After the Republican Party became Trump’s Party last week when he won over the majority of GOP primary voters, the Party’s pundits, insiders, donors and establishment leaders had a collective nervous breakdown. Conservative Republicans took Trump’s win especially hard. There was the gnashing of teeth, the wringing of hands. Heads flamed with fires. Panic ensued.
A chastened (well not really) Ted Cruz suspended his campaign and returned to Texas, a state that has grown tired of his smug, sanctimonious self. As its junior Senator Ted Cruz has done nothing for his state other than to serve his personal political ambitions.
No one in the GOP understands why or how Donald Trump, a reality show host and the nation’s leading loud mouthed buffoon, managed to take down what the Party considered to be its distinguished club of Presidential candidates. From Republican darling Senator Marco Rubio, the future of the Party, to former Governor Jeb Bush, a name with powerful recognition, to the popular Koch puppet, union and education busting Governor Scott Walker to the Republican tenacious bully of Bridgegate NJ, Governor Chris Christi, all went down in flames.
The GOP establishment pretty much loathes Senator Ted Cruz nor did it take TX Governor Rick Oops Perry seriously. But the fact that the Party’s shining stars lost to a joker is a traumatic event for the Republican Party.
How did it happen? It’s not that hard to figure it out. Paul Krugman exposed the GOP’s bait and switch tactics in one of his recent articles.
All were afraid to stand up to the Trump bully. Why? Perhaps because all of the Republican candidates, including Cruz and especially Perry, serve the donor class.
Both parties make promises to their bases. But while the Democratic establishment more or less tries to make good on those promises, the Republican establishment has essentially been playing bait-and-switch for decades. And voters finally rebelled against the con.
Democrats are more likely to stand up for its middle and working class base.
First, about the Democrats: Their party defines itself as the protector of the poor and the middle class, and especially of nonwhite voters. Does it fall short of fulfilling this mission much of the time? Are its leaders sometimes too close to big-money donors? Of course. Still, if you look at the record of the Obama years, you see real action on behalf of the party’s goals.
For example, the Republican demonized Obamacare has given 20 million Americans access to affordable health insurance. It’s not perfect and it needs a lot of tweaking, including more affordability as well as a public option, but the Affordable Care Act is far better than the GOP don’t get sick, if you do, die quickly plan.
Republicans on the other hand make promises they know they cannot keep. They know they don’t have to votes to honor their commitments. But they make them anyway. And the candidates are known to work base voters into a frenzy over social issues: transgender bathrooms, evil doing “others,” gay marriage and abortion. Obamacare means death panels! Big government is the root of everything evil! Obama is coming for your guns! Muslims!
But once re-elected the con artists go about the business of serving the privileged class. Oh they’ll go through the motions of pretending to do something for their base voters. Such as voting to repeal Obamacare 60 times, knowing the President will veto the efforts. As well as knowing affordable healthcare is of major importance to most Americans.
Things are very different among Republicans. Their party has historically won elections by appealing to racial enmity and cultural anxiety, but its actual policy agenda is dedicated to serving the interests of the 1 percent, above all through tax cuts for the rich — which even Republican voters don’t support, while they truly loathe elite ideas like privatizing Social Security and Medicare.
Trump has pretty much let Republican voters know what they have suspected all along. Their Party’s leaders have conned them. The system is rigged. It is broken.
What Donald Trump has been doing is telling the base that it can order à la carte. He has, in effect, been telling aggrieved white men that they can feed their anger without being forced to swallow supply-side economics, too. Yes, his actual policy proposals still involve huge tax cuts for the rich, but his supporters don’t know that — and it’s possible that he doesn’t, either. Details aren’t his thing.
The establishment Republicans are screaming. But Trump is not a true conservative! He’s a fake and a fraud! Voters don’t care because they trust Trump more than those they rejected from Bush through Walker.
Eventually Trump will dupe them too. It’s up to journalists to give Trump’s voters a heads up. Hopefully the print and broadcast media will do a better job than when most served as cheerleaders for W.’s debacle called Iraq.
The point, in any case, is that the divergent nomination outcomes of 2016 aren’t an accident. The Democratic establishment has won because it has, however imperfectly, tried to serve its supporters. The Republican establishment has been routed because it has been playing a con game on its supporters all along, and they’ve finally had enough.
But there is another reason. Trump is a billionaire. He’s a donor. Not one of the candidates had the courage to stand up to him. I guess it’s tough to bite one of the hands that feed you. It’s tough to bash a member of the class for whom one loyally serves.
But that’s not all. Voters are beginning to understand that anti-government, rigid uncompromising politicians are not serving their best interests. Hating the black guy in the White House comes at a steep price. People in both parties are as mad as hell and they are not going to take it anymore. Or so they say.
In interviews with dozens of voters in both parties, the driving motivation across the state is anger and uprising. They’re fed up with lawmakers in Washington, who seem to work two or three days a week and get little done aside from raising money to stay in office. They’re mad about stagnant wages, companies sending jobs overseas and terrorists sneaking in across the border.
Perhaps Republican voters, especially in the red Southern states, are sick and tired of the American Taliban and the Tea Party’s religious police, too.
Meanwhile in Texas our Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and indicted felon Attorney General Ken Paxton have become the potty police.
No wonder Trump won the majority of base Republican voters and some Democrats too. When the majorities in the U.S. Senate and House serve the needs of the 1% while ignoring those of their base voters, it was only a matter of time before the bright sunlight sparkled on the bait and switch. Trump helped to lift the curtain that had been shrouding his opponents.
As for those of us Democrats and some Republicans in red states we are
becoming increasingly more fed up with the Tea Party Taliban and it’s war against women’s reproductive rights and voting rights. We are sick of the potty police and anti-government, small government hypocrites who love to monitor our bedrooms.
But, knowing that their establishment Republican politicians have thrown the primary voters under the bus on behalf of the 1% why did these same voters choose a billionaire as their leader? Perhaps because this billionaire is different. He’s not a politician for one thing. He’s made promises that appeal to GOP base voters. Especially the big tall wall at the southern border and the ban on Muslims.
In short GOP primary voters hitched their pony to the Trump wagon because he is an outspoken and blatant bigot.
Conservatism which used to mean small government, low taxes now more exemplifies bigotry, narrow-mindedness, homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, morality police and oppression.
The GOP more than deserves its Donald Trump.