TRUMP AND THE GOP BURDEN

Donald Trump, lest we forget, is the Republican President. He represents the Republican Party as he overwhelmingly won their nomination and then went on to win the Presidency. Republican legislators may think they can just ‘use’ him to get their agenda through and otherwise disown him. But they cannot have it both ways. In fact if they don’t disassociate themselves from him fast he will permanently become the Republican Party.

The Party had lost it way following George W. Bush’s disastrous Presidency including the Iraqi war, about which he and his administration misled society, the incredible cost of his Medicare expansion which included a gigantic handout to the pharmaceutical industry and the cavalier attitude and incompetence that represented Katrina. All that coupled with the fact that the Republican controlled Congress had lost contact with its base allowed the dangerous opportunistic salesman Donald J. Trump to highjack a party that appeared to have abandoned it’s fiscal and moral principles, as well as the needs of its base. 

 America and the world is living with the results and it remains to be seen whether the GOP and particularly its legislators are going to put Party before country. If they cynically continue to pander to Trump it could lead the country into an abyss. To complicate the matter his Svengali, Steve Bannon, has even a darker vision for the Republican Party and the country. Bannon is threatening to metamorphosize the Party into an insular, racist, nationalist entity and replace current legislators with his clones. 

THE UNRAVELLING OF THE GOP AND THE ABANDONMENT OF THEIR BASE

The Republican Party has been disintegrating ever since the formation of the Tea Party and the GOP’s Establishment as opposed to taking a principled stand pretended that everyone was on the same page.

 Following the Obama victories the Party under the Chairmanship of Reince Priebus produced a manifesto that said the GOP would be a write off unless they become more inclusive of America’s diversity of people of color - the Latinos and African Americans. The demographics pointed to this observation. What Priebus and company missed out on was that their base - the white non college educated blue collar worker, the former coal miner and well paid factory worker was not really interested, in high fullutin trickle down economic theory and giving tax breaks all round. They felt they were being left behind economically and in every other way. Everyone else was being pushed to the front of the line. Affirmative action was giving a break to African Americans - how did Obama get into Harvard? What epitomized their feeling was an insane interview Bill O’Reilly had with Barack. He argued that the POTUS had a far more privileged life than he had. O’Reilly had come from a lower middle class white background and had to do it all alone. Obama had got handouts. Then there were the  social programs rewarded to those unwed mothers subsidizing them with their taxes and the Welfare Queens…. 

The GOP were moving further and further away from their base constituents. They didn’t get at their feelings of alienation and that couldn’t afford health care. They had become the Party of the fat cats. They were in bed with the corporations and the lobbyists - what Donald was to call the swamp. In addition they also took those social conservatives for granted. Who were they going to vote for anyway - the libertine Democrats?

DONALD TAPS INTO THE DISCONNECT

So enter the salesman Donald. He connected with the Republican constituencies. He added some more scapegoats to the angry base - the Hispanics and all immigrants period. They were also getting preferential treatment and the Muslim ones were terrorists to boot. He added another sector to his coalition, the right wing crazies, that he gave respectability to as they mobilized and came out of the closet. He attacked the women that were also being favored, a fact believe it or not the majority of the white non college educated women bought.  So this became the Republican Party. A party made of racists, nativists, social conservatives and economically aggrieved workers who Donald promised the world. Trump’s guru, Bannon, had identified this crowd but he had a darker agenda of creating chaos in government, making America white again and with his half baked nationalism isolating it from the world. 

While this was not exactly the Tea Party manifesto. They joined in as what they were rebelling against is that, under Bush the Party had abandoned its fiscal principles and spent like drunken sailors. They had become soft on costly social programs as well. The Iraq war and the extension of Medicare had stuck in the traditionalists crawl. So although Cruz or some look alike was their man, Trump was better than Jed Bush.

In fairness Trump promised everyone the world. There would be better paying jobs for all as he would keep immigrants out, throw those out that were illegally here and punish the companies that had outsourced. There would be better and cheaper health care for all. He would cut everyone’s taxes. He appealed to them as they misread his crudeness for abandoning political correctness. No double speak from him he told as it was. The Donald admitted that he was a crook but that put him in a better position to fix the degenerate swamp.

If it needs repeating the above description is what the Republican Party now is.

TEA PARTY

In the Obama years the Tea Party morphed into the Freedom Party and had split the House Republicans into two but the Establishment denial continued. Even after Eric Cantor the Deputy Leader of the House Republicans and really a pretty right wing guy had got axed in a Republican Primary by a little known Tea Partier David Bratt, the band played on. Nobody noticed at the time but Bratt was being cheered on by a scruffy editor, named, Steve Bannon from a little known Right Wing internet rag, Breitbart News. Next to go was John Boehner who was forced out of leadership of the House by the Freedom Party. 

The Senate has proved a tougher nut for the Tea Party but their rebel leader Ted Cruz rallied the House members and rendered the Party almost to a static in the House. 

However it is in the Senate where the Republican Party’s future is now being played out.

