it, but purposely makes it worse when they are in power. And make no mistake, the time to reduce deficits, and thus eventually the debt, is not when the economy is in a death spiral, but when the economy is healthy, and draining away some of those generally obscene profits will not hurt anyone.
@Don Alas, you have put so many words in my mouth that I didn't utter that I will depart from the discussion with just this warning: beware of accusing people of that which they don't believe or aren't. Who's blind here?
Does anyone think Democrats would be anymore accepting of a moderate Republican?..not likely. I preferred Kasich or Romney in last election. They would have received the same all out opposition from Democrats as Trump has. The politics of personal destruction introduced by the Clinton's is ingrained. These nice guys would have been neutered.
For better or worse only Trump could have beat Hillary, he won by beating Democrats with their own game plan.
Weld is surely a good man, needs to realize he would receive the same treatment as Trump is..
1
I think you are wrong. To be fair, I’m not a Democrat, I’m an independent, but I would have tolerated any of the other Republican candidates, and been happy with, and maybe even voted for the likes of Kasich. It is sad that Republicans take the dislike or hatred of Donald Trump to be caused by a hatred of all Republicans. The main reason the DJT haters also hate on the GOP is because the GOP has done almost nothing to limit even the worst abuses out of Trump. They support him no matter what. At best, I’ve heard a few mumble that they wouldn’t have said that, and of course the now deceased John McCain stood up against him a bit more. I did vote for Clinton, and was upset that she lost, but it wasn’t because I thought Clinton was so outstanding. My grief was over Trump having won, not Clinton losing. It was because Donald J. Trump’s unfitness for office was understood by me when he announced his candidacy. He has done nothing to dissuade me from that opinion.
7
@Lane
Trump lost to Clinton by 3M popular votes. If she had campaigned in PA, MI, and WI and asked for their votes, she would have taken the Electoral College. The EC is an anachronism from the Reconstruction era, a gift to cotton plantations by Northern mill owners to keep them in the Union; they were allowed to count slaves as 3/5 of a person, thus jacking up their voting power, even though slaves could not vote. The EC needs to be repealed; it has given us a minority dominated government, as led by Mitch McConnell whose constituency is in Kentucky. The most corrupt man in the Senate orchestrated the tax gift to rich donors in the middle of the night. Not one Democrat was allowed in. This has gone on for too long; future generations will have a trillion dollar deficit to deal with. Trump and McConnell will be gone.
5
@Lane
Mitt Romney was disliked by so many because of his blatant flip-flopping on major issues. If he had the guts to stand by the positions he held when governor of Massachusetts, he probably would not have won the GOP nomination in 2012.
1
"Alternatively a Sanders or Warren victory could send the G.O.P. to even further extremes."
Can someone explain to me how on earth the Republican Party could become even more extreme than it is showing at present??
13
@Fripp1 :
They have already embraced complete disregard for the Rule of Law.
The G.O.P. as we know it is dead. It has become the Trump Nationalist Party. The forward-thinking self-serving members of what used to be the Republican Party are already playing the long game. They are smart enough to know Trump won't be around forever. He could be gone in three months (doubtful), gone in eleven months (50/50 odds) or in four years (definite).
So who replaces him when he leaves? Those who are the most obvious in their support for him today. Lindsey Graham, Jim Jordan and Ted Cruz are just a few who covet a new identity as heir apparent to lead the Trump Nationalist Party.
However, knowing how Trump repays loyalty, perhaps their biggest fear is Don Jr.
5
The Republican Party is not at risk. There is far too much money and institutional power for it to go away. It may morph, it may lose more seats and perhaps the White House for a while, but it will remain.
The above paragraph is not a positive thing for America.
5
The party made Trump its leader. They both would rather play victim when it's mere months in the past from controlling all three branches of government.
It seems they want little more than to eliminate the very existence of the Democrats. There is no policy or vision of the future except to unmake.
They animate people by telling them Dems are going to take away their cheeseburgers and light bulbs. They appoint people to lead agencies that have dedicated their lives to dismantling the same. They have traded every single value they once claimed unmovable to indulge a sense of misguided revenge on their fellow citizens. largely for entertainment's sake, while greasing the skids of graft and venality on a breathtaking scale.
Democratic voters cannot and do not solely own the burden of turning all of this back. If this is the best and the future of the GOP the bottom is barely in view.
7
Bret, I think I read news not long ago that the GOP has modified its convention rules for this year to prohibit a challenge to trump somehow. I can't recall the details, but Weld should be further praised for his efforts knowing their utter hopelessness. As for the party...?
2
Wrong question. The GOP has shown that it is not worth saving. As I said to the NYT back in 2015: "Trump bad. Me understand." Trump may be bad, but the fact is that he is the great enabler of everything the GOP seems to stand for. Getting rid of Trump won't cure the GOP, but it might make it harder for them to run wild.
5
@John
So registered voters have to vote Democrats in all over the country up and down the ticket.
That means no Sanders votes that siphon off Democrat votes.
No 3rd party votes no matter how righteous or puffed up it makes you feel.
1
"Alternatively a Sanders or Warren victory could send the G.O.P. to even further extremes."
Maybe.
But you fail to see that almost every single sentence you write about the GOP can be applied to the Democratic Party of 2020.
Indeed, a "win" by Sanders or Warren would also mark a party driven to "extremes" and beholden to economic delusions of socialism behind massive tax increases for the working and middle classes.
The last time the Democratic Party was so riven was when their was a liberal Northern wing and a segregationist Southern wing. Eventually, the "good guys won out." It only told about a hundred years.
Sound familiar?
2
I am not, to put it mildly, a fan of this columnist: I dislike many of his views and get annoyed with his recent columns telling Democrats whom to nominate as their presidential candidates. But I give him props for -- finally! -- discussing a Republican presidential candidate other than the incumbent. As someone who worked for Eugene McCarthy in the fall of 1967, when that campaign seemed ridiculous to almost everyone, I appreciate this column.
2
@Richard Grayson
Yeah but never forget that Stephens is a Republican.
Can you trust any Republican when it comes to voting?
1
The Republicans wanted to put Hilary in jail for using a private email server. They wanted to impeach Bill for lying about having sex with an intern. But Trump extorts a foreign government for his own Presidential election campaign and that is ok.
30
The GOP started on its current path to demise when it bought into Newt Gingrich's "politics as war" approach where the end justified any means. Democrats no longer just had different opinions as to how to better America, they were people of ill will, inherently evil, a force to be demonized. This led to the breakdown of our political system where collegiality and compromise were dead. Working with the other side was seen as treason, as "party over country" was born.
The only way for this country to move forward is for both sides of the political aisle to compromise. The winner take all approach that Trump and the Republicans are forcing upon America can only hold the country back. For one, neither side can ever "win," as the loser immediately becomes the new resistance whose opposition grows in direct proportion to how much the other side attempts to exert its will.
What we need is a true leader (not a ruler) who represents ALL Americans and not just those who voted for him/her. He/she needs to convince Americans that both sides have to compromise and make sacrifices for it to work. If we do this the country can move forward and make progress as everyone will gain. Otherwise we will inevitably split into two lesser nations. But where is the leader who can make that argument? I am not sure he/she exists.
2
@USS Johnston
We did that, Barack Obama. Obama attempted to bring the Republicans to the table, but was rebuffed time and again. It was Mitch McConnell who declared it was his job to make Obama a one term President. For the GOP, compromise is a dirty word.
When they finally face the reality of extinction as a party, only then they may see the light, but that is decades away.
The notion that the Republican Party needs "saving" is hard to reconcile with the likelihood that they will do well in the 2020 elections that are coming up.
If any party needs "saving" it's the Democratic Party that is careening forward with its nomination process, with a cast of weak candidates.
It would be nice to see - revolutionary, even - some positive commentary about what President Trump and the Republicans have accomplished in the past 3 years - it is not ALL negative. A little balance, please.
8
The trains are running on time!
@Sunny 4 Life
That’s right! And no one ever gives Hitler credit for starting Volkswagen and jump starting the German economy, or Mussolini credit for making the trains run on time.
2
Yes, it would be nice to see all the positive things that someone has done — someone who is normally a serial liar, a cheat, a scam artist, a narcissistic bully, and an incipient fascist.
Please, do enlighten us.
1
I hope the Republicans in New England can blaze a trail for the rest of the country's Republicans -- stand up to, and speak out, against corruption, criminality, amorality, dishonesty, incivility and more. Would require courage and conscience. We will see.
4
@Laurel Hedges I’m not holding out hope.
What I’d like to know is:
can registered Democrats vote in the New Hampshire Republican primary?
Okay Mr. Stephens, explain to me why the GOP needs saving. They have the largest single voting bloc in this country - white Christians. And because of our system of government (two senators per state and the Electoral College) it no longer matters that white Christians aren't the overall majority - or won't be, soon.
Our system of government allows the GOP to rule as a minority party indefinitely. Trump has given the Supreme Court to Republicans for the next half century. And he's appointed one-quarter of all federal court judges, already.
I'd say that the GOP is doing quite well, for a party that is proud to say it represents fewer than one-half of us. And they know the formula to retain power. Continue to offer candidates like Trump - unabashed white nationalists who appeal to the racism, the bigotry, the xenophobia of Trump voters.
Why does anyone think Trump voters have remained in lockstep with him, despite these disastrous three years? Because he's delivered on the one thing they want - racism.
The challenge for the GOP after Trump is to continue to find breathtakingly ignorant white bigots such as he, to run for the nation's highest office. But this task should be quite easy, given the makeup of the Republican "leadership". I doubt the party will have any difficulty filling Trump's shoes.
GOP on the ropes? They've consolidated power under a fascist dictator with no plan to ever again listen to the rest of us. Sounds like a win to me.
9
Okay Mr. Stephens, explain to me why the GOP needs saving. They have the largest single voting bloc in this country - white Christians. And because of our system of government (two senators per state and the Electoral College) it no longer matters that white Christians aren't the overall majority - or won't be, soon.
Our system of government allows the GOP to rule as a minority party indefinitely. Trump has given the Supreme Court to Republicans for the next half century. And he's appointed one-quarter of all federal court judges, already.
I'd say that the GOP is doing quite well, for a party that is proud to say it represents fewer than one-half of us. And they know the formula to retain power. Continue to offer candidates like Trump - unabashed white nationalists who appeal to the racism, the bigotry, the xenophobia of Trump voters.
Why does anyone think Trump voters have remained in lockstep with him, despite these disastrous three years? Because he's delivered on the one thing they want - racism.
The challenge for the GOP after Trump is to continue to find breathtakingly ignorant white bigots such as he, to run for the nation's highest office. But this task should be quite easy, given the makeup of the Republican "leadership". I doubt the party will have any difficulty filling Trump's shoes.
GOP on the ropes? They've consolidated power under a fascist dictator with no plan to ever again listen to the rest of us. Sounds like a win to me.
1
In the same way that Democrats are coalescing around anyone but Trump, so must any Republicans left with a spine. The problem for CONS, though, is that any support the uneducated white man's party may have had among its better-behaved centrist fringe is negligible, and, like outmoded and polluting fuel sources like coal, won't contribute to the survival of a regressive and polluting political ideology whose day has come, whether the messenger be Weld or Devin Nunes' cow.
2
Well said, Mr. Stephens, and I do hope for that 4th GOP senatorial vote for witnesses and Bill Weld's "carom shot" in an effort to galvanize Republicans against "Trumpism".
But, even if Republicans are miraculously able to repudiate Donald Trump in this pivotal year, they have a much bigger challenge to face if they want to restore their party. For the last 40 years, The Grand Old Party innovated a dark, grand strategy to win at politics and keep power that is unprecedented in the history of US party politics.
I am not talking about the all-too-frequent individual scoundrels and corrupt megalomaniacs - of all political persuasions - who have lied, cheated and stolen their way to office throughout our history; rather, it is a systemic infection that has rotted and hollowed out Republicanism, root, trunk and branch.
Remember the horrified responses of Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and the "Republican Establishment" when Donald Trump spewed insults, character assassination and hatred in the primaries? (To say nothing of everyone who loved John McCain including Lyndsey Graham before he was kidnapped by aliens with a dark sense of humor and replaced by a spineless obeissant...)
Well, maybe they should have thought about that when both racists (Reagan, Trump) and non-racists alike (Both Bush-the-Smarter and Bush-the-Younger) embraced the "Southern Strategy"; and when they Gerrymandered, assaulted voting rights and stoked fear and hatred rather than affirming their vision.
6
The Republicans have a golden opportunity, handed to them by Democrats on a silver platter called impeachment, to take back their party from devastating irrelevance and demise, to save their party from the cloud of criminality. If only they could see it that way. They can maintain their conservative values, restore their soiled image, and rid themselves of the scourge of Trump, so easily, in one fell swoop. It's risky because of their rabid base. a good showing by Weld in New Hampshire might give them a shot of courage.
