There is a fundamental problem within the Republican Party today. They’re supposed to stand for something. They subscribe to a Conservative ideology. Yet they are compelled to support the President that has no ideology or political theory that guides his administration or policy making. It’s completely ad hoc and without a guiding governing principle that shapes a consistency that is necessary for anybody to understand. He takes positions that contradict policies that have been held for the past 70 years. These are positions that alarm our allies around the world, and bring Americans to the streets by the hundreds of thousands in protest. That is completely contrary to Conservative ideology that stands on bedrock principles of protecting existing institutions and traditions and dates back to Edmund Burke. Trump has no ideology to defend or promote. He makes it up as he goes, as long as it benefits his own interests, which inevitably results in conflicting statements and contradictions that are impossible to reconcile if one accepts the law of non-contradiction, and that dates back to Aristotle. It’s the principle or law that demonstrates our own rationality. Rationality is the quality or state of being reasonable, based on logic, facts or reason. Rationality implies the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons to believe, or of one's actions with one's reasons for action. It’s the state of being that takes place when reason conforms to logic, and logic conforms to facts that inform our reality. If we can’t agree that the furry animal on the couch is a dog and not a cat, then we have no basis for any rational discussions.
There are moral foundations to all our politics. One approach to moral decision making is called consequential moral reasoning and its author was the Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham. It follows the idea that life is defined by two forces. Pleasure, and pain. We strive to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. When moral decisions come into play and they always do in politics, the Utilitarian view is to decide on what is best for the greatest number of people. That is in keeping with the notion of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. The greatest good or pleasure, for the greatest number. Morality is determined by a numeric formula. A calculus. It’s a conservative approach to moral decision making that shapes Conservative/Republican ideology. Preserving existing institutions and traditions, is seen as being in the best interest of the greatest number of people since those institutions have stood the test of time. It doesn’t mean they’re right. They may be preserving discrimination, or even slavery. In this case, the greatest number only referred to White people. Africans weren’t regarded as people. They were property. But Donald Trump has no political theory, or ideology that guides him. He’s guided by attitude. This flies in the face of conservatism. There is no moral compass to Trump, and therefore, no moral compass to the Party itself. He is the head of the party. To go along with Trump, is to abandon conservatism as a guiding ideology. Since he has no political theory to guide him, he has no moral compass since all political theories have moral foundations. That might work in the business world, but it won’t in politics, where the politician represents the people, and the President represents the national moral posture. As President, without any political theory to guide him, he demonstrates that there is no moral compass for the nation. Any morality that Trump may embrace is purely situational and prone to change without notice, or regard for consistency. This is impossible for a Conservative/Republican to work with. It forces him to embrace hypocrisy as party policy. He becomes a relativist without any commitment to Truth. He abandons his conservatism and becomes a willing participant in a Post-Truth political party which sets him up as a total hypocrite when trying to justify Trumps erratic behavior. There are some that may accept this as the new order of things, but they run the risk of falling out of favor at home as Trumps poll numbers collapse. How long will they stand with a president that is dragging them down with him in the eyes of the electorate?
There are moral foundations to liberalism as well. Liberals tend to accept the Catagorical Imperative of Kant as their moral compass. A Catagorical Imperative is a moral law that is unconditional or absolute for all agents, the validity or claim of which does not depend on any ulterior motive or end. “Thou shalt not steal,” for example, is categorical as distinct from the hypothetical imperatives associated with desire, such as “Do not steal if you want to be popular.” That’s conditional. It’s the if/then conditional. IF you want this, THEN don’t do that. For Kant there was only one such categorical imperative, which he formulated in various ways. “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” is a purely formal or logical statement and expresses the condition of the rationality of conduct rather than that of its morality, which is expressed in another Kantian formula: “So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in another, always as an end, and never as only a means.” Don’t exploit people. Do the right thing for the right reason. That’s where you find moral worth. In this view, even the Golden Rule itself, is seen as flawed, since “do unto others, as you would have them do unto you”, demonstrates an ulterior motive for doing unto others. It’s doing unto others for a selfish motive, rather than doing unto others because it’s the right thing to do. There is no moral worth in doing things motivated out of self-interest. This is consistent with a Christian ethic. There is no example of Jesus Christ ever acting out of self-interest. His example is one of self-sacrifice. The very symbol of Christianity is the Cross, where he sacrificed his life for mankind. Once again, Trump could never be a liberal. He’s become a billionaire by exploiting people for his own gain. He has no idea who Kant is. He has no idea who Bentham is. He has no knowledge of the roots of the ideology he panders to in order to win over the very people that he has nothing in common with. Trump is a Charlatan. A charlatan is a quack, a person who is trying to deceive you with false claims. Beware of charlatans who try to sell you access to the fountain of youth or to a Ponzi scheme disguised as an exclusive investment fund or to a border wall paid for by Mexico. Or a fake university that for a $30k investment will teach you how to be successful like Trump. A Charlatan is a flamboyant deceiver; one who attracts customers with tricks or jokes. Trump is a charlatan. In Trumps world, “winning” is the only thing that matters. Trump had no idea what was in the Republican healthcare bill. He didn’t care. He just wanted it passed so he could claim a win. Winning is everything. It’s the only thing. How he accomplishes that doesn’t matter. The ends justify the means. Today that has led to an FBI investigation over his ties to Russian interference in the 2016 election. Exaggerated claims and blatant lying is simply part of the formula Trump uses to promote Trump. Trump hands foreign policy to his Generals. They’re his shield. If something goes wrong, the blame is theirs. If something goes right, he takes the credit. In Trumps first 100 days, his only accomplishment was to nominate Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. That’s it. Period. It was Sen McConnell that put him on the court and he had to change the rules of the Senate to do it.
How long the Republicans can put up with this is the question. It’s probably going to be answered in Trumps poll numbers which continue to plummet. Once his unpopular ratings effect members of congress, Trump will be left to swing in the breeze. And our experiment in authoritarian autocracy and White Nationalism will be over. The biggest question is how much damage will be done to the country in the meantime?