Trump is the logical result of a path that the republican party started out on when President Nixon saw the anger of Southern whites over the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act under President Johnson in 1965. The South was committed to slavery which it saw as its heritage and which they excused as an economic necessity. When republican President Lincoln after the Union victory made clear that he actually required the South to end slavery by enforcing it through reconstruction, then Southern whites turned against the Republican Party. Thus, the Southern whites supported the Democratic Party. However, again, President JFK and Attorney General RFK both opposed discrimination. After the assassinations of JFK and RFK, democrat President LBJ twisted arms to shepherd the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. LBJ and Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King jr worked together to pass this legislation and thus, African Americans supported the Democratic Party. Traditionally, Southern Whites had hated the republican party, but this was because of reconstruction and the party’s opposition to slavery. The new Republican Party and the Dixiecrats both opposed the opposition to discrimination ; they both supported discrimination. Southern Whites had been supporting a party which no longer shared their ideology. Richard Nixon realized this and made it clear to these Southern Whites that they now had more in common ideologically with the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. Thus, Southern Whites gradually over time became almost exclusively republicans. The Democratic Party became the party of diversity, the party that opposed bigotry and discrimination.
For over two thirds of the nation’s history from 1787 on ( until the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 ), discrimination was legal. For the first 78 years (until 1865 ), slavery was legal. For the first 178 years, African Americans could not vote. Women could not vote until the 19th amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920. Without the vote and with great educational inequities (separate but equal from Plessy was eventually found to be unconstitutional when applied to education in Brown vs Board of Education ) , people of color and especially African Americans were at a great disadvantage socioeconomically . The playing field was radically unequal. Without government intervention to right the wrongs and without government intervention to begin to attempt to level the playing field, the outcomes were never going to even begin to approach parity between people of different ethnicities.
This is like an African American and a white man running against each other in a race. The white man gets to start the race five minutes before the African American. Then when the African American finally gets to start running, the African American is forced to carry a twenty five pound weight. Eventually after an hour, the African American no longer has to carry that weight. However, this does not make up for the disadvantages that the African American had to endure at the beginning of the race.
This is why government intervention is required. Otherwise, we will simply retain the status quo and the white man will have all of the wealth, power, best jobs/careers, and the best future for he and his family. However, attempts to level the playing field and make the white man actually compete for his outcomes scared him. He began to remember a time when the white man had unchallenged SES supremacy because of discrimination. This became his culture and tradition. His fundamentalist Christian religion simply became another way to attempt to retain his dominance.
Over time, the historical facts regarding discrimination became more and more widely known. People of color and educated whites started fighting together for equality. The Southern whites, especially those with less education, began to push for republican political leaders who at least would not support these efforts to fight for equality as the lasting results of slavery. Demographic trends led these Southern whites to feel more and more threatened continuing to the election of Donald Trump. As a result, they began to demand more and more outspoken political leaders who would fight for white supremacy. As they did so, these political leaders turned away more and more people. This meant that this group lost more moderate members and thus became more extreme. Since these people became more extreme, they demanded a more extremist political leader. This more extremist political leader turned off more moderates within the group. This eventually led to Trump who is simply a reflection of their beliefs and ideological commitments.
This led to Trump taking over the republican party. I was naive before. I used to think that there were actual core principles that the republican party was committed to. It became clear that they were committed to an autocrat whose bigoted message reflects their core values. These people trust Donald Trump more than their own pastor (76%) . The priority of the paradigm is incredibly strong with these people. Facts and evidence won’t shift their beliefs. Only occasionally will real life experience change their view (Steve Scalise was shot and remained an extremist pro gun manufacturer and anti common sense gun law reform) .
These people prior to Trump would have said that they opposed Russia and Putin, supported law and order, supported a balanced budget, supported free trade, and cared about the character and integrity of their political candidates. They abandoned all of these prior commitments because Trump perfectly reflected and exhibited what they valued most: an absolute commitment to white supremacy.
Once Trump became the nominee and the republicans in Congress saw that their republican voters didn’t care about Trump’s rank immorality, then they began to realize that they had a dilemma: either stick to their principles regardless of cost or acquiesce to Trump. They were afraid that if they defied Trump, then Trump would tell his supporters to vote for a primary opponent. They saw that Trump owned the leadership in the Republican Party. They knew that their political future was doomed if they opposed Trump. They also likely suspected that they would lose friends and / or family who supported Trump if they defied Trump. They chose to acquiesce to Trump. Their only chance of preventing Trump from leading the party to a political wilderness or way outside of political norms was to band together against Trump and corral him early. When they failed to do that, then it was each individual republican senator and representative alone facing Trump and without any leverage and facing the prospect of becoming a pariah in the party and losing a primary in the next election. The longer Trump went on without opposition from his party, the more the consolidated power and his hold on the republican voters. This eliminated any chance that many republican senators would vote to remove him regardless of what he said and did.
Now, it’s time to pay the piper. Moscow is desperate to retain his position as majority leader. This means that he needs Loeffler and Perdue to win the special election in Georgia. He found out that Loeffler and Perdue were being hammered over their opposition to direct payments to their constituents while enriching themselves with information that they learned as US senators. This is the only reason Moscow Mitch allowed a novel coronavirus relief bill with direct payments to pass. Moscow Mitch and Loeffler and Perdue all know that they need Trump voters in Georgia to come out and vote for them on January 5. Trump has been making numerous wild attempts at subverting our democracy and overturning the results of a free and fair election devoid of widespread voter fraud that would alter who won. At least half of republicans believe Trump rightfully won and it was only widespread voter fraud that changed the winner from Trump to Biden. The percentage of republicans who believed the election had widespread voter fraud doubled after Trump refused to concede. Chuck Todd even called out Ron Johnson, one of the 12 republican senators who will object to the electoral college vote count, an arsonist. Trump lawyers, Lin Wood and Sydney Powell, discouraged Georgian republicans from voting in special election since they all believe the election results were fraudulent (results because Trump wasn’t the only candidate on the ballot, many republicans won on the same ballot and some of those winners are saying that the very election which gave them re-election was fraudulent) . They say that the republicans running in the special election have “not earned” the vote of Georgian republicans. While about 77% of republican voters believe Biden benefited from voter fraud , these beliefs are rejected by a solid sixty percent majority of voters including independents, about 20% of republicans and the vast majority of Democrats.
That’s a coalition of voters in Georgia that would give Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock victories. President Trump called the $600 direct payments a disgrace. Mitch McConnell is the reason why a stand alone bill giving $2000 direct payments to Americans won’t get a vote. If the Democratic Party held a majority in the US Senate, then this stand alone bill would get a vote in the US Senate. if Perdue and Loeffler appear to oppose or don’t convince enough Georgian voters that they support direct payments of $2000 and it appears that they will not vote for it, then that could cost them the election. $2000 direct payments did pass the US House 275-134 and there are senate republicans who support it (ending the filibuster could mean that only a majority is needed) . Trump tweeted that he saved McConnell from defeat because he is angry at McConnell for not fighting more for to subvert democracy and overturn the legitimate results of a free and fair election devoid of widespread voter fraud that would alter who won. McConnell has called his vote which will be against the objections to the electoral college vote (and thus, against Trump’s wishes) the most important vote he will have ever cast in his 36 years in the US Senate. McConnell has opposed allowing republican senators to vote for the objections to the electoral college vote and this has angered Trump. Now Senate leadership is allowing senate republicans to vote their conscience. The mixed messaging and division could cause enough Trump republican voters in Georgia to not vote for Loeffler and Perdue to cost McConnell the majority leader position. The special election already was going to be competitive, but now that Senator Josh Hawley has decided to vote for the objection, then that has further divided republicans and hurt McConnell and Loeffler and Perdue. If these republican senators including Loeffler and Perdue vote for the objection, then they are radicals ( Gohmert is calling for public violence and Trump is calling for a ‘wild’ time ) in the eyes of a strong majority of voters, 25% of republicans, all but hard core conservative independents, and almost all Democrats. If they don’t vote for the objection, then they will face the ire of Trump and Trump voters and they could lose votes they need to win re-election. There are no good options for them which is why Moscow Mitch didn’t want this. According to Senator Ben Sasse, the vast majority or even all of the republicans in Congress know at this point that Donald Trump lost a fair and free election devoid of the type of widespread fraud that would be necessary to alter who won.
It seems obvious that it makes no sense to vote for Biden due to opposition to Trump and yet vote for Trump loyalists. The accusations that the republicans made against our senate candidates made no sense since those are not issues that were remotely likely with a narrow Democratic majority in the US Senate or impossible (because they are locally decided). In any event, it is now clear that even with two Democratic wins in the special election, moderate republican voters need have no fear of since this would be a 50-50 divided senate with conservatives like Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin in the caucus. This means that moderate republican voters need have no fear of some radical bogeyman issue passing Congress and becoming law (whatever that might be). However, while what moderate republican voters might consider radical legislation would not pass even with the Democratic candidates winning the special elections, sane, rational legislation that would help constituents in practical ways (like a direct payment and helping keep local governments afloat — pay for police, firefighters...) won’t pass if moscow mitch is the majority leader but will if Senator Chuck Schumer becomes the majority leader.
It is just possible that more moderate republican voters in Georgia might be more willing to vote for Ossoff and Warnock in the special election now that they know that even if Ossoff and Warnock win, it would only be a 50-50 divided senate.