4
The Republican Party has already long outlived its natural lifespan. As far as I know, in all of the many modern social democracies there is no major party so far to the right. Their conservatives would fit in comfortably with our Democrats.
We are hopefully witnessing the death throes of a political dinosaur.
4
No, the GOP is beyond salvation! It doesn't mean that the Democrats aren't also beyond salvation. Both parties thirst for power prevent their salvation. The main difference is that the GOP is willing to sell all it's morals to achieve it, while Democrats only would sell most of their morals. California Republicans say that: "at least is not crooked Hilary in the White House". And they are right, but is crooked Trump, and the problem is not in their names but the fact that they are crooks. A Republican crook is not better than a Democrat crook, because both are bad. The salvation for both political affiliations is a 3rd or maybe a 4th political affiliations which could deny outright majority to both Democrats and Republicans, a centrist party could deny both right a left wing fringes in both Chambers. I know it's almost impossible, but it could not only save both parties but also the country.
3
@Ferrando
As a fifth generation Californian with deep family roots in SF and the Democratic Party, I am relieved that your vote won't change CA as a rich Blue State. There are no Democrats at the squalid level in which Trump survives. You are graced to live in an old tolerant Port city; appreciate that. FYI: Hillary was not a crook; she was subject to 26 yrs. of GOP slander and lies. Trump, however, is a crook and a grifter. Clinton put her tax returns on line; where are Trump's tax returns? Where are his Deutsche bank records showing deposits with a paper trail leading to Russians in London? That was established by an investigative reporter from New York Magazine. Why do you think he fawned over Putin in Helsinki? Putin knows all about those loans.
1
Well if Sanders wins, it’s possible he will lead a progressive party of some sort and disenfranchised Democrats and Republicans will merge into new centrist party and the MAGA crowd a third party (note, they will have the lowest collective IQ, but will be the most well-armed). Such realignments have happened before.
1
Seems to me that there's a lot of room for a new party for people who are moderate to conservative and who actually think that integrity matters. Why didn't Bloomberg start a 3rd party? These corrupt politicians that have usurped the Party of Lincoln need to be marginalized as much as possible.
2
There is almost no way for a third party to win in any election given our plurality-based per-state electoral college. A third party candidate always takes away votes from one of the major parties and thus enhances the prospects of the other party. Obviously, ranked-choice voting would change this equation.
Can anyone save the GOP?
Why would anyone want to? It's corrupt beyond redemption.
7
Karakoram Range. Good line, Bret. Personally, I would have chosen Olympus Mons on Mars, but you did just fine.
2
@Mike S. The Pamirs are higher but more remote :-)
Weld’s campaign has been seriously under-covered. He deserves at least a CNN town hall. But this column is a good start.
2
There is no such a thing as the G.O.P. This entity is made up of corrupt politicians who harbor no decent ideology other than that of grabbing power and maintaining power by any means necessary. That is why they engage in gerrymandering, voter suppression and packing the courts, including the Supreme Court, that will make sure these politicians - mainly old, white male- remain in power for as long as possible. Look what this G.O.P. has as preeminent "leaders,": Trump, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, surrounded by such notables as Rudy Giuliani, Bob Barr, plus a long list of individuals whose reputation is repulsive. It's laughable that you mention Patrick Buchanan as a hope of change in the G.O.P. Oh yes, Buchanan was clarion for change all right: the change that this corrupt party was taking for the worse, as clearly shown by the likes of George Bush Jr. and your current avatar, Trump. The G.O.P is beyond hope, it needs to disappear forever and be replaced with truly patriotic politicians who care for this nation, its Constitution and the rule of law.
4
“Can anyone save the GOP?” The botched impeachment investigation by the Democrats will likely do the job and get Trump re-elected. They started with allegations of “collusion” with Russia and ended with 11th hour reliance on the hearsay from a federally indicted criminal defendant. This mismanagement of evidence would warrant dismissal and sanctions against the prosecution in a US criminal court. Someone in the Democratic Party needs to hire an experienced prosecutor ASAP and take over this debacle.
2
@Richard J I agree. The incompetence by the Democrats is astonishing. It started with them losing a massive block of white working class voters in blue states. I am a Democrat and I saw the collapse before the highly paid political strategists did ( I doubt they even see it now ). They keep focusing on topics like: using tax dollars to pay for transgender surgeries for prisoners, ensuring gender studies graduates get paid the same as male electricians ( or whatever other male dominated occupation ), and shame all cops as racist even though a small majority cause the problems. I know I picked extreme anecdotes as an example, but the feeling is by many fellow Democrats is the party focuses on the PC issues and ignores the core, substantive problems. It is real and we will lose again to Trump. This time it might be a landslide. Imagine how Trump’s ego will be after that!
@Richard J
"a federally indicted criminal defendant" who has provided documentation VS. Individual-1 who has a get-out-of-jail-free card and has blocked all testimony and documents from key players - hum!
Look at the GOP governors more closely. Examples.
- Romney cut spending by reducing rabies prevention. We now have rabies issues.
- Baker appoints NRA supporters for natural resources/wildlife
- Baker brings EPA appointees with virtually no background to present re Cape Cod water and sewering issues who tell us to be happy with no government funding for sewers. No support for EPA pros pushed out.
- Baker won't increase gas tax to quickly improve failing mass transit system.
- Baker gave money to Trump campaign.
5
US politics currently is the almost perfect embodiment of JK Galbraith’s “moral justification for selfishness.” Social conservatives have the GOP to provide this while social liberals are covered by the New Democrat faction that has taken over the party. The social stigma has been eliminated from naked self interest across the political spectrum while the majority of Americans descend into hopelesness along with their infrastructure. A pox on both of their houses.
1
@Steve Bruns
I'm hoping it's just the winter doldrums that is warping your judgement.
I have to depress you but the majority of Americans haven't descended into hopelessness. Where do you get your ideas from?
1
Bill Weld needs your vote (and perhaps a contribution). Any and every attempt is worth a shot, bank shot, combination off the 8 ball, if it moves or hooks DJT off the national stage.
Attend your caucus if you have them and be it a primary or election vote in each opportunity in 2020 to remove DJT and the likes of McConnell, Graham, Cornyn and a pocketful of the other Republicans that have failed the test of integrity in office.
2
Why save them? Why turn the end of your piece into a denigration of the Democrat's progressive hopefuls> Notice I said progressive, not liberal or left. The goalpost was moved (Reagan et. al>) And the Left has been moved so far over that moderate is defined as left-wing. Why save them?
2
I think Weld's efforts are awesome. Anything or anyone that pokes holes in the monolithic Republican support for a deluded tyrant would be valuable in letting a bit more sunlight in. Remember? We had the Revolutionary War to leave the monarchy. What we have now is worse. Weld is making an effort to bring back that thing called democracy.
2
Mr. Stephens claims that New England Republicanism "remains alive and well". Goodness! The author is far younger than I am, and as other columns glaringly reveal he is not well versed in the facts of even recent history. This may contribute to his misconception that today's MAGA mob (with the few elderly hangers on like Susan Collins having given up principles and only make moderate noises to appear to have integrity) compares favorably to the New England GOP of decades ago. I am putting down a marker here. I say that as with the over-optimistic assessments of what the GOP will do that Douthat, Stephens, and others have frequently published since 2015 (and often before that - remember how often we were told that the GOP, like the God of the Mormons, had changed its mind on hispanics and blacks, who would now flock to its big tent), this will be proven wrong. At least on this plane of reality, it has no possibility.
3
Very interesting article from Bret. It reads like he googled "republicans running against Trump 2020" and spent about 10 minutes typing up a summary of his findings.
2
No one can save the GOP if they do not remove Trump from office. More than half the population is aware this needs to be done in order to save America. Global leaders would agree he is a menace, not credible and a threat to international stability. Putin is salivating with the prospect of our doom, all without a shot fired
.
5
This Party is beyond redemption. Too many Republicans have remained silent or have outrightly given assent to Trump's total lack of Ethics.
Why would we trust them to suddenly turn around and say: We have had a 'Come to Jesus' Moment. We're Better Now!"
Uhm...NOT.
3
My simple answer, before I even read the column is NO, it can't be saved even if Trump loses the election.
4
The GOP appeals to the worst of human instincts. Unfortunately, that’s not going away anytime soon.
2
Sorry, Mr. Weld is just plain invisible up here. He has zero chance of a respectable showing, not 5%.
Written from New Hampshire...
4
I remember when the TEA Party wanted to "save" America from Obama. This notion that our country needs "savings" is peculiar to the group which most opposes the current Administration.
4
Can anyone save the GOP?
No, and it's not worth the effort. Better to build something new from its ashes.
4
Can anyone save the GOP?
‘Should anyone save the GOP’ is the real question.
5
Why does it need saving? Its politicians and followers have shown their hatred for decency or the rule of law. Perhaps Bret should dwell on that, instead of looking to a fake Republican has been to be a savior.
4
Why? The republicans have their eye on the prize the Supreme Court, Ruth Ginsburg is hanging on by a thread,Trump gets re- elected and I think he will.
The Supreme Court going to go 7/2 before Trump ends his second term , with the federal courts in the republicans pocket,
Everything else is just noise , side shows . Propaganda,
Democrats don’t have a plan for 2020 anyone but Trump
Trump doesn’t have a plan except being a puppet for the republicans
2
Can anyone save the GOP? I think it is more can anyone save this Republic from the GOP. The GOP I knew is gone. True conservatives have left the building. The old Rockefeller wing of which this old man was a proud member has been long gone. What we have left is a mob mixture of anti-democracy factions, conspiracy believers and zombies who vote R.
The only thing that will save the old Party is a major defeat in the fall, a repudiation of Trump's imitation of Huey Long. Without the American voters admitting how ridiculous this administration has been over the past three years Trump will win another term and then you have....What do you have? I think what you have is the end of this Republic as we knew it. I think this election is the turning point on whether we keep Franklin's Republic or we lose it.
3
The best case would not be saving the Republican Party. It would be saving the country.
5
There's an interesting conundrum here.
Can anyone save the GOP? Yes, it has a history of survival and it can save itself in its present ugly form, if not by fair means, then by foul. Should it be save? Absolutely not.
The chances of saving a GOP with any shred of decency vanished when its lawmakers went into the sewer en masse with a known crook, cheat and liar, who Americans - or at least the electoral college - had elected anyway.
The more appropriate question to ask is this: can anyone save the republic from the GOP? For all our sakes, the answer had better be yes, and its mostly on us voters to do it. We need to hand the GOP a crushing defeat.
21:15 EST, 1/17
4
Save it? The GOP has the White House, the Senate, the majority of state governors and legislatures. And they control the Supreme Court and are filling the lower federal courts at breakneck speed. Respectfully, unless they are a never-Trumper working for the NYT the vast majority of Republican voters don't think the party needs saving.
1
“ Can anyone save the GOP ? “. With my entire heart and soul, this is my only response: the GOP does NOT deserve saving.
YOU bought him, YOU own him
November.
4
The G.O.P. is already dead. I don't have enough time to list all the evidence proving that this is true, but the election of Trump, the Teflon coating the likes of Mitch McConnell have provided him with so that he can literally engage in criminal activity and get away with it is a start. The Republican party is beyond saving as any Repub who speaks out against Trump is immediately branded a RINO and run out of Washington on a rail. RIP GOP.
5
I don't think the GOP is worth saving. I vividly recall the "Jade Helm" federal military exercise in Texas when Obama was president. Right-wing loonies portrayed it as an Obama attempt to impose martial law, and the governor of Texas, who is still in office, indulged the loonies by activating the Texas State Guard to monitor the military exercise. I do not recall the Republican party forcefully condemning the governor's kowtowing to loony conspiracy theorists.
Donald Trump is what the Republican party has wrought. For too long party elders indulged the lunacy and racism of their supporters to win elections, and now the chickens have come home to roost. The party deserves to die, and I say this as a one-time Republican.
4
The first question to be asked is: Why bother saving the GOP, a bastion of reactionary thought and racist action? It offers nothing but knee-jerk vandalism of civilization. Mere opposition to progress is hardly a rational political stand.
I'm hard-pressed to find one positive thing the GOP has accomplished in the past 50 years, except for the EPA, and we all know what happened to Nixon.
3
“...not that any kind of testimony is likely to sway the 67 senators needed for a conviction...”
Reason enough why the G.O.P. is not worth saving.
2
As one of those who has grown to despise the Republican party, and often the opinions of Mr. Stephens, this is the most spot on article Mr. Stephens has ever published that I have read. Almost completely his opinions and observations stated here mirror my own.
2
Bigger question: Can anyone save the Democrats? They rigged the primaries in 2016 for Hillary. They are rigging them again for Elizabeth Warren ( with help once again from CNN). They will lose again in 2020 because everyone sees this. Massive Disenfranchisement from Democratic Party is a real thing. They just don’t know it yet!