THE TRUMP MOVEMENT

The inescapable fact is that the GOP is being lead by a dangerous, some say mentally unstable President. Donald J. Trump shows very little concern about Party orthodoxy. He is looking for legislative victories, regardless of what the political content represents. Naturally he is more likely to look to the Republicans to deliver because after all they are his Party but more important they are in the majority so they should be better placed to bring home the bacon. However, he has not made his job easier by attacking them, axing every member of the Party Establishment that was in the WhiteHouse and by belittling members of his own Republican cabinet. He has attacked the leadership particularly Mitch McConnell, the Senate leader. 

 Steve Bannon, whether Trump likes it or not, is unashamedly using Trump to peddle his zany ideas. He has a limitless checkbook and has promised Primary fights against all the existing Republican Senators whom he claims are not supporting the American Fuhrer. This is a very real problem as the base that elected Trump are being persuaded that it is not that ‘moron’ Trump that has failed to deliver it is the Republican legislators. 

Speaker Ryan, who has to be the most spineless politician ever to be third in succession to the Presidency, seems to have had the Bannon spotlight removed from him. He has earned this dubious honor by responding to Senator Corker’s criticism of Trump that he and Trump should get together and resolve their differences!. This counter was at best inane bearing in mind that Crocker argued that Trump was kept in check by the fact that the WhiteHouse was an adult care center, that WhiteHouse staff McMaster, Kelly and Tillerson were in-between America and chaos and that Trump could start World Three. Then when the Speaker was asked what stood in the way of Trump’s fiscal agenda he joined the Bannon/Trump chorus and blamed the Republican Senate.

Jay H. Ell could go and on with evidence as to what Trump/Bannon think of the current Republican legislators and their transparent agenda to replace them. Bannon can claim success to date in that the leader of the Republican Party is Trump and in axing  Primaries establishment candidates.

WHAT NOW?

To a large extent the immediate future of the Republican Party hangs on what its elected legislators decide, particularly its Senate Representatives. There are two factors that are making them hesitate to abandon this lunacy. They are those that think they can use Trump and get their agenda through. Then there are those who are fearful of losing their Party’s nomination in the 2018 midterms. 

The Republican intelligentsia and pundits have already opted out of Trumpism. The Republican Establishment that joined Trump in the WhiteHouse have been axed and for the rest there is nobody around the center of power that can be identified as representing the old Republican Party. 

All that remains are the legislators. They can blatantly sell out like Paul Ryan but it won’t help them in the end. At the moment a few brave souls have told as it is. Senator Crocker has cleared the decks by announcing that he is not standing for election. He claims that most of the Republican Senators agree with him. John McCain too obviously feels he has nothing to loose and is giving the Trump/Bannon philosophy a full go attack. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are a big problem as they are AWOL on many of the Republican initiatives let alone Trump’s lunacies. Senators Flake and Sasse have been outspoken as well while Senators Graham, Gardner, Heller, Lee, Portman and Sullivan have registered opposition to a lesser or greater extent. 

In spite of the reality of the takeover the Party they were elected to represent, on the surface it is business as usual. The Mad Hatter in this Mad Hatter’s Tea Party is Mitch McConnell. He is busy collecting votes for a Trump tax plan that nobody knows the details of other than it is going to give millions more to the likes of Donald, possibly disadvantage the Middle Class and go against the official Republican holy grail in that it will push up the deficit by trillions. 

THE DEMOCRATS TO THE RESCUE?

Former Republican Congressman David Jolly, who is now one of the many Republican office bearers and pundits who daily wring their hands as to what has happened to the Party, has mouthed the unthinkable. He has stated that as the Republican legislators won’t stop Trump the best outcome for the country will be their ousting by the Democrats. As each day passes this becomes more and more of a possibility. The Democrats have been chalking up local and state victories over the past few months. The marquee bye election that the country is watching as to the mood of the country is to be held in Alabama on 12, December. This is a state that Trump won by twenty - eight percentage points. The Republican on the ballot is a right wing loon who brandished a gun at a rally, believes that homosexuality should be illegal and Muslims should not be allowed in Congress. With Bannon’s help he ousted the current incumbent who had been appointed to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessons.  Currently the polls are incredibly close between him and the Democratic challenger Doug Jones who in the sixties prosecuted the Klu Klux Klan. If the over eight percent lead that the Democrats have in the Congressional races hold they will take the House and the Republicans will be hard put to keep their slender Senate majority.

Meanwhile the Mueller investigation is laboring on and it is becoming more and more evident that the Trump campaign was heavily involved with Russian operatives. This at a time when Russia has been shown to have had a deep involvement in the Presidential campaign to favor the Trump candidacy. According to the CIA Director at the time it is implausible that the Russians could have acted without American help. In addition the public record reveals a prima-facie case of obstruction of justice against the President. It has been Jay H. Ell’s opinion that this investigation will ultimately terminate this nightmare. However, if the standard bearers of the Grand Old Party want to rescue any of the values that they purport to represent they should act sooner. 

Whichever one looks at it  hasn’t this country had enough of this dangerous callous narcissistic lying President? There is the twenty fifth Amendment whereby a President, who is unable to discharge his duties, can be removed by the Vice President and the Cabinet. The legislators and the whole Republican establishment should egg them on and support them. Bush 43 has given them a good startrt.