MoJones: How Republican Elite Created Frankentrump (exploiting hate, anger, fear, paranoia)

[blm]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/how-gop-elite-set-stage-for-donald-trump

To rouse its voters, the GOP exploited hate, anger, and paranoia—and set the stage for the tycoon.

By David Corn | Thu Feb. 25, 2016 6:00 AM EST


How the Republican elite created Frankentrump

After Donald Trump's third win in a row, pundits and political observers are beginning to accept a stark reality: This guy may become the Republican Party standard bearer in the 2016 presidential election. (The morning after the bigoted, bullying tycoon triumphed in the Nevada caucuses, the Drudge Report splashed a headline simply declaring, "The Nominee," below a photo of Trump.) And tweeters, scribes, and analysts throughout the political-media world began wondering if the GOP elite could do anything to stop him from seizing control of the Republican Party. Whether possible or not to de-Trumpify the GOP at this point, Republican insiders, pooh-bahs, and bigwigs only have themselves to blame for Frankentrump. In recent years, they have fomented, fostered, accepted, and exploited the climate of hate in which Trump's candidacy has taken root. For the fat-cat donors, special-interest lobbyists, and elected officials who usually run the Republican show, Trump is an invasive species. But he has grown large and strong in the manure they have spread across the political landscape.

A short history of GOP-approved hate could begin with the 2008 campaign. After Sen. John McCain selected little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, there was an explosion of right-wing loathing. Palin led this angry crusade of animosity. She accused then-Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, of "palling around with terrorists" [1] and pushing socialism [2]. She suggested [3] that only certain areas of the United States were "pro-America." (She had to apologize for that.) It was all part of a mean-spirited attempