When in power Republicans cannot seem to control the urge to overreach and pursue extreme policies that ultimately end up turning off the electorate. I believe it has a lot to do with their all consuming need to adhere to a ideological code that seems to be generally entrenched in the psyche of people who call themselves conservatives. That code is rooted in the magical thinking that they are being called to some higher moral purpose, to make sure the country stays true to what they see as the original intent of the founding fathers divinely inspired vision and consequently, America’s exceptionalism in the world.
Republicans see themselves as the guardians of this ideal and therefore innately are imbued with the moral authority to do whatever it takes to maintain it. For them, the end justifies the means.
Recent history has shown us that whenever Republican have significant power in Washington they always overreach in their wielding of it, and thank the heavens they do. It has saved the country more than once.
In the 1990’s, Republicans got bogged down in pursuit of its obsession with the Clintons. Gingrich and his fellow Republicans had just shut down the federal government in a dramatic spending showdown with Bill Clinton. It cost Gingrich his job as speaker and ultimately his house seat and saved us from his plan for a permanent majority.
Tom Delay, the majority whip in the house of Representatives during George W. Bush’s tenure successfully engineered taking back the house in 2003 when he was able to redraw the congressional map in Texas and add the needed number of seats to give Republicans the house. During the years from 2003 to 2006 Republicans controlled the presidency, the House and the Senate. Their extremism, along with the scandal of corruption that included a 2005 indictment of Tom Delay on charges of conspiracy to violate election law and Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff who was indicted in 2006 for illegal election fundraising schemes. (It also led to 21 people either pleading guilty or being found guilty including White House officials Steve Griels and David Safavian, U.S. Representative Bob Ney and nine other lobbyists and Congressional aides). This handed the congress back to the Democrats until 2010.
I propose a very counter intuitive way of looking at the Trump Presidency. I want him to run the most whacked out extreme presidency we have ever seen. I hope he keeps on appointing people like Jeff Sessions, Steve Bannon and that crazy Mike Flynn. I am rooting for Rudy Guliani as Secretary of State. Keep em coming and let this whole thing implode in the most flamboyant way possible. (Short of a war of course). The worst thing that could have happened was for Trump to create the perception of a rational guy and bring on reasonable appearing conservatives who would have operated more stealthily toward the same extreme goals.
The Republican party now owns all these people and the policies they pursue. Four years is not that long if it will help end ,once and for all, the perception of similarities between parties. The American people haven’t lost their minds by electing Trump, they just couldn’t see enough daylight between the two candidates they didn’t like.
Democrats will be back in power in 2020 when the people tire of this act. In the meantime, let’s send lots of love to Justice Ginsburg, may she stay well.