The problem Mr. Weld faces is that he simply doesn’t represent the base republican voter. Mr. Trump does. All of this drivel about family values, Christian morals, conservative principles, patriotism... that was just performative. The GOP stands for none of those things. Mr. Trump is an archetype of the REAL republican. Mr. Weld, just give up.
3
Curious title. A more accurate one would read, ‘Why Try To Change Me Now?’ Trump is winning, Republicans are winning, the market is up, employment is strong, Iran whimpered, Xi is silent, Kim is Kim, and Putin is Putin.
Only the Democrats persist in questioning Trump as Trump. If they could see Trump as Republicans do, they would accept the lies, incompetence, sadism, and corruption and just stop thinking.
2
Why is he a Republican and why would anyone want to save the Republican Party? I feel like I read this article pretty carefully but I didn’t catch any of that.
2
Bill Weld sounds like a nice guy, like the kind of Republican I remember growing up in the, well, 1960's. The good old days, indeed. The chances of Mr. Weld winning his primary look pretty slim. If there is one thing we have learned, this former Party of Lincoln is now the Party of Trump. And the pols ain't going to budge..to wit, Mitch and his "Malevolents." But it is a welcoming gesture to begin this earth upon which Trump plods quaking and shaking beneath him. Someone has to do it before the Grand Old Party follows the fate of the Whigs.
Bret mentions how a Sanders or Warren win can "send the G.O.P. to even further extremes." To that I say, It is impossible. This Party has already sunk to the extreme depths likened to a nadir. RIP, or maybe rest not so peacefully.
2
Save the GOP? Don't be absurd. Donald Trump is the true face of the Republican party as it has existed since at least the time of Reagun. Previous Republicans just managed to hide their ugliness better. For that reason, if we have to have a Republican in power, I want it to be Donald Trump--I want Republican voters, who seem to care about literally nothing other than a few more grubby pennies in their pocket in lower taxes, to have to look at Donald Trump every single day and realize, "this is us."
Civil Rights sent Republicans off their collective rocker, and since then, the Republican party has been getting more and more corrupt and anti-American every single day. And there's been a portrait in our national attic to show it. Now that portrait has come to life, in the form of Donald Trump. So, take a good look, Republicans. Looking in that portrait is, for you, the equivalent of looking in a mirror. Donald Trump is you.
4
The Grand Ole Party is now the party of RRATs -- regulation, racism, abortion, and taxes That's their platform. No regulation because it's bad for the economy. Yes to racism to preserve our heritage and purity. No to abortion because the Bible says so. No taxes because it's bad for the economy.
These core four elements lead to other values (or fetishes). Anti-immigration is a result of racism (yes) and taxes (no). The gun fetish is a result of regulation (no) and racism (yes). Their fetishized war against women is the result of abortion (no) and regulation (no). Their war against education and schools is the result of racism (yes), regulation (no), and taxes (no). The war against health care is the result of regulation (no) and taxes (no).
They are the party of RRATs. In 2012, after Obamas re-election, the left was giddy -- people genuinely thought that the RRATs were circling the drain. But they will not be killed. They can only be contained. I disagree with other commenters who feels that the GOP is coming to its end. Their RRAT platform inspires too many people. Democrats can win again if they have a message that is more inspiring than RRAT--but not so inspiring or novel that centrists become scared.
3
Nope. That ship has sailed.
2
Bret, it’s time to truly examine your conscience and convictions.
1
The Republican Party in my lifetime has morphed from the party of conservatism into the party of greed and corruption and has culminated into the transformation into the Trump Party where laws are meaningless, the Constitution is a meaningless piece of paper, and even blatantly and publicly perjure themselves with no regard to morality.
2
The GOP has been a true friend of many for a long time. But it's tired. It's sick. It's old. Time to put it down.
2
Stephens pretends there is an old GOP to be saved - there isn't; the GOP's face mask has been ripped off, and it stands fully revealed. Fugitives from the old party must start a new party or join an existing organization, if the 'herd of rabid ferrets' (hat tip Gail Collins) GOP is not their cup of tea.
5
We lived in Massachusetts when Governor Weld was in charge. He was an excellent governor who understood every issue and was a politician who cared about the state.
Weld is a true scholar and would embarrass Trump on the stage if he ever had the opportunity to debate him.
If Weld cant get he GOP to think and return to civilization then the GOP will be the next RIP party. They have been part of the waking dead for decades, doing nothing but spreading hate , passing bills that enrich themselves.
The very rich GOP is a very pathetic party and the country will be better off without any of them.
5
Since it appears that Mr. Weld’s motivation is simply to derail another term for Trump, I must applaud his sacrifice and hail him as one of the few real patriots in the ranks of our politicians.
2
Just let the GOP star a new country in the heartland and run it into the ground. The rest of us can continue living in the first world without having to constantly ship our wealth to pay for their fact-less lives.
5
"Can anyone save the G.O.P.?" Yes. Chief Justice John Roberts. And he knows it.
183
@poodlefree But alas, Roberts has an (R) behind his name, so he is not free to exercise ethical choices, even if he wanted to. "The ends justifies the means" doesn't allow for either independence or other value systems.
22
@poodlefree :
Does he care enough to actually do anything?
And what can he do, rules being what they are, that he is mostly a Master of Ceremonies?
If the GOP Senate can throw out the rules, so Roberts can choose to make the rules he wants, like publicly decrying certain tactics. Or refusing to participate.
But that would take real courage.
22
@gratis
What the Chief Justice can do depends on what the meaning of the word "preside" is, and it is the Chief Justice himself who is the designated authority on that. There is no reason for him to defer to anyone else's notion on the matter, whether that notion is put in the form of a purported rule or in any other form.
10
As a former never Trump Republican, I wish Bill Weld well in his quixotic quest to unseat Trump. The Trump takeover of the GOP is as historic as it is unfortunate for American politics. It likely will lead to the demise of the Republican Party and the rise of a new party to counter the Democrats. It may also stimulate the Democrats to move even further to the left of the political standard of most Americans. It is imperative though that Trump be ousted before he has a chance to consolidate his executive power in relation to Congress.
3
There is no saving the Republican Party. It's like trying to save a zombie--he sort of looks like the human he was but is dead inside, a hollowed-out shell of what he used to be.
Instead, the human qualities he used to exhibit have been replaced by blind loyalty to an immoral, unethical narcissist, surrender of the basic tenets of his Christian religion, white supremacy, a belief that any means justifies the desired ends, and a complete lack of empathy.
We are in the midst of the Republican Apocalypse. Save yourself. Don't look back. The others are already gone.
9
If only rational Republicans would vote for Sanders, Warren or Biden despite fears of 'social democracy.' But isn't it just as likely that some swing voters would be pulled away from the Democratic candidate, aiding a Trump reelection?
Many GOP voters picked a 'third' candidate rather than vote for Hillary, adding to Trump's electoral gains.
Perhaps the desperate binary showdown is better--forcing folks to primarily vote out DJT-- Manchurian candidate.
2
I am a Republican.
And I am here to tell my party needs no "saving."
Saving from what?
Unless you mean we abandon the most witch hunted POTUS in our history.
Sure - he is not the type that for a living memory that we think most of presidents.
Especially Republicans.
Republican presidents like Eisenhower were know for being taciturn, haughty and beyond touchable.
Rragan brought charisma to the office - not to mention - an amazing oratory.
Old man Bush brought a grandfatherly outlook who always gave an appearance of what would his mother think?
Well, his son wanted to be sure he was not his father's son when it came to the Oval Office.
Now, we have a POTUS who is more an Archie Bunker than a Jerry Seinfeld.
Archie drove everybody mad - but no one took him for granted.
And our POTUS is a New Yorker - first on living memory.
If Hollywood is to be believed - the Out of Towners educated us on New Yorkers.
Remember Saul Steiberg cover of a New Yorkers view of America - essentially self centered.
So, if you mean saving G.O.P. is make our Archie into A soothing doctor of Marcus Welby - it ain't gonna happen.
That brings us to Nixon and Ford whom I did not mention.
Our party - if needed to be saved - was post Nixon.
Ford attempted but lost.
Just shows saving a party - it don't always succeed.
13
But the country needs saving from the Republican Party. It is gnawing away at the foundations of everything we are, and aspire to be.
114
@Neil This is the perfect Republican defense of our reality TV President. It consists of allusions to:
* Archie Bunker
* The Out of Towners
* Marcus Welby
I know only that these are TV shows I have never seen, or have not seen in over 50 years. What can these shows possibly have to do with politics?
Trump's supporters seem to revel in the fact that they know nothing about American history or current events. To them, politics is just a TV show.
66
@Neil
You waste your time talking about personalities of presidents. Any rational person knows that is not important. It is the policies that count. And this president has surrounded himself with corrupt, narrow minded and selfish individuals whose policies he just "goes along with." And those policies are wrecking the environment, maybe permanently. And those policies are wrecking the working class person, maybe permanently. I usually list all the evidence here but now that is getting so massive that there is not enough space. Death rates, up, suicides up, no affordable health care insurance, workers living paycheck to paycheck, poverty rate up, children in America ignored more than any other country, the wealthy get more wealthy and the poor get poorer. Noam Chomsky, a brilliant man, not long ago said the Republican Party is the most dangerous organization on Earth.
73
Where is the evidence the GOP wants to be saved?
128
@John
“Where is the evidence the GOP wants to be saved?”
So true. Witness @Neil before you.
8
@John
One place to look would be the Constitution. Also the laws of the land. Also maybe the 10 commandments and the new testament (look for moral instructions.)
@John Great question. I think in the deep recesses of their mind they know the long term demographics are against them. So the script now is to go into the bunkers and tear down the Constitution and representative government and replace them with a white supremacist state. Saving the party is by no means their issue.
17
"Can Anyone Save the G.O.P.?"
We shouldn't be talking about saving the GOP, we should be talking about saving our democracy. In the next election we aren't choosing between Republicans and Democrats, we are choosing between Republicans and democracy.
9
Thanks Mr. Weld, any help at all is greatly appreciated. Good Luck!
6
I used to support the Republican Party back when it was a moderate party that was fully capable of governing. That is no longer the case. A political party that chooses the likes of Trump as its leader is not worth saving.
11
I’m pretty sure the Republican Party isn’t worth saving, but there is one Republican that is afraid of his own Party; Sen McConnell. All those House bills, piling up on his desk. He’s afraid that if given a discussion, a vote, he might have to face a Party ready to modify, ready to compromise, to turn towards reality, real problems.
The deliberative body, now it dare not speak it’s name. Dare not touch issues of campaign finance reforms, privacy, corporate tax ...avoidance..., infrastructure needs, and on and on.
Fear. That even some Republicans might be tired of having to kowtow to wealthy donors, independent combines of support. Might actually agree that concentrations of wealth, concentrations of corporate power, need....deliberation?
One would think that this body of a hundred might revolt. Might reject one man’s tyranny, his paternalistic view that he knows better, will...protect them...from evil enticements to waiver.
If Republicans in the Senate can’t face this singular example of dictatorial power, then no, their Party isn’t worth saving.
8
I remember Trump lashing out at the GOP when the impeachment inquiry first started because he said the only thing democrats do well is stick together. It's the exact opposite. The GOP has proven to be self motivated yet they are serving the public interest. They stick together for control and self interest only. I hope they prove me wrong.
As I see it, this isn't a problem within this administration only, but this administration took it to a whole new level. This started before Trump and will always exist on some level, as the issues that devide the parties are so significant: religion (abortion and sexual orientation) and gun rights at all costs.
My husband and I have many debates with people who vote only Republican and they admit they will never consider a democratic candidate. I find democrats more open minded to voting against party lines and I find democrats concerned about others as opposed to ONLY self interest. I do not intend to offend. In my eyes religion is so personal and I understand the importance of these issues to those individuals. At what costs though?
3
@Heather
“I’m my eyes religion is so personal and I understand the importance of these issues to those individuals. At what costs though?”
This is exactly the the thread of thought that the founders (and especially a thinker who predated the founding - Roger Williams) had that led them to leave freedom of religion as a right, but not as a means of control.
1
@Don
Well said! Religion is personal and those who push religious agenda are taking away others right of religious expression. I support all religions that do not prosecute others for different beliefs. What's right for you may not be right for me and I will respect and support what you need. I only ask you do same for my beliefs.
I had a very interesting discussion with my sister in law, who identifies as born again Christian. She believes you can't whole heartedly embrace her religion without thinking others are wrong. She says how I can say this is right and you are right too? She truly cannot accept that other religions could be "right" and she has told me that I am not going to be accepted into heaven until I accept Jesus Christ. She truly thinks her religion will save me as if I am not worthy until I embrace her religion. Sad but she believes this to her very core. Never mind how kind and giving I am. Never mind how accepting I am of people. Never mind how much I give back to others. Never mind she loves me and I her. Never mind I am an active loving aunt to her 4 children. Never mind I am her husband's sister. This is how much religion divides when you have religious intolerance.
1
@Heather
Amen (so to speak).
1
I remember Trump lashing out at the GOP when the impeachment inquiry first started because he said the only thing democrats do well is stick together. It's the exact opposite. The GOP has proven to be self motivated yet they are serving the public interest. They stick together for control and self interest only. I hope they prove me wrong.
As I see it, this isn't a problem within this administration only, but this administration took it to a whole new level. This started before Trump and will always exist on some level, as the issues that devide the parties are so significant: religion (abortion and sexual orientation) and gun rights at all costs.
My husband and I have many debates with people who vote only Republican and they admit they will never consider a democratic candidate. I find democrats more open minded to voting against party lines and I find democrats concerned about others as opposed to ONLY self interest. I do not intend to offend. In my eyes religion is so personal and I understand the importance of these issues to those individuals. At what costs though?
2
Mr. Stephens, about that concluding paragraph, Sanders and Warren may be ideologically left of the American center--which is pretty much right of Europe-- but America's right is the extreme right of Europe with side order of corporatism. My point? Warren and Sanders are not extreme. What's more, they are not pathological liars, nor will they sell their children's future to the highest bidder, nor lock up nor separate families at the border, nor will they throw away their scruples to undercut their political foes. Democrats do not necessarily want to see Republicans recover a center that they never had; democrats just want a party that doesn't check its individual brains and moral courage at the door.
10
I went to a Weld campaign event. There were 18 people in the room, including his staff and the event organizers. That left maybe six of us that were there to hear what he had to say. How he maintained his dignity in the face of such a disappointing turnout is to his credit. By contrast, I went to a Kasich event where the room was full, and he isn't even running. Weld is a well-spoken pragmatist, but he hasn't even a one in 200 chance.
My heart sank when Bloomberg announced he was running - as a Democrat. He had a real chance of saving us all if he had run as Republican. I've heard so many conservatives comment that while they can't stand the thought of voting for Trump or anyone else currently in the Democratic field, they would easily vote for Bloomberg. He's not going to get the presidency as a Democrat, but he could have saved us from another four years of Trump as a Republican spoiler. His ego does not allow him to see this. God speed Mr Weld.
2
That’s a sad commentary on republicans. Shouldn’t they be voting for the person, not the party. Sad. The Republican Party is already dead, and has morphed into trumpism.
One cannot save the GOP, since it's obvious they don't want saving!
6
Even though Weld doesn’t have a prayer of winning the nomination, he might make some impact by stirring up debate in the GOP.
Republicans need to hear a reasonable sane person again. This could weaken Trumps appeal to the moderate republicans and thus have them vote democrat this time around.
6
For members of the GOP the moral question, as always, is not what should I do, but who am I.
79
@David Forster,
"Who am I" is a very complex question. I would say it is made up of at least three other questions:
1. What do I want?
2. Why do I want it?
3. How am I going to do it?
Most people and sadly many leaders cannot answer these questions. This is true for both Republicans and Democrats.
@David Forster
The GOP is the home of identity politics? Practically the only thing that matters for Democrats is identity. It's what you call your racism if you're woke. I'd like to see a color blind society. I'm surprised MLKs content of Character quote hasn't been labeled alt right.
The GOP has decided absolute power is their goal. They are okay with the corruption that goes with it. They lead their gullible voters along with the promise of criminalizing abortions and erasing the legacy of the man who dared to be President While Black.
Barr is investigating Comey for something that would not normally be prosecuted, and has kept McCabe under a sword of possible charges for 20 months. The rot grows deeper.
The Majority Leader of the Senate uses his wife's power as a cabinet member to pass goodies to his state so he'll get re-elected despite his unpopularity there.
A new book reports Trump wanted to use the US military in for-profit actions, and wants to allow bribery of foreign countries. His cronies hesitated at the former but seem open to the latter. Eventually they'll come around to both, and worse, if they get the chance.
Weld is a kid with his finger in a levee that is about to break.
8
Bill Weld id the one Republican that I have voted for for governor. He did quite well by us and is greatly preferable on any front to the current occupant.
I'm sure one of his proudest moments was when Jesse Helms blocked his nomination as US Ambassador to Mexico.
1
Unlike Weld, all of the cited candidates had credible national campaigns to carry the momentum from New Hampshire forward. The only people supporting Weld are a handful of pundits. Weld (and Joe Walsh) have no chance to have any serious effect on this election. They are bugs on the windshield.
The sad fact is that there is little hope that Trump will lose. The Democrats remind me of the Republican primary field of 2016; too full of ego and infighting to build a true opposition. It's tme for most of them to join Cory Booker and head home. Let the people look at a few candidates and make a final selection early in the process, so the nominee can construct a party-wide campaign and the losers can get over themselves before November.
2
I don't think the republican party needs saving - they seem to be doing just fine, despite all their democracy-undermining shenanigans. It appears it is the democratic party that needs saving. For coming up with such an embarrassingly weak field of presidential candidates, while we are in the most important election cycle this country has ever faced. If we lose in November (and I am almost certain we will), it will be because democrats are the absolute WORST strategists imaginable. Because of that, trump is practically sleepwalking towards a victory.
3
Don’t despair. Trump’s mental state is degrading day by day, and there’s still PLENTY of time for the Democrats to coalesce around a candidate. I believe the margin of Blue victory will be far greater than most people think. The outrage is palpable and momentum is building. Trump is the weak one, and he knows it. The wave awaits.
I don't think the republican party needs saving - they seem to be doing just fine, despite all their democracy-undermining shenanigans. It appears it is the democratic party that needs saving. For coming up with such an embarrassingly weak field of presidential candidates, while we are in the most important election cycle this country has ever faced. If we lose in November (and I am almost certain we will), it will be because democrats are the absolute WORST strategists imaginable. Because of that, trump is practically sleepwalking towards a victory.
What are the values of the present Republican party that are worth putting into a new wineskin? With Nixon's southern strategy they adopted racism something Reagan reinforced; The party accepted the extremist views on women's rights, abortion and homophobia of the Fundamentalists Christians starting with Falwell and continuing to Graham; They accepted the Heritage Foundation's advocacy for military intervention in foreign countries and they sided with the John Birch Society to crush unions and limit Federal Government meaning reduction in social net programs for the poor and workers and strengthing the American Oligarchs. What in this is there to salvage?
4
Save The GOP, , is it worth the effort?.
The GOP is doomed to being relevant only in Red States, with that situation only sustaining itself as long as their demographic remain white and their legislature continues to have the ability to gerrymander the electoral map.Elsewhere if your a Republican you remain an embittered minority.
This situation has been set in place way before Trump though of course he is not helping. Go back to Reagan, supporting the Moral Majority, throwing their lot in with Anti Abortionists , opposing the ERA, joining the NRA in their fight against sensible gun control, opposing the expansion of civil rights for all minorities, I could keep going.
Republicans have become a party that descent people who used to support them now have difficulties with , and can only vote for them on pocket book issues. increasingly by the way especially for young people that is not enough.
Trump has actually done the country a favor in terms of making himself and subsequently the people in Congress and elsewhere who run for office and support him unelectable in suburban areas similar to mine. Foe example In Radnor Pa a Philadelphia suburb, in the off year 2019 election not a single Republican could get elected on the School Board, also for the first time ever Delaware County Pa is now controlled by Democrats.
The solution may be for disenfranchised Republican to form a third party with someone like Bill Weld taking the leadership on doing so.
2
"The best conservative case for rooting for a Democrat to win this fall — any Democrat, including Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren — is that it might be the only way to save the Republican Party from itself"
How about saving the world from Trump? A more unhinged, unstable con man with fingers on nuclear weapons.
I'd say conservatives would be wise to vote for Karl Marx over Trump.
1
"The best conservative case for rooting for a Democrat to win this fall — any Democrat, including Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren — is that it might be the only way to save the Republican Party from itself"
How about saving the world from Trump? A more unhinged, unstable con man with fingers on nuclear weapons.
I'd say conservatives would be wise to vote for Karl Marx over Trump.
I used to believe that people who support Trump do so in spite of all of his flaws and proclivities because they like what he is achieving: deregulation, tax cuts and judicial appointments. No doubt some do.
I even took at face value that some are willing to take a personal financial hit because of Trump’s trade wars out of a sense of patriotic duty. No doubt some are.
What makes these beliefs appealing is the corollary that these folks could be persuaded to vote for an alternative candidate who would pursue their agenda without all of the Trump’s disruptive behavior.
However, I think there is some else afoot that undergirds Republicans’ support for Trump and that is the fact that they delight in his outrageous, disruptive behavior.
I now believe that the willingness to turn a blind eye and the sense of patriotic duty may really be smoke screens for a much darker motive.
How else to explain why Republicans refuse to consider an alternative to Trump?
2
Actually, your hypothesis has grounding in behavioral science (my specialty) as a scientist. The understanding this comes from our unique evolutionary trait: we can and will cooperate with non-genetically related humans to gain a larger advantage. That can be a great good or a great crime. There are examples of both on virtually every newscast. My colleagues and I have quite a nice paper on this paradox in Brain and Behavioral Science, called Evolving the Future by Wilson et al. 2014. Presently we are seeing this happen to harm.
Kudos for this Don Quixote of the remnants of the once-proud and pompous Republican party. Weld is an honest man as is true of some others chased from the limelight by Trump. Trump is like the bakery version of a Bismark but the weaklings in his party like the puffed up dough and pretend he is the Iron Chancellor of their time on stage with him. Hopefully Weld can be a part of the bringing down of the curtain. He deserves thanks for trying to wake up the Rip van Winkles from their night terrors.
2
Why haven't the mainstream media been covering William Weld's candidacy??!!
He would bring sanity back to the GOP and the country, no doubt.
I am a registered Democrat, (although wish I could be an Independent but then wouldn't be able to vote in NY primaries which is absurdly archaic!)
I have always been impressed by Weld and I am so disappointed that he hasn't gotten more coverage for his courage and determination to rescue his party and be the standard bearer who returns it to a position of respect.
4
At the end of a long day, it is an unexpected pleasure to read this column by Bret Stephens and to go to bed with a happy thought.
Bill Weld knows his history of the New Hampshire primary, and we all should hope that he does well and thwarts Donald Trump. An unrealistic hope is better that no hope at all.
Let us banish from our thoughts the memory of Ed Muskie, the leading Democratic candidate, crying about the treatment of his wife on that snowy day before the 1972 New Hampshire primary and having to withdraw from the race soon thereafter.
2
Bill Weld is smart, articulate, reasonable, supports the free market, works across the aisle, and doesn't hate immigrants.
Unfortunately, those things have zero appeal to today's GOP.
Nonetheless, I wish him well and would love to see a miracle happen.
320
Can anyone save the Republican party? Wrong question. The question to ask is, should anyone save it? I like William Weld, but I think Republicans need to do some serious soul searching. They (politicians and voters alike) need to reflect on how low they've allowed their moral standards to sink. Whatever the reason (money? fewer regulations?), they have had to turn the other cheek and ignore flabbergastingly obscene behavior coming out of the People's House (and Congress) that it appears they don't have the shame gene anymore. Lying, deceit, dissembling and other bad behavior have the impact of causing cognitive dissonance in the populace. They know it. The problem is, they don't care. Stop being dinosaurs from the 1950s, come into the new century, or get out.
3
The current Republican Party bears no resemblance to the Party of the past, in which conservative members also had at least a core of ethical responsibility to serve the needs of the nation.
People like Weld are like fugitives living in the woods, traveling only by moonlight, and sharing books in secret meetings. They are on the run from tyranny and group think.
The current Republican Party needs to be obliterated by overwhelming voter rejection. Whatever remnants left can regroup and try to rebuild the Party from the ground up. That's perhaps a legitimate role for Weld, who, right now, is a man without a country.
5
If you read between the lines, it becomes clear that Bret Stephens is more concerned about saving the GOP, rather than the country, from Trump.
1
Who will save the Republican Party? Why the Democrats of course! Their obsession with Trump and their alternative reality version of the state of our country will ultimately result in an anxiety induced apathy in their own base while energizing Republican voters. The left’s portrayal of Trump and his supporters is so over the top delusional that it has ceased to become believable. Meanwhile their infatuation with socialism, open borders and stealing from the rich to give to the middle class is so laughable that it amazing that anyone would vote for them considering how well the economy is doing and how low the unemployment rate is. Sure, let’s fix what’s not broken. The real question is, when will sanity return to the Democratic Party?
Sir, your description of Democrats is delusion or propaganda from political hacks on the internet, Sinclair radio, or Fox News. At age 71, I’ve worked for famous Republicans in my life in paid advisory positions. I have largely voted Democratic. I’m a scientist, and I employ almost 100 people. I travel all around the country to help states and communities. As you know, most of the country is registered Democrats, and they are nothing like you paint. And, most Republicans are, and never were, infected by Trump Mania.
1
The modern Republican Party has based its leadership philosophy on glorifying feudalism and regression to a "better America" that never existed. Since time doesn't go backwards and the glorious past they seek is a lie, it is fighting a losing battle. It is a dying dinosaur stuck in a tar pit, thrashing about in frustration and anger because it knows it's stuck and will eventually die. We are now witnessing the damage it is creating due to its futile attempts to turn back the clock. Hopefully, we'll survive it, if they don't destroy us out of spite first.
I don't think there are *any* Democrats left who want to see republicans recover the middle, just like there aren't republicans left. After all, what is that fabled middle? Deny global warming exists and vote against paid family leave and sick days and a substantial increase of the federal minimum wage? Last time I heard, Mr Stephens is a global warming denier himself.
1
Nope. The Republican party needs to be burned to the ground.
Then start a center right party by sensible conservatives. No extremists. A party that believes in the vitality and validity of opposing ideas. A party that believes in the rule of law and working with Democrats for forward progress for the country. A party that believes in telling the Koch political conglomerate no more.
2
The question you should be asking is "Can anyone save the United States?" because right now the Republicans are doing everything in their power to destroy this country.
3
There's a third force the Brett neglects to mention, the combination of Fox News, conservative AM radio and the online stable of Breitbart/InfoWars/Etc.
If, as Mr. Stephens notes, the Republicans want to reclaim their center; it's not the Democrats they need to look too. Instead, the R's need to tamp down on the Foxian narrative feeding large parts of the country as the only information food source.
To those curious, try news.google.com and check how the Fox headlines compare to other news outlets on various national stories to see how systemic the spin is.
4
The GOP can't be saved. The corruption will follow it wherever it goes. If it survives Trump, whatever makes you think it would become less corrupt than it has already become? If there are any patriots left in the GOP who value country over party, they will desert and form a new party, just as the Republican Party was formed over 150 years ago. They should shake the dust of Trump and McConnell and all the others off their feet, start over and earn respect again. Maybe then Lincoln could sleep easy.
1
It doesn't matter if the Democrats nominate, or elect, Bernie, Warren, or anyone else. The Republicans will transform them into another imaginary Stalinist, just like they did to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Look what they're doing to Biden, of all people, now.
There's a legitimate debate to be had about whether a "left" or "moderate" Democrat is more electable. But it's silly to imagine that it'll make a difference to how Republicans choose to behave.
1
Uh, Clinton and Obama WON. Handily.
Sadly, no one can save the GOP because they are just where they want to be.
2
I will contribute to his campaign so he can get his message out in New Hampshire.
Maybe we all should send in $10.
1
Can anyone save the Constitution from the GOP assault? That’s the question foremost in my mind. What does it matter that the GOP survives when the Republic is in tatters.
1
n 2008 the death of The GOP was predicted when The Dems won the White House and both Houses in Congress. The GOP did an audit and promised to expand its base. Fast Forward eleven years the GOP is alive, kicking and running things.On the contrary the GOP didn't expand its base it actually solidified itself as the White People Party. It has stacked the Federal Courts for next forty years and is stacking The Supreme Court. It is attacking voting rights and doing its best to enact a latter day version of Apartheid in America.So the question you should ask Brett is what can save us from The GOP? We have the power to save ourselves by voting but so little attention is being paid to get out the vote I fear the worse. Instead of us being concerned about a dust up between Saunders and Warren we should be pushing registration and voting. If we were really singing The GOP's swan song would Trump be so confident he is going to get a pass? McConnell sure doesn't look like a guy worried the end of his party is near.
1
Another topic should be Who is going to save the Democratic Party? Warren? Sanders? I am having a very hard time realizing i may have to vote for one of them. Weld and a third party sounds like a destination for me.
With the way that the GOP is acting in general, if they retain control of the White House and the Senate in November, the United States of America will devolve into a full blown Banana Republic over the following 4 years.
2
“The best conservative case for rooting for a Democrat to win this fall — any Democrat, including Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren — is that it might be the only way to save the Republican Party from itself.”
This is where Stephens fails as a commentator and human being. When faced with an existential threat to the country and planet, Stephens doubles down on his ethnocentric nationalism and identity politics. It is all about the “conservative case” and “saving the Republican Party for him.” Not doing what’s right, respecting democracy, or prevent the destruction of the planet via climate change.
This is not the logic of a morally guided person.
3
Someone on Fox News, maybe Sean Hannity, said the other day that so what if the President is guilty of the impeachment accusations. That statement should tell us all that the party of Lincoln is no more. Reasonable people should leave the Republican party and work to build a new non-extremist conservative party. This has been coming for a long time, at least since the enactment of the Civil Rights legislation when the Republicans went for the South and started buying into the racial hatred to secure those votes. Then throw in the Koch dark money and we have today's Republican party.
3
"We have met the enemy and he is us", Pogo
"You must think we are mushrooms, you keep us in the dark and feed us poo". Old aphorism.
I read where a lot of people blame the Republican Party, but the fact is that it is the uncritical citizenry, or the bamboozled citizenry or the citizenry that has benefited from a T presidency.
T's support is based on the true believers (the bamboozled), the loyal Republicans and the Neo-Aristocrats. I'm not sure of the numbers but probably in that order. The soul of his support is the latter, the neo-aristocracy.
Democracy is challenged everywhere with uncritical citizenry. And the Dems count on it as well. The place that people get news and information biases their thinking and we have a Wild West of information. We can't fix the electorate's ability to critically think, but we can work in the truthfulness of information, somehow, maybe, not sure. Our votes are being bought or bamboozled from us otherwise.
Bret should join the FIRE (financial independence, retire early) movement.
“Who can save the GOP?” What’s to save? The party has already destroyed itself from the inside out.
Remember when the GOP stood for the proposition that government should make the smallest possible footprint on Americans’ lives? When it knew who our enemies were and defended our country against them? When Republicans were “the adults in the room”? Then after decades of wanting the government out of our lives, they decided just having it out of our pocketbooks was enough and openly embraced governmental involvement in our bedrooms, our religious thought and the other most intimate and personal decisions we face? And then decided that despite all intelligence to the contrary, the Russians were really our friends? Or at least that massive Russian interference in our elections—the most fundamental element of democracy—was not worth stopping so long as it helped keep them in power? And then fell in line with with an amoral schoolyard bully, one with the judgment, thoughtfulness and attention span of a four-year-old, just to avoid his “mean girl” hisses?
Once upon a time in a country far, far away I might have called myself a Republican. But now the party I once knew is a wasteland of discarded principles, discarded allies, discarded integrity, studded only with monuments to hypocrisy, lies and the pursuit of power over the public good. Any members with principle have resigned or been drummed out. There is nothing—nothing—left to save.
1
Our (formerly grand) Grand Old Party is an institution perverted to such extent that it acts for its own survival and self-interests at any cost -- not for the principles and actions that we moderates of all stripes believe in and try to live by. In moderates, include me, a former Nebraskan who knows that pure capitalism exists nowhere and serves only profit -- not your grandmother on Social Security, not your neighbor who's been "innovated" out of a job, not our kids' whose world is literally melting down and burning up around us. Trump's criminal cronyism extends into the leaders even in our Legislative branch, which our Founders designed as a check on the Executive branch: consider CA's Rep. Devin Nunes, seriously implicated now by corroborated evidence but we have bigger fish to fry, and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) whose state got a huge investment from Rusal (was partly owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska with purported close ties to Vladimir Putin) only months after McConnell helped kill a House-approved bill to continue sanctioning Russian entities believed to be subverting our nation's interests. New evidence shows even V.P. Pence knew about and participated in the mob-like abuse of power being considered by the impeachment trial of this president. We from farm country know the old has to die to make way for new growth. It's time we cut down this G.O.P. --send whatever good is left in it back to the soil, help something better grow.
I appreciate the article and the scenarios it presents. Out of curiosity I went to the “policies” page of Weld's website to see what was there (https://weld2020.org/policies/). To my amazement there is absolutely nothing about the environment or climate change. In place of the steadfast climate change denial of Trump, he exhibits utter disregard for the issue. In 2020, "moderate" Republicans still ignore the most pressing issue of our time, even as the fires rage, the storms increase in intensity, Antarctica and Greenland melt, and the temperature each year is the hottest on record. Why? Is his libertarian streak repelled by the idea of a carbon tax? Is he an anti-Elitist (where virtually all scientists are considered the elite)? Many Republicans have a hard time paying heed to climate change because it threatens their brittle sense of identity. Perhaps they could listen to someone like Weld if he talked about it. Instead, he only exhibits a shameful reticence.
1
Can the Republican party be saved? By allowing Trump to become the face of the Republican party, conservatives have also forfeited the expectation to be regarded as serious adults. The GOP doesn't deserve to be "saved". It needs to just go away....like Trump.
"Can Anyone Save the GOP?" I hope not. Who would want to?
Hoping the GOP will soon go the way of the Whigs, or better yet, the Know-Nothings. Maybe they could just change the name and embrace their true nature. The New Know-Nothings.
(Who knows LESS, in the whole world, than Donald J. Trump? Believe me.)
Despite its failures and the fact that it richly deserves to die, it is unlikely that the Republican Party is going to disappear. For starters, in spite of everything, outside the big cities America remains a conservative culture. A conservative culture is going to want and need a representative party. So that would be the Republicans in some form or another, perhaps with a name change to protect the innocent.
The trial of Trump could be where the Republican Party is reborn. If the first step is taken -- to call a few serious witnesses like John Bolton -- sufficient momentum for truthfulness might build for a few a honest brokers to reach the undeniable conclusion that Trump is a cancer to be excised. It won't be enough for removal by impeachment, but maybe the totalitarian fever will break and the dissidents can emerge to form the basis for a less corrupt party.
What this country needs more than removing Trump, or even a good five-cent cigar, is a conservative party that honestly represents independent businesses and small towns, a party not covertly owned by big corporations. Much anger and cynicism derives from disaffected rural values vainly seeking a reliable political voice to represent them.
And at risk of sounding too optimistic, rumblings within the scripturally serious wing of evangelism that are beginning to brave expression could foment at least a small Christian backlash against Trump. The cumulative burden of immoral behavior is everywhere weighing heavier.
1
Weld - and Stephens - assume, perhaps quite incorrectly, that the GOP needs saving. Does it? A lot of Republican voters would disagree. Weld should also ask - which Democrat would be better than the incumbent?? One of the Democrat socialists who want to make America look more like Venezuela? Or perhaps we should elect one committed to making America look more like Cuba? Does he loathe Trump so much that he’d support one of these far worse choices?
"Democrats who want to see Republicans recover their center..." And who might they be? Of course, one agrees that at least two vibrant political parties are needed in a healthy democracy, but I feat that Stephens is lost somewhere... and I don't need to speculate where that might be. It is just not in the real world. The horrors attendant on Trump, including his letting loose the hounds of racism and xenophobia, should shame any American who pretends to have an open mind. In this case, to accept all is to agree with all, and it is also to facilitate all the ugliness present and to come.
1
Latest Gallup poll: Trump has an 89 percent approval rating of Republicans. Face it Bret, the Republican Party cannot be saved, nor should it be. America has been seriously harmed by your Party which has joined Trump to become an existential threat to our republic.
Weld should start a new conservative party. In contrast to the Republican Party he should name it the Adult Conservatives Party or the Sane Conservatives Party or the Civilized Conservatives Party. Feel free to choose any one of these names, I'm supportive of the formation of an alternative conservative party to accelerate the implosion of the Evil Republican Party.
"Can anyone save the GOP?"
Why would anyone want to? For decades they've made war on democracy and its institutions in a cynical bid for power and wealth; they've flogged provably false political dogma and intentionally manufactured divisive social issues for the sole purpose of political manipulation. They've degraded our quality of life, undermined equality and fairness, driven our economy over the cliff more than once, destroyed the middle class, and are currently on the wrong side of every issue where the well-being of our citizens is concerned . . . first and foremost, climate change.
I'm more than ready to say 'Bye Felisha to their whole hot mess.
1
Weld will get no help from Fox News because he's smarter than all of those talking heads combined. Keen mind, speaks several languages, unscripted. Would bury Trump in a debate. We need people like Weld to push for the common good, not political wins. He might open some eyes.
1
A more relevant question for Mr. Stephens. Is the G.O.P. worth saving?
Trump is a manifestation of the direction the right in America has been moving for the last 40 years. Their demagogic message appeals to millions of Americans who have been left behind and who have left themselves behind.
The alternative Mr. Stephens doesn't mention is that the Republican Party continues to degrade into an even more effective front for oligarchs and plutocrats through every greater mastery of propaganda and fake news. The rise of Trump held up a mirror to Republicans, and most didn't even blush. In fact, they now seem pleased to discover that conscience, honor, and patriotism were flimsy garments, easily shed in favor of venality, expedience, and greed.
The Trumpsters can save the GOP if they realize their mistake and turn on him.
1
Probably not, but whoever tries will cement their legacy on the right side of history.
2
Question for you, Bret. In a recent exchange with Gail Collins, you asserted that you'd vote for a third party candidate over Warren or Sanders vs Trump.
I believe you've quite handily answered the question posed in your current column. In short, if Never-Trump conservatives like yourself can't hold their noses and vote for a (by the rest of the world's standards) moderate liberal candidate to rid us of the pestilence (or as Tim Egan puts it, "evil") that is Trump, then the answer is most certainly no.
The GOP will forever be tarred by this association - as will conservative pundits like Bret who provide a "lesser of two evils" option to sooth conflicted voters who despise Trump but won't vote for his imperfect opponent.
It's not too late to do the right thing, however, Bret. Otherwise, Trump's victory will be at least partly due to you.
The question isn't whether anyone can save the GOP - it's whether America can be saved FROM the GOP.
1
Why should the GOP be saved?? It deserves neither saving or salvation. The GOP has shown itself to be nothing more than an organized criminal cartel that is likely in violation of current RICO laws. The sooner it is destroyed and replaced with a political party focused on governance and public service, the sooner this country can begin to heal.
Oh Bret, you are totally burying the lede.
Does the G.O.P want to be saved? Who decides that? You? Gov. Weld?
You mention the Whig Party, and that that party collapse fortunately led to "the good guys" winning, the Party of Lincoln.
But this is a question one cannot answer from the outside. And I do find it odd you do not mention the 800 pound gorilla, electorally speaking: Evangelicals and their wealthy networks, donors, and pastors.
They can almost taste the theocracy, the power they have sought for decades.
They think *they* are already "saving" the G.O.P., and the entire nation. It might be their party now, in fact.
Maybe the question should be, what would have been the case if the Know Nothings won that earlier battle?
Because that may be more where we are at. The G.O.P., such as it is, might largely think it is being saved at the moment.
It is past the time of saving. Sorry, that might be much closer to the truth than many in the pundit class want to admit, as well as many of the New Hampshire -- and D.C. -- old guard.
By its behavior, the GOP has proven itself unfit for any office. It should be voted into oblivion for the years needed to purge it of those politicians who today put power over country.
Maybe you ask should the 63 million people who voted for this—and would do so again—this question.
In their minds, why should they fix something that’s not broken?
2
“Can anyone save the GOP?”
I sure hope not.
The GOP has for decades preached sermons of fear and hate. The GOP created Trump, made him inevitable.
Now, like Frankenstein’s monster, Trump is destroying his creators, which is just what they deserve.
Wrong question: Is the republican party worth saving? As an extension of the trumpian vision(?), the answer is no.
GOP doesn’t need saving. Their mission, as eloquently exposed in Nancy MacLean’s ‘Democracy in Chains’ is almost accomplished. It is all the rest of us who need saving.
Sadly trump and McConnell and Barr are doing a pretty good job of saving the GOP.
The Republicans in Congress could save the Republican Party, but to do so they would have to renounce Trump and his dishonest and corrupt administration and become honest brokers of conservatism once again.
Weld is the POTUS that America needs, and I support him. Trump was chemotherapy to cure the radical leftward lurch that has rightly alarmed the electorate. One dose was enough.
Hopefully no one saves the GOP. They offer our country nothing. The sooner we are rid of their pox on the US the sooner we can back to government of, by, and for the people.
It is hard to see anything Weld has in common with today's Republican Party. I think most Republicans are angry enough to support Trump because they think the US has become too racially diverse and/or too secular. The see white Christians as the norm and find that both whites and Christians have been losing power based on numbers. They are so angry they are turning to fascism to make major changes since they have lost faith in change coming through democracy. Weld may get newspaper endorsements in New Hampshire but I doubt if he will get many votes.
The GOP is now the POT, Party of Trump. That's just the way it is. We have to make sure we are not like Germany in the 1930s where the authoritarian party in charge brings the nation to ruin.
I appreciate what my MA governor is trying to do here, but one of the reasons he is such a long shot is because fellow moderate Republicans politicians have refused to take a stand and simply leave the party, much the way people like Mike Bloomberg did.
I wonder if Governor Baker will have the guts to support Bill Weld in NH.
One must keep in mind that there are two political factions within the Republican party; Conservatives and the traditional Republicans. They are not the same. Virtually all of the traditional Republicans, that some call "moderates", have long been been driven out of the party by the Conservatives, who seem to be forever re-purifying themselves and defining their image. They are stand for; trickle-down economics derived from low taxes for the wealthy; fiscal responsibility ,except when it comes to defense spending; reducing or eliminating social programs, but not welfare for the rich or corporations; white supremacy and inhumane anti-immigrant policies, couched under the guise of "preserving our culture and American way of life; and, promoting a hypocritical "evangelical" agenda, that is about as un-Christian as anything can be, under the guise of protecting religious freedom. What is there that is worth saving?
2
I do not belong to a political party. I do not understand blind adherence to a political party. I weep at what is happening to this wonderful country of mine. I vote for the candidate, not the party and my husband and daughter don't understand that. Perhaps I will change my affiliation in order to vote against Trump in the state primary. I think I'd enjoy that. If Trump wins the nomination, I will gleefully vote against him.
5
Here is to wishing the Governor well in his quest. The stakes are over the very soul of our nation. Are we willing to trade truth for power. The election will decide.
7
Too bad none of these mini profiles in courage are occurring outside of the GOP. I keep thinking that if I were a Republican Senator, presented with a vote on, what would appear a normal judicial procedure, I would want to hear all the evidence. But, watching every Republican Senator waffle on this straightforward legal request---maybe human nature kicks in, I would also sit still.
1
Bret, you answered your own question with the statement that Trump is "a president whose support among Republicans was 89 percent last month, according to Gallup." Dems, independents and disaffected members of the GOP want a new GOP but apparently most Republicans do not.
11
All the talk about the Republican Party disappearing is pure fantasy. There is much more to the party than the presidency and the members of congress. There are hundreds of state and local parties -- some in cities and towns of only a few thousand people.
For example in my Connecticut town Trump got less than 40% of the vote and we regularly elect a Democratic member of the House of Representatives, yet in November a Republican (who refused to say whether or not he supports Trump) was easily elected as First Selectman. He raised, by local standards, a lot of money for his campaign -- none of it from big corporations. And as Stephens points out, even ultra liberal Massachusetts has a Republican governor.
The goal this November must be to defeat Trump and his supporters in congress. Any predictions about the death of the Republican Party are pure speculation based on nothing but wishful thinking.
5
No. Trump has mortally wounded what remains of the former Republican Party by appealing to its worst nativist instincts. GOP politicians have doubled down on their flirtation with incoherent neo-fascism with near-unanimous support for their standard-bearer. Salvation would require repentance as a first step and that is as unlikely as the Democrats reconciling their differences after elections later this year - especially if they lose yet again to Trump.
Gallup polling from late 2019, found that American voters identifying as Democrat and Republicans are tied at 28% with 38% as Independent. My take is that neither dominant party is seen by the public as healthy enough to survive after a defeat in November. A defeat for either will open the flood gates of hysteria within their already thinning ranks. This belief is buttressed by the snowballing success of party outsiders, Sanders and Trump especially, who run on campaigns their respective host parties under normal circumstances would reject out of hand.
Bill Weld and others of both parties could take advantage of the chaotic meltdown of either - or both -parties after November by forming a centrist party, let's call it the New American Party. I would vote for Weld over Biden or Trump in a heartbeat and so would, I expect, many other independents and recovering Republicans and former Democrats.
The strategy is an intelligent one. Not an impossible one either. Weld's odds in New Hampshire are roughly equivalent to getting dealt a pocket pair in Texas Hold 'Em. It happens.
Weld's problem of course is he only gets dealt one hand. If he misses the pair on the first hand, he's out. If you are playing for money, those are long odds indeed. You're all-in blind on a 6% probability. Weld's chances are actually a bit lower too. More like 5%.
The game is also a little different. Depending on the poll, Weld needs to cover about a 70 point deficit in less than a month. Again, possible. However, he's working at an unseen disadvantage. Most anti-Trump New England Republicans have already quit the party. They are voting for a moderate in the Democratic primary. See James' comment below.
You're dealing with a smaller population of less persuadable voters. The odds are long and the deck is stacked. Weld is going to have a very difficult time indeed.
However, not all is lost. No President has ever won an election quite as badly as Donald J. Trump. It might not take much of a primary challenge to severely damage the President. Where Bush faltered to 38 percent, Weld might only need 20 or even less. His odds a thereby improved.
1
It's about time Bill Weld got some ink. He's got sterling credentials as U.S. Attorney, two time Governor of Massachusetts, knowledgeable policy guy, and astute politician (he's a novelist, too). He's far more important for the removal of the Trump infestation than most.
6
Can anyone save the G.O.P?
That rhetorical question should better be applied to the Democratic party. The flailing machinations of the candidates for the Democratic nomination are a wonder to behold. Not a one of them have a well rounded program that does not feature identity politics, giveaways and liberal appeals.
The progressives (their chosen identity) in the party have wreaked the idea of fiscal responsibility and steady leadership have fractured the party.
Clearly, Trump does not provide steady leadership but he has continued and heightened the economic trajectory that this country now enjoys. Republicans, being a bit more savvy to the needs of the voters, are mostly happy to go along with it. Those who do not are probably Democrats at heart.
5
@Bill - All the Republicans are offering is identity politics (anti-immigrant, pro-Nazi, pro-racist), and they are full of giveaways for farmers and corporations.
The short answer is this: So long as it's only ex-officeholders or ex-republicans who try, no.
Some elected officials have to stand up, say "enough," and fight.
And there will be no better time than during the impeachment trial.
5
"Can anyone save the G.O.P.?"
If Pres. Trump is treated unfairly during these Senate proceedings by his fellow Republicans, he should build a new middle-class, working, American third party from the ashes of both the Democratic and Republican parties for the 2024 elections.
@batazoid He was asked to provide attorneys, witnesses, and defenders by the House of Representatives. He barred witnesses from testifying!
It isn't others who are treating him unfairly--he has decided NOT to participate in our system of government.
12
@P Fleury
He barred witnesses. Congress could have gone to court to force his hand. Instead, it chose to impeach him? Let's not pretend this wasn't purely political.
3
My spouse and I are registered "undeclared" (independents). We understand the need for a strong, 2-party system. This year, we'll take Republican ballots and vote for Weld in the primary. We look forward to voting against the current occupant of the White House twice: we'll ding him in the primary next month, and vote for whoever becomes the Democratic nominee in November.
23
"Not that any kind of testimony is likely to sway the 67 senators needed for a conviction." Alas, this says it all. Clearly, NO ONE should save the GOP.
15
No. A victory for Sanders or Warren will not make the Republican party more extreme.
The most progressive period of the Democratic Party was the Roosevelt-Truman period. Their support for organized labor, taxes up to 94% on the highest incomes, pensions for the working class, the minimum wage for unskilled labor, Social Security, co-operatives to bring electricity to rural America, racial integration of the U.S. military, the Marshall Plan, and the GI Bill, which offered higher education for working class Americans for the first time in American History, did not move the American electorate to support the Dixiecrats other than in a few states in the deep South, where African-Americans were excluded from voting.
The Republican president in the 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower, was in fact the most progressive Republican since Lincoln. Eisenhower kept the high taxes to balance the budget and in General Eisenhower's fairwell address, he warned the American people to beware of the military industrial complex.
Likewise, the extremist president Ronald Reagan moved the Democratic Party more to the right (Bill Clinton.) So there is no historical evidence that progress will lead to the opposite, as suggested in this silly essay.
7
@Robert Scull : Who today, even Democrats, would support the New Deal? Not many. Only the Radicals.
Save the GOP? For years now, I’ve been hearing the pundits preach about the implosion of the Republican Party, but it seems to me that they have outsmarted everyone and are set to control this country as a one party state in just a few more years. By stealing the courts all is lost for this country. If we Democrats are fortunate enough to win the Senate and the Presidency in 2020, we must somehow figure out a way to rid the court system of all the conservative hacks that have been put in place by Mitch McConnell. The Trump presidency has provided the GOP with a path to the total destruction of every liberal ideal.
12
Brett,
You are skeptical about the possible election of either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.
First, if either of these individuals wins they will win by carrying the majority of the vote.
Second, either of these individuals will be superior to trump, hands down.
I know that you worry about that label, socialism, misunderstood but not always evil. Does caring about each other necessary equate to evil? How could having a healthy, well-educated society become harmful? Please look at Social Security and Medicare, two well-working systems that makes seniors lives better. The facts are that all citizens could contribute much to the good of this nation. There is a lot of good that comes from paying taxes for those items, such as a workable infrastructure. Please look at Europe, in fact most other Nations offer affordable healthcare and education. What could America learn if we are not only for ourselves?
5
I agree! AND remember Ronald Reagan swore that Medicare would lead to the downfall of the country!
The GOP doesn’t support any policies that support 90 percent of Americans. There is nothing To save. Their only agenda is staying in power, tax breaks for the wealthy and deregulation without responsibility or consequences. The GOP destroyed the middle class... vote them out. All of them.
12
Mr. Stephens touches upon but leaves unexplored the dark side of American politics: the nativism, racism, sexism, and other exclusive ideologies that have always been with us. Both of the current parties have large and at times majority factions with some mix of these beliefs. For every nativist Republican there was a racist, segregationist Democrat. These attitudes have repeatedly vied to achieve majority rule through fear and intimidation, not just to the objects of their beliefs, but to the moderate and liberal wings of the parties.
But they were factions subject to friction between appeals to fear and hope by their leaders. For every Strom Thurmond there was a Hubert Humphrey, for every Joe McCarthy there was a Margaret Chase Smith.
Is Weld that GOP leader? Even more important, are there other Republican leaders willing to stand up against the criminality, veniality, and bigotry that now is the norm for the GOP?
2
The problem from the outset with this analysis is that all New Hampshire primary challenges came from the parties's wings (maybe not 1952, that's before my time). Weld comes from the center. Centrism rarely motivates primary voters. The rot at the core of today's GOP, if it can't be rid by primary voters or GOP senators publicly acknowledging a crime worthy of removal from office, rests in supporting a Democrat for President.
1
Weld is offering the GOP a back stop to a seemingly inevitable second trump presidential campaign. The GOP would be wise to take this option, which is why it will not happen. The party has already sold its soul to trump.
God help America if he is re-elected.
5
As the only First World country without even the semblance of a labor party, the United States working class lacks any chance to have a voice in its country’s government.
The problem of Donald Trump is only a symptom of the larger issue if oligarchic rule, one embraced by both major political parties.
While the Democrats offer workers a less onerous deal than the Republicans, they are as much an enemy of working class power and as much a danger to world peace.
Despite the left liberal (not remotely “socialist”) positions of Warren and Sanders, and the undoubted improvements to the lives of working people were they implemented, neither candidate would change the power structure of the American empire.
And even further immersed in late stage American capitalism, Bret Stephens is typical of those who aggressively and without pretense take one side or the other of the oligarchy. For such as he, there’s no room at all for ordinary people, who remain unwitting or willing serfs to the desires of the rich and powerful.
2
I wonder what "save" is supposed to mean.
I think of the words of Lincoln, "With malice towards none, with charity for all..."
I wonder what Conservative wants any part of that.
3
Good OpEd from Stephens. Although I’m a Bernie supporter, it baffles me that Weld is not catching on. He is a good, honest man, with palatable policies even for a Liberal such as me. The Republican drift to the extreme right is a dangerous trend, and absent a total repudiation of this movement in November, it won’t be just the Republicans who need saving; it will be the entire republic.
8
Let the Liberty party replace the GOP. We do not need the disruption a third party brings. Remember Ross Perot, Ralph Nader?
1
The New Hampshire thing is just magical thinking. The problem with the Republican party is that it has become the party of grievance, but the things grieved at do not exist. So there is no way to address them. At rallies, Trump complains about efforts to control excess water usage, saying that showers only drip and he pantomimes pushing a dishwasher button multiple times. The crowd goes wild despite knowing that their faucets run water as they always did and dishwashers don't have to be run over and over. Fox News complains about a war on Christmas, and fans get red with rage despite seeing Christmas decorations every year of their lives. Rick Santorum calls Obama a snob because he wants to help kids go to college or trade school after high school, and the crowd applauds despite the fact that none of them hopes their children will stop their education at 12th grade. The G.O.P doesn't have a political problem, it has a psychological one. And it has found a leader who, despite having had a pretty good life materially, constantly feels unfairly treated.
18
A reasonable two party system is contained within the Democratic Party. The Sanders/Warren wing and the Biden/Klobuchar/Mayor Pete wing. Current republicans stand for absolutely nothing except self preservation and self enrichment by any means possible. Their continued existence is the single biggest threat to what they’ve left of our democracy.
7
Now that the Republican base has broken down the corral and stampeded for anarcho-libertarianism, they aren’t going back. This is now the trumpublican party. They have established greater distance from responsible conservatism than there is between responsible conservatives and the moderate bulk of the Democratic Party. (Author’s message)
3
I don't know how any of these yearnings from Bret and others of the GOP manifest into putting the genie back in the bottle when they take so little responsibility for the rise of Trump and do so little to dissuade ". . . support among Republicans was 89 percent".
2
Great to see some press recognition for Weld. We need to support principled politicians. Bill Weld is a person of character and conviction and would make a fine President. As an Independent I plan to vote for him in the Massachusetts primary.
5
I would ask the same question about the Democratic Party. Republicans are at least unified in their message. Democrats are still deciding who’s woke and who’s not.
5
@M : Yes, the Dems are like herding cats. And there message is a mess. But take apart that mess, and look at the strands.... Social rights for women, minorities, that are equal to those of white men. Living wages. Health care for the disadvantaged. Help for the economically disadvantaged. Better education. Cleaner environment. Safer streets by gun control. And more.
But, I agree that the GOP message is unified. There are against ALL those things.
8
@gratis
Democrats' main problem is the effect that Sanders or Warren would have on our economy. The Executive Editor of The Economist estimated that Warren's programs would affect 50% of all American businesses.
That wouldn't just be throwing a wrench into our strong economy. It would be throwing an explosive. Why would Americans support a candidate who could, quite literally, grind our strong economy to a halt?
3
@AACNY :
If you want something you never had, you will have to do something you never did.
"... affect 50% of all American businesses..."
Of course. That is the point. If a business cannot pay its employees a living wage, pay local taxes at least equal to the resources it consumes, and make a profit, then it should not be in business. American business is corporate welfare, socialize costs and privatize profits. Darn right I want 50% of American businesses affected.
America should be about a great society for its people. From your comment, you only care about money. I have other values.
1
The GOP, Congress and base, has demonstrated that they are not interested in Defending the Constitution or the Rule of Law. This is not theoretical, these are the actions of many years. We can go back to voter suppression, embracing Jim Crow, or any point in history you care to choose. Grab and hold onto power, the ends justifies the means.
2
I will not consider the Republican party, or any replacement for it, as honorable and decent again until it repudiates Mitch McConnell, with his refusal to consider Merrick Garland.
Either the parties act in good faith or they are not worth saving. Trump is only the most visible of the problems the Republican party now represents.
6
Nicely argued. Snow will fall in the tropics first.
4
@John Collinge :
There is snow in Hawaii, on Maunakea, where the observatories are.
My husband and I are democrats but we are considering voting republican in the upcoming primary. If Weld is on the ballot, we will vote for him assuming Ohio even has a republican primary.
6
Whether Bill Weld wins and the Republican Party is saved are two different and unrelated scenarios. To connect them is dealing in superstition. The Party will survive regardless of Weld. It has done very well despite predictions of its demise years ago due to demographic changes across the country. One off year election (2018) is nothing more than one off year election. A question is: can a political party whose aim is only to win, elections and mainly for the the wealthiest, regardless of the method, be surpassed by one whose aim is to promote well-being, operating within a framework of laws and ethical behavior? At this point, that's a more challenging question than it should be.
4
Polarization is ruining reasonable dialogue.
Ranked Choice Voting promotes dialogue and ideas while diminishing ad hominem.
RCV prevents spoilers thereby more democratically representing up and coming parties.
BTW, Stephens argument can be made for the DNC as it is dividing itself among moderates, traditionalists, and extreme progressives.
1
This is why in my opinion Mr. Trump will go down as one of the greatest presidents in our history. So many people, on both sides of the aisle, trying to take him down and he just keeps going. He has been so great for this country and I have no doubt he will win another term in November.
5
@Thor
Trump is like a machine. While his political foes have first tried to bring him down with "Russian collusion" and now with "impeachment", he just keeps barreling ahead.
I suspect now that the new NAFTA and China deals are done, he'll have some new things to announce.
As someone who pays attention to execution/results vs. rhetoric, I can say that I've never seen a president work this hard.
4
Teflon Don. No matter how awful the crime, he keeps getting away with it.
@Thor please elaborate as far as "greatest." It sounds like you are comparing baseball players. He's in the minority you know. Only about a fifth of the country got him over the line. He's out of shape and most believe he's on something.
He's cut up a lot of deals with other countries too. He made fun of special needs people. He grabs women.
If you could list his accomplishments and the last time he mentioned you in a rally speech, I would love to hear from you.
GOP blind support for Trump is not the mystery some say it is. Trump represents their last grasp of power. If he fails, so does the Republican Party.
The political platform of the GOP does not go very far beyond tax cuts and kowtowing to whims of their bloated capitalistic mentors. This political philosophy is passe and will not suffice for the young voters who will hold sway for the foreseeable future. Thus, the cult following of Trump is their only chance at maintaining political power, and explains their servile attitude towards him.
8
I like the idea of Weld founding a party for conservatives disillusioned with what the GOP has become. He was a good governor in MA. My favorite memory from that time was when he jumped into the Charles River to demonstrate his commitment to the effort to clean it up.
7
My two cents:
1. I wonder if Republicans have considered what their party should do if further revelations of wrongdoing lead to President Trump's conviction or resignation.
2. Bret Stephens can seemingly turn ANY argument about ANY issue into a case against the Democratic Party choosing a progressive nominee.
16
The GOP is corrupt beyond redemption.
A number of states are disenfranchising their own voters, not just voters from other parties, to ensure that Trump is the Republican presidential nominee even though he has legitimate challengers. Party insiders have cancelled the Republican primaries in Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, South Carolina, and Virginia “to save money”. Other states, like Georgia and Minnesota, are holding primaries, but the fix is in, with Trump listed as the only Republican nominee for president.
Cheating the Democrats by voter suppression, Gerrymandering and foreign meddling is bad enough. But when they cheat their own members by rigging the primaries, it’s obvious that the GOP party bosses will stop at nothing to keep their party from changing, regardless of the wishes of their own members.
26
What stands out to me here is Weld recalling that Nixon stepped-down/resigned because he was caught lying on one topic. Now, a president who could, in his own words, “shoot someone on Fifth Avenue” and not lose a single supporter, reigns. If that is not a sign that the Republican Party as is cannot be saved, and needs to die and reincarnate as something with more dignity, I don’t know what is.
That Stephens still argues for centrism from the Democratic Party, when both Sanders and Warren (and especially the latter) stand for generally expected left-leaning policies that are not considered radical in most other Western democracies speaks to just how far-right most Republicans are. It also confesses how ludicrously conservative many Americans still are, including “moderates” and some “liberals” who have been coerced into believed common sense healthcare, education, employment, and and other social safety policies that would bring more economic and social egalitarianism, are “too extreme,” and yet are enjoyed by countries far less wealthy. The oligarchy class is one hurdle, but our ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’ continue to be a hindrance to progress.
16
Why does the GOP need saving? It is everything it was always supposed to be. Conservatives loves Trump's policies and does everything it can to enable Trump. Even people like Bret will vote for Trump again if the Dem candidate is not PERFECT (meaning if the Dem candidate is not a hard core conservative, then they are voting for their favorite, Trump).
13
I have always believed that all of us have both conservative and liberal values in different proportions. At the extreme right is the ugly Republican who worships money and, on the left one finds the crazy Democrat who believes in what I call as a homogeneous universe. Look at nature. We see variety, diversity, and colors in the form of stars, planets, trees, insects, animals and humans. In engineering no two things are equal however small the difference may be. Some of us are artists and others, scientists, sportsmen etc.. This is reality. We must recognize it. There is plenty of wealth to share on earth. We must not destroy what we have. The most important thing to learn is to be happy with what we have.
4
Stephens is sophisticated enough to know the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, and it applies to his opening comments about history and New Hampshire. George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford were all seriously weakened incumbents -- they didnt lose because they had primary challengers. LBJ faced the prospect of antiwar demonstrations at every campaign stop, and may have just tired of the job. I don't know if Trump wins or loses in November, just that a Trump win would do catastrophic harm. But he wont win or lose because of Bill Weld being on the ballot in New Hampshire.
10
No, Bret. “The best conservative case for rooting for a Democrat to win this fall - any Democrat, including Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren - is that it might be the only way to save” our democracy from Donald Trump. Our democracy is more important than the Republican Party.
41
@Valerie Erde I agree with your priorities, but Mr. Stephens is speaking to the subset of Republicans who want to save their party. That he concedes a vote for Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders is better than a vote for Trump is a significant concession we should not toss aside or fail to notice. The time has come for the people in New Hampshire and the other 50 electoral jurisdictions to correct the mistake made in '16 and repudiate the Republican Party that turned its back on America and aided and abetted this President's worst inclinations.
4
In NH on election day, registered Independents can declare themselves Democrat or Republican and vote that ballot. I am encouraging people I know who are Independents to take the Republican ballot and vote for Weld, just to send the message "We don't want 4 more years of Trump."
20
Why not encourage them to vote for a democrat and not waste a vote a la Jill Stein.
at this point, i'd have to ask is the gop, as it exists today, even worth saving. why would anyone even want to. the arrival of donald trump has so corrupted the party, it might be best to just start over while we still have a few shreds of democracy and international standing left.
13
Please save me the moral preening about the GOP's demise. It's the democrats who face an existential crisis as an openly socialist wing opposes a capitalist establishment, as free speech rights are under attack as antiquated and religious liberty is an afterthought. And for all the failures of the GOP to address the deficit and the fiscal time bomb of SS & Medicare, the democrats pledge even higher spending and deficits spend even more.
6
(Wakes up to find himself in a totalitarian state and says, “But sir, I wrote that comment to the New York Times!”)
1
I support Mr. Weld's candidacy but I reject the notion the Republicans need someone to "save" the party.
Obama was as divisive a president as Trump. His statements that if he had a son he'd look like Trayvon implied the justice system in Orlando, FL was flawed and blacks could not get justice. The same disdain was evident for the Cambridge police. He had disdain for "bitter clingers" and the Democrats loss of seats in every election after 2008 confirms it.
Rather than encourage competition the Democrats sought to squash challenges to Hillary in 2016. She lost the NH primary by a margin no one has lost by an stayed in the race.
Bernie ascended to the top of the Democratic field, because at least he was an alternative.
Bernie's demonization of everyone who can prevent the government from acquiring more power: Big Pharma, greedy multinational corporations, and housing speculators is terrifying and hypocritical. Bernie owns 3 houses; the 3rd bought with government money his wife received presiding over the failure of a college. He should neither call others "housing speculators" nor say the system is rigged for others.
Trump wins and in the minds of conservatives has done great things for this country. Democrats not demanding an alternative to Obama or HRC cost the country dearly, especially if you don't like Trump. A true gentleman and hero like McCain does no good when he loses.
Weld should run, but don't demand things of the Republicans you did not do yourselves.
2
@jkemp
It's true. Obama won re-election using a divisive identity politics strategy. Democrats sliced and diced us into "identity" groups and then convinced those groups that everyone was out to get them. Recall their "War on [fill-in-the-identity]"?
Now that Americans are sick of identity politics they've abandoned their usual identity suspects and latched on to the identities of "rich" and "poor", and, no surprise, they've got a new set of victims to rescue.
1
Well that’s great except the very premise of your argument is faulty. Trump and his handler McConnell are demonstrably worse than any Democrat by several powers of magnitude.
Why would republicans be interested in someone who "wants to bring down this president"? Republicans want jobs and a strong economy. They want a real border. They want someone who will tackle China. Meanwhile, it's politicians and pundits who are obsessed with everything else.
4
@AACNY Republicans want to tell everybody how to conduct their private lives, legislate their healthcare decisions, relegate women, minorities and LGBTQ persons to second-class citizenship, and want to move time backwards to a "glorious past" that never existed, and if it ever did, it existed primarily for the benefit of white males. A lot of people in this nation don't want that. That's not "obsession"; it's the desire to live in a pluralistic, modern society.
1
Because Trump’s an unethical liar, bigot, and pathological narcissist.
Bret,
Just wanted to thank you for your writing.
I always look for your articles first upon entering the always enlightening world of the New York Times. I often disagree with your political opinions, but I always learn something when I read your commentary.
8
The potential saviors of the GOP are the sitting Republican Senators who can remove Donald Trump from office, with enough time to start fresh in 2020.
6
The way for a Bill Weld to win in New Hampshire is for independents and liberals to register as Republicans and vote for him in the primary. It’s much more important for the defeat of Donald Trump that Weld win in New Hampshire than whoever the Democrats choose as a candidate. That can be decided in the other 49 states. When people sit out the primaries because they think the Republican Party has gone too far, they are admitting defeat. The way to reform the Republican party is from the inside. I am a lifelong Democrat who will be voting in the Republican primary this year. The Democrats can win this year by getting out more voters, and that starts in the primaries by getting out more voters for Weld.
10
Weld is not saving any party. He is providing Trump with a weak challenge that Trump can ridicule as usual . Trump is not at all like the reputable presidents who are the basis of the analogy.
1
Mr. Stephens is asking the wrong question. The correct question is..
Can Democracy be saved from the GOP?
There is nothing of redeemable value in today's GOP.
32
I don’t see ads on FB for Weld. Let’s get his story out there. Thank you for this article.
3
If Trump didn't enjoy 89% approval from Republicans, there would be others in the race (Kasich, for example). But there are not. There are certainly quite palatable alternatives. There were in 2016, as well. But for some reason this is the one the Republican voters not only settled on, but really, really want. Lots and lots of people. And I mean lots have said 'I would never have said that' or 'Not the way I would have handled that' and so on and on. But they all still vote for him and make lots and lots of excuses for him. And such a small percentage of them are totally unwilling to say "I have had enough". Read the Post story about the meeting with the generals or all the corrupt people Trump surrounds himself with. And it doesn't even raise an eyebrow among Republicans. You would think that , by now, more people would be walking away from him. Seeing him as a bomb waiting to go off. Frightened more by supporting him than by distancing themselves. And saying "Nothing is worth this". How many of them could go back to their business or a law practice and quietly live out their lives? But they don't. They can't seem to get enough of this. Like going to a casino. They know they are putting all their moral and ethical chips on the table. But they can't help themselves. One day they'll wish they had gone back home.
43
@Walking Man
Because we evaluate a president based on his ability to produce results, and Trump has delivered. Also helping him is the fact that his critics are often insanely negative and unconvincing.
1
The only way to save the GOP is to take on the religious fanaticism of white conservative evangelicalism, not just in the name of separating church and state (a true and valid concern) but in the name of authentic Christianity. Evangelicalism has no longer speaks the language of the gospel. Argue that point thoughtfully, and the GOP can be rebuilt again from the ground up, and make its rightful contribution to America’s political culture.
26
Stephens writes that a Sanders or Warren victory could send the right into "even further extremes." Can we stop the childish notion that Sanders and Warren are far left? Everywhere else in the civilized world, the policies they are calling for would put them plum-spang in the center. Grow up, please, Mr. Stephens.
29
I am a democrat who voted for Bill Weld for Governor while I lived in Massachusetts. He is smart and socially liberal and has a wonderful sense of humor. Clearly he is a long shot however it would be great to see this type of moderate Republican candidate back into the fold down the road.
25
There was a time when the generation before me voted Republican.
My mother described herself as "a Rockfeller Republican" and always voted for Bill Scranton for Governor of Pennsylvania.
I've never known whether she voted for JFK instead of Nixon but I suspect she did.
When Goldwater won the nomination in 1964 instead of Scranton she announced she'd never again vote for another Republican for president. She didn't like the hard turn to the right.
My generation of our small, extended family with one exception has voted Democrats ever since.
Here in Maine we are often lucky with Republicans like Olympia Snowe and sometimes we are less lucky.
11
"Can Anyone Save the G.O.P.?"
No, because they don't want to be saved or don't think they need to be saved. If you are a moderate person, reasonable, but inclined to fiscal responsibility and social responsibility. start a new party.
There are a lot of out here who feel that a capitalist, democratic society with a strong respect for the rule of law and our institutions, tempered by reasonable regulations to protect individuals, the environment, and the free market, and tempered with a heart and a soul, is the ideal nation.
We don't have a party.
19
The country needs a thoughtful Republican alternative. Left unchecked, the extremes of either party will leverage their passion to the detriment of all. Witness our current situation where power not national service governs the day.
1
Considering that Mr. Stephens was just fine with the Republican Party up to and including the reign of that latter day Know-Nothing, George W. Bush, it's an indication of how low the bar is set for what would constitute "saving" it; alas even a return to Bush-ism is currently a fantasy.
14
I'm one of those people on the left who hope that centrist Republicanism will return. I find value in traditional Republicanism even though I am on the left wing of the Democratic party. I believe in the free market, I believe in limited regulation, usually. I also believe in strong unions, strong workers rights legislation and a strong social safety net system. In the end what I most believe is that I'm not arrogant enough to think I'm always right and that having a properly functioning mix of ideologies within congress is a benefit to America.
1001
@Aaron Same here. Furthermore, the way the Democratic party seems to be headed under the leading lights of Warren and Sanders, I might well fit into a new, law-abiding and honest Republican party. Honesty is the important thing that has been missing from the scheming, climate-change denying Republican party for so lont.
31
@Aaron :
The GOP does not believe in Free Markets. Neither do the Dems. Americans believe in massive corporate monopolies, because that is what we have and nobody objects.
43
@Aaron While I basically agree with you, perhaps you are being a bit naive. Corruption is so very dangerous because it ensures that those who know wrong doing cannot say anything for fear of their job even their life. Second, there is no such thing as a free market. The friction of a market is determined by the policies that shape how it runs--it is a political structure not a laisse faire one. Put together corruption with market manipulation and you get what we've got.
It is as much the fault of those who look to take advantage of any situation as the GOP has as it is the rest of us hoping that everybody will do the right thing. We cannot any longer bring a knife to a gun fight. And make no mistake, it IS a gun fight.
30
“Every time an incumbent president of either party faced a significant primary challenge in the Granite State, he failed in his bid for re-election.”
An important rule of science is that correlation is not causation.
8
Does anyone want to save the GOP?
There is no reason why pro-business must equate with allowing polluters to assault the environment that all life, including humans, require to thrive.
There is no reason for those that claim the mantle of morality to treat groups of people with contempt rather than improve people's well being.
There is no reason why a major American political should think it is OK to attack voting rights.
Maybe something identifiable as Republican or conservative with ideas to actually benefit people and strengthen democracy can emerge. I am not going to hold my breath.
16
This former Republican voter suggests that there is nothing to save. For four decades the most that Republicans had to offer was tax cuts and to pretend that free markets would solve problems on their own. It is so bad that the GOP have switched to supporting social issues relevant to small town America that is still largely white.
So what is left to be saved? What collection of policies would a reformed GOP support?
462
@Terry McKenna
Indeed. The new GOP will be so different from what is ruining our democracy that it should, in reinventing itself, rename itself. How about, Born again Patriots?
8
@Terry McKenna , tax cuts and that little excursion into Iraq, fanning the flags of fear and silencing any opposing voice as unpatriotic.
28
Right-wing populism in the US and in Europe is becoming embedded and the propaganda behind it worthy of Stalin. We have a decade of social unrest and financial volatiily before us, so I don't see a future where much-needed moderate voices on the right will influence policy and discourse. In both the States and in Italy, where I live, the reconstitution of a solid center-right party (which would not get my vote in any case) is key to reclaiming sanity in politics.
5
Ernest Shackleton, the famous Arctic explorer is said to have placed an ad in the London Times on December 29, 1913 seeking men to join him on an expedition to the Antarctic. Although the ad never appeared in the paper that day, and still hasn’t been located in print in any newspaper, it is supposed to have said:
“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.”
27 men answered his call and joined the expedition.
All that can be said about them today with absolute certainty is that none of them were Republicans.
36
Trump is president because he pledged to confront the immigration catastrophe -- this is the core issue for his 40 % following. Weld is an open-borders libertarian and thus the worst possible challenger. Trump's base considers Weld a joke, even if they don't remember him sounding stoned when interviewed during his run as VP on the Libertarian ticket. It's possible that someone could drain Trump votes in the primary, especially if he's gutted during the Senate trial, but that candidate will need to fully denounce illegal immigration.
3
@Grunt : Immigration isn't a catastrophe. It is what has traditionally made the US stronger.
Ask why his supporters think that immigration is a catastrophe and you'll get an answer to why they support him.
@Grunt
The Senate bipartisan gang of eight developed immigration legislation in 2013 that passed the Senate with a majority of votes and when it went to the House the Republican Speaker did not even bring it to the floor for a vote because the Tea Party didn't like it. So ya'll need to dump the Tea Party and accept reasonable immigration laws and stop acting as if Congress has not come up with a solution. A big fat no to denouncing illegal immigration and the Tea Party version of it. And we are well aware of why people voted for Trump. We don't like children in cages.
@Grunt "Open borders?" Define.
Weld is correct. Trials do not look the same looking back from the end as they do looking forward from the start. In fact, this is already proven by the fact that Trump IS impeached. This changed the odds of his being removed by the Senate significantly.
Swearing in the Senators also makes everything look different. The purpose of the Senate is clear: to stand against the mob, the rabble, the sinking of the Republic by populism. They are now formally engaged for that purpose.
If the Senators do their job properly, the look back on the impeachment will be very different--especially to Trump as he looks back while exiting.
6