This is a stunning Op-Ed by Jennifer Rubin, published yesterday in the Washington Post. Rubin is a conservative blogger & former Neo-Con. I have NOT been a fan of hers in the past and never really considered her a moderate or “reasonable” Republican, but lately she has been a voice of reason in both her columns and TV appearances. I’m honestly shocked that this hasn’t been posted yet here at DK (I searched for diaries and did not find any).
The headline is “The GOP’s moral rot is the problem, not Donald Trump Jr.”, and it is a scathing critique of the Republican party’s descent into madness, along with the media’s enabling and the continued hypocrisy and rationalization.
Some highlights:
Remember when the media collectively oohed and ahhed that, “Say what you will about Donald Trump, but his kids are great!”? Add that to the heap of inane media narratives that helped normalize Trump to the voters.
and
Let’s dispense with the “Democrats are just as bad” defense. First, I don’t much care; we collectively face a party in charge of virtually the entire federal government and the vast majority of statehouses and governorships. It’s that party’s inner moral rot that must concern us for now. Second, it’s simply not true, and saying so reveals the origin of the problem...
and
We have always had in our political culture narcissists, ideologues and flimflammers, but it took the 21st-century GOP to put one in the White House. It took elected leaders such as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and the Republican National Committee (not to mention its donors and activists) to wave off Trump’s racists attacks on a federal judge, blatant lies about everything from 9/11 to his own involvement in birtherism, replete evidence of disloyalty to America (i.e. Trump’s “Russia first” policies), misogyny, Islamophobia, ongoing potential violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause (along with a mass of conflicts of interests), firing of an FBI director, and now, evidence that the campaign was willing to enlist a foreign power to defeat Clinton in the presidential election.
I may be pushing the limits of fair use with that last paragraph, but the entire paragraph was too spot-on to break up, I think. Trust me, you will want to read the whole thing.
link
[ edit: updated to change diary title ]