Are the last rational Republicans in denial?

[Celerity]

The current GOP is beyond rescue. I wonder if the remaining sensible Republicans have accepted the irretrievable loss of the GOP they once knew.

By Tom Nichols

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/07/are-the-last-rational-republicans-in-denial/661503/



Harsher Truths

In 1991, the last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, was briefly deposed in a coup by hard-line members of the Soviet Communist Party. Gorbachev, upon his return to Moscow, tried to differentiate between the plotters and the Party itself. One of his closest advisers, Aleksandr Yakovlev, told him that this effort was pointless, akin to “serving tea to a corpse.”

Republicans such as Senator Mitt Romney—an honorable man for whom I voted in 2012—and a handful of others in the GOP, including Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, should take note of Yakovlev’s phrase. Over the weekend, The Atlantic published a plea from Senator Romney for Americans “across the political spectrum” to stop ignoring “potentially cataclysmic threats.” The senator from Utah is right to be worried about the detachment of so many Americans. But Romney, Cheney, and Kinzinger cannot rescue their party, either—at least not in its current form.

In fact, I wonder if the Republicans can ever return to being the kind of party that once nominated someone like Mitt Romney for the American presidency. I say this not because of Donald Trump, nor as the apostate Republican I am. (The last straw for me was not Trump’s election, which I regarded as a fluke, but when Susan Collins lectured America on the jurisprudence of Brett Kavanaugh.) Likewise, I say this not because I disagree with the Republicans on many policy issues; I do, but as a New England Republican who identified with (and worked for) moderates of a bygone era, I have always had differences with the hard-right social conservatives. Rather, I say this because millions of Republicans seem to have irreversibly lost touch with reality itself. Senator Romney, for his part, seems to share this concern, but he softens this criticism of his own side with some examples from around the political landscape:



But as the old song from Sesame Street goes: One of these things is not like the other. Unfounded optimism about droughts or recessions is one thing; it’s another thing entirely to embrace the idea that an insurrection and an attack on the Capitol was conducted by agents of the United States government itself. At least the false-flag assertions fall within what we might call an ordinary—normal, even?—range of conspiracy theories. Other Republicans have blown past such pedestrian crackpottery and now have escaped the last tendrils of Earth’s gravity.

snip

[SoCalDavidS]

1. Most Of Them Will Remain repub

Their #1 belief is in Owning The Libs.

The majority, will still support whomever is the nominee. Even if they hate them. Because they hate the Democrats more.

[MyOwnPeace]

3. Absolutely.........

It truly is a 'cut off your nose to spite your face' situation - NOTHING matters, they'll GIVE it ALL away - just to
"OWN THE LIBS!"

[mobeau69]

2. This is a great piece! Thanks for posting, Celerity.

I don’t know whether to LMAO or tremble with fear for our future.

[Solly Mack]

4. Is denial rational?

Yeah, yeah, it's a defense mechanism but to deny facts, to deny the truth...not very rational.

[Bev54]

5. rational republican sounds like an oxymoron