Saturday, December 19, 2015

The Real Reason The Republican Establishment Doesn’t Like Donald Trump. It's Republican World: 2015 In Review- Chapter Two

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-by Noah

To put it most simply, what the Republican establishment and their corporate media lackies don’t like about Herr Donald Trump the most is that he has so blatantly, so clearly, revealed the Republican Party for exactly what it is.

At the start of 2015, the media folks were all excited about the 2016 Presidential election being a Clinton vs. a Bush race. How’s that for imagination? But then, along comes Donald Trump with his campaign based in racism and bigotry, and it’s a big hit with the Republican Party base and more. For the Republican voters, not even a Bush is extreme enough. The reaction from most of the media: “We’re shocked! Shocked and appalled!” My question is; why are they shocked? Why is anyone shocked?

If the surrounding circumstances weren’t so awful, it would be laughable how so many in the media express shock that a Republican candidate for the party’s presidential nomination, or any office for that matter, would say racist things and propose racist policies.

How can this be even remotely surprising to any sane, aware citizen? After all, it’s been clear since the invention of Nixon’s “southern strategy” that racism and bigotry are the foundation of the modern day Republican Party. Republican candidates have a difficult job getting elected without being racist and without appealing to racist and bigoted voters. As our country’s demographics become less and less white, their situation gets progressively more dire and they get nastier.

Key slogans such as Reagan’s “Welfare queens driving cadillacs”, Romney’s “Free stuff”, and Poppy Bush’s infamous Willie Horton TV commercials have played major roles in either electing past Republican presidents or trying to elect them. Why would 2016 be any different?

I have known Republican voters who are avowed racists and I have known Republican voters who deny they are racists. Both, though, have no problem in committing the racist act of eagerly voting for a racist. You don’t need to fly a confederate flag to be a racist when you can be a sneak and just go into the booth and vote for one.

Hardly a day goes by when some Republican somewhere says that the clamor for Voter IDs has nothing to do with race, but, all one has to do is see which voters are most negatively affected by Voter ID laws. The current fight against voter disenfranchisement in Alabama is a classic case. Alabama has a racist Jim Crow Republican governor and Republican legislature to match. Alabama, gee, what a surprise!

Don’t go thinking it’s just a southern thing, though. What Alabama has done is closely patterned on what Wisconsin’s white supremacists, led by Gov. Scott Walker have done. Both states issued a law that requires a photo ID that you can get at your local DMV and then shut down DMVs in and near African-American neighborhoods. To Republicans, black lives do not matter, and that’s at best.

Then there’s the issue of today’s republicans routinely voting against voting rights and civil rights laws, along with the Republican majority Supreme Court gutting such laws in order to enable their white supremacist friends at the state level.

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To date, how many Republicans have called for Donald Trump to scrap his campaign? I can think of one. His name is Rep. David Jolly of Florida. Jolly’s statement was greeted with silence and, no doubt, contempt, from his fellow Republicans. He can expect to hear more about this from his drooling Tea Party primary opponent, Ron DeSantis, in their current Senate race. If he has any kids, I feel sorry for what they will have to bear at the school grounds in his swingy district.

While Republican voters have marched to Trump’s appearances in droves, some republican politicians have called his statements toxic. Some seem infuriated. But none have asked him to quit the race. In fact, they say that they will support whoever wins the nomination, including Trump. So what are they really infuriated about?

Whether or not Trump makes it to the finish line and gets his party’s nomination isn’t even the point by now. What his success says and reveals about his party is the bigger issue. Trump’s most recent and most fascist statement that he would ban all Muslims from coming into the country made a lot of noise and got a lot of attention but “Jeb” Bush, the former media fave, had already gone further than Trump. Bush called for only letting in Christians! That’s right, no Hindus, no Jews… only Christians. Where was the uproar?


“Jeb” was not the only one. Florida Senator Marco Rubio recently called for the shutting down of all Mosques and said he would close down any “Muslim cafes” or any place where Muslims might gather. Does he mean private homes? Sounds like it. Even Trump hasn’t gone that far, yet.

The Great Embarrassment Of New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie offered-
“I don’t think orphans under five are being, you know, should be
admitted into the United States at this point.”
It may be that Christie’s thinking on the question of Muslim immigration is even crazier than that of his friend Trump. Does he mean that five year olds might be terrorists? Four year olds? Three year olds? Infant terrorists? Is Christie so far gone that he doesn’t think five year old and under orphans are OK but, that six or seven year old orphans are? Where does this line of “thinking” end?

Will Republicans next get all hugely conflicted and start talking about the danger of Muslim embryos? Will the same party that screams about “saving the embryos” suddenly want to save all embryos except Muslim ones? Will they next want to purge bloodbanks of Muslim donations? You can bet some congressional wacko, probably from Texas or Florida, will someday call for an investigation of sperm banks and blood banks. “We don’t need some American woman getting any Muslim sperms!”

Oh, and one more: Remember Dr. Ben Carson? Here he is when asked, in one of the recent republikook debates, whether he thought this country should ever have a president who is a Muslim-
“I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this
nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.”
Interestingly, once Republican voters realized that Trump had topped Carson in the religious bigotry department, his poll numbers started to take a dive and those of not only Trump but also Sen. “Ted” Cruz rose. Would it be cynical to say that Republican voters, while they might agree with much of what a conservative African-American says, they much prefer their bigotry coming from a white man? Trump’s proposal of a ban on Muslims eliminated the need for Carson.

Obviously, when you consider the above statements for other Republican candidates, it’s not about what Trump’s ideas are, whether it’s his claims about Mexicans or Muslims. It’s about his bluntness and theatricality about it along with the fact that he is not an insider like them. Trump lacks the ability of a professional politician to speak in code, or, to just be a kinder, gentler racist.

It’s even more than that, though. Make no mistake, Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans will attack him not because they disagree with what he says but because his bluntness has so blatantly revealed the true essence of the Republican Party and what it is to be a Republican, and that scares off too many potential voters.

The Republicans created the Tea Party as a tool to get what they want, just as they created and supported FOX “News” and a battalion of endless hate radio hosts. Case in point: Former congressman Dick Armey, along with money from the Koch Brothers, formed Freedom Works. In essence, they also created Trump or, at the least the environment for Trump, or someone like him, to flourish.

Some in the media and some Republican voters will say that Trump is not conservative enough to appeal to the Tea Party element in his party. Really? A budding Hitler, a man who told George Stephanopoulos live on Sunday morning TV that he doesn’t mind being compared to Hitler, is not conservative enough? That’s pretty revealing about where the Republican Party is as of 2015. Trump is the Tea Party come to life as one person, more than all the Palins, Bachmanns, and Hannitys put together. He is the chickens come home to roost. The monster they created is unchained. Thousands of republicans attend his appearances and cheer his hate-filled idiocy.

Now, after enabling Trump, the Republican Party pretends to want nothing to do with the guy? Well, maybe the guy and the way he says what he says, but certainly not the meaning of what he says. Even the sainted Ronald Reagan once called for a bloodbath on college campuses, well before the shootings at Kent State and Jackson State. Nixon and Agnew talked of getting rid of the rotten apples.

In today’s world, Republican politicians have railed and grandstanded against Planned Parenthood, inciting shootings, bombings, and arson. They have even promoted fake baby parts videos to make their violence-inciting case. When you don’t have facts, make something up. This isn’t about just Trump. It’s about his whole party.

Nixon’s notorious “Southern Strategy” was a party-defining political tool. It managed to gather virtually every potential voter with racist tendencies into the big circus tent of the Republican Party. Nixon took advantage of the ill feelings that many Americans had for the then recent Civil Rights legislation and Voting Rights legislation.


Today’s Republican candidates, from top to bottom base their election strategy on the exploitation of hate, fear, and mistrust. They look for that button in potential voters and they press it, over and over again. Nixon got elected twice by using the Southern Strategy. Since then, every Republican candidate for President has used it Today’s republicans have augmented it in order to motivate what they see as their base. The Republican Party motto has seemingly become something along the lines of “Who can we hate this year?” Hence the reason, a few years ago, for Karl Rove putting gay rights laws up for vote. Now, we have the immigration issue being put in hate/don’t hate terms, the health of women being put up for a vote, marriage equality, and, the right of a woman to choose.

Religious bigotry is the hottest button this year, now surpassing even immigration. To Republican voters, even a person’s religion is now a voting issue, more than it has been for a century, with Republicans wanting to exclude people from the great American experiment not just on the basis of race but of religion; all the better when you can combine the two!

Nixon would be jealous if he were alive to see the cornucopia of hate and division available to today’s republicans. Oh, how he would love to take advantage! Somewhere in Hell, he is seething now more than ever. All he had was people in the streets protesting what had become his war and people who weren’t white. Roe vs. Wade hadn’t even happened, yet.

But all is not well in Republican World. The delusion has gone viral as republicans around the country agree with Trump and Carson that they, too, all saw “thousands of cheering Muslims” and “cheering arabs” on 9/11. “Ted” Cruz isn’t far behind in the crazy department. He may even end up surpassing them.

It’s the white supremacy, stupid!

This “cheering Muslims” delusion is even a step further than those who claim that Planned Parenthood sells “baby body parts.” Yeah they saw a video that fakes that but, videos of cheering Muslims in Jersey City? Those play only in the minds of Republicans. It’s easy to see them when you live in Republican World. To quote Trump-
“I’ve had hundreds of phone calls to the Trump organization saying
‘We saw it.’”
These are the things you see if your mind lives in Republican World. That old emperors new clothes story has taken hold in the asylum that is Republican World.

Previously, Republicans have spoken in code, using phrases like “state’s rights” when they mean segregation or when they think gay people should remain second class citizens without the right to marry or even hold onto a job.

Much of the corrupt corporate media will make out the attacks by other candidates as coming either because Trump was in the way or because of the disgusting ideas he puts forward. This is not the case. Republicans spoke of deporting 11,000,000 Latinos long before Trump began his candidacy. Republicans fully expressed their hate for all Muslims long ago, just as they do now. Remember their campaign against a Muslim center that would have been a few blocks from the World Trade Center?

What bothers Reince Priebus and the money goons that make up the Republican establishment is, like I said, not what Trump says but how he says it. Trump is not a professional politician. He lacks the ability to put a veneer on everything. He’s a blunderbuss. He has ripped the curtain away so that so many who couldn’t see what being a Republican is all about can now see. In doing so, he has ripped a scab off of our country and it is bleeding.

White Supremacy groups are so emboldened by Trump that they are openly endorsing him. August Kreis III, a former Aryan Nation and KKK leader, now serving 50 years for child molestation told the jury at his trial to vote for Trump. Former Grand Wizard David Duke says that Trump has given supremacists the cover to speak out loud about white nationalism. Stormfront, the leading white supremacist website, is now upgrading its servers in order to deal with a Trump-caused spike in traffic. Stormfront founder, Don Black, is reporting additional listeners and call-ins to his radio show and says-
“He’s certainly creating a movement that will continue independently
of him even if he does fold at some point.”
Remember Craig Cobb, the man who, back in 2013, tried and failed to turn Leith, North Dakota into a whites-only town? He’s trying again. This time he’s trying to buy the town of Antler, North Dakota. He plans to name his town after, you guessed it, Donald Trump.

This kind of thing is something those who run the party like to keep in the shadows but it’s out in the sunlight now. Sure, Nixon used the KKK for canvassing and get out the vote drives, but, they left their hoods at home. It’s interesting to note that some of the Republican establishment’s half-hearted attacks on Trump are, ostensibly, because of his pronouncements and treatments of Latinos, whether in groups or just individuals such as Univision reporter Jorge Ramos who was not only ejected from a Klan, er, Trump rally but told to “go back to your country”; never mind that Jorge Ramos is a citizen of the United States of America.

Even with their other Republican traits, two men in the Republican Party who have had the courage to call Trump crazy and dangerous, such as Ohio Governor John Kasich or South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, have been all but laughed out of their party. They are not welcome. Any attacks on Trump coming from the Republican establishment have nothing to do with sympathy or compassion for Latinos. No, the attacks are coming because they know that Trump is alienating the few potential Latino voters that the party has left, and, the party knows that it has no hope of ever again winning the White House with out at least a significant number of votes from the Latino communities across the country. Bush got as many as 40%. That is out the window: gone with the wind.

You certainly don’t see or hear any Republican attacks from the republican establishment on Sen. Cruz, FOX “News” host Huckabee, Gov. Bobby Jindal (now, thankfully, gone from the race) for their recent appearance with Pastor Kevin Swanson who is most known for his crusading to round up homosexuals and execute them. Trump, thankfully, has not endorsed that idea, yet, but, if he did, or does, will the republican establishment condemn not only him but Cruz, Huckabee, Jindal, and various Republican members of Congress who subscribe to the beliefs of Swanson and other religious extremists? The same party members and their media mouthpieces spread fears of a Sharia Law takeover. Who needs Sharia Law when we already have its proposed American equivalent?

Condemn Trump. No. The Republican Party knows who its voters are. They have courted them for years. The Republican Party may single out Trump not because of his disgusting stances, which they basically agree with, but because they fear he will cost them down ticket votes. It’s cold-blooded politics, nothing else. They’re already talking about a brokered convention as a way around Trump the man, but not his positions.

The Republican Party higher ups would much rather have Rafael “Ted” Cruz at the top of their ticket come November 2016. Cruz is smarter. He is a Washington insider and yet, he still has a strong following among the racists, bigots, and conspiracy nuts, to go along with the corporate master types.

In the minds of the Republican establishment, once Trump is out of the way, the more sneaky, more subtle, and more palatable Cruz will gain the allegiance of Trump’s followers. In this sense, Trump is merely a stalking horse for Cruz, or, perhaps any one of the vast assortment of loons that inhabit the Republican debates. It could even be long shot John Ellis “Jeb” Bush. After all, Bush has a proven record of denying minorities their right to even vote that goes back to the so-called election of his brother in 2000. In today’s Republican Party, that’s about as good as it gets. Whomever they end up with, Trump has only been the warm-up act and, sometimes, the warm-up act gets booed off stage. Even Mittens Romney lurks in the shadows.

Thanks to Donald Trump, the Republican Party can no longer hide in plain sight.

The Republican Party can drive a wedge between itself and Donald Trump, but they can’t drive a wedge between their beliefs and Donald Trump. It’s who they are.


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1 Comments:

At 7:34 PM, Anonymous Michael Simmons said...

Few have put all the facts together as cogently as you have, Noah -- thanks. It's occurred to me that I overdosed the night Reagan was elected President in November 1980 and went to hell.

 

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