Paul Krugman writing at the New York Times has made an observation:
Republican climate denial is even scarier than Trumpism.
The most terrifying aspect of the U.S. political drama isn’t the revelation that the president has abused his power for personal gain. If you didn’t see that coming from the day Donald Trump was elected, you weren’t paying attention.
No, the real revelation has been the utter depravity of the Republican Party. Essentially every elected or appointed official in that party has chosen to defend Trump by buying into crazy, debunked conspiracy theories. That is, one of America’s two major parties is beyond redemption; given that, it’s hard to see how democracy can long endure, even if Trump is defeated.
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This is the elephant in the room that too many people haven’t grasped: it’s not just Trump. It’s the entire Republican Party that is an existential threat. And it’s not just about Trump.
Why, after all, has the world failed to take action on climate, and why is it still failing to act even as the danger gets ever more obvious? There are, of course, many culprits; action was never going to be easy.
But one factor stands out above all others: the fanatical opposition of America’s Republicans, who are the world’s only major climate-denialist party. Because of this opposition, the United States hasn’t just failed to provide the kind of leadership that would have been essential to global action, it has become a force against action.
And Republican climate denial is rooted in the same kind of depravity that we’re seeing with regard to Trump.
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Read the whole thing. Krugman has joined Kevin Drum in realizing that there is nothing worth saving left in the Republican Party. Drum wrote this in August of 2018.
Today, the Republican Party exists for one and only one purpose: to pass tax cuts for the rich and regulatory rollbacks for corporations. They accomplish this using one and only method: unapologetically racist and bigoted appeals to win the votes of the heartland riff-raff they otherwise treat as mere money machines for their endless mail-order cons.
Like it or not, this is the modern Republican Party. It no longer serves any legitimate purpose. It needs to be crushed and the earth salted behind it, while a new conservative party rises to take its place. This new party should be conservative; brash; ruthless when it needs to be; as simpleminded as any major party usually is; and absolutely dedicated to making Democrats look like idiots. There should be no holds barred except for one: no appeals to racism. None. Not loud ones, not subtle ones. Whatever else it is, it should be a conservative party genuinely open to any person of any color.
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Krugman’s conclusion echoes that of Drum:
The truth is that even now I don’t fully understand how things got this bad. But the reality is clear: Modern Republicans are irredeemable, devoid of principle or shame. And there is, as I said, no reason to believe that this will change even if Trump is defeated next year.
The only way that either American democracy or a livable planet can survive is if the Republican Party as it now exists is effectively dismantled and replaced with something better — maybe with a party that has the same name, but completely different values. This may sound like an impossible dream. But it’s the only hope we have.
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If anyone doubts these assessments of the Republican Party, just watching Republicans at the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees should have been sufficient evidence if Trump himself wasn’t enough. The promise of Moscow Mitch that the White House will be dictating the conduct of the Senate Impeachment Trial should be the icing on the cake.
It may be politically impossible for any of the Democratic candidates to openly call for the destruction of the GOP; the media would have a collective freak-out, as would the punditry and the radical centrists. (Not that the GOP has any qualms about doing that to Democrats — they’ve been openly running on it for years. Anyone called them out for it?) Nonetheless, that has to be an essential realization underlying any strategy going forward.
To paraphrase John Galt as applied to the Republican Party: Get the Hell out of our way!
It is, to put it bluntly, us or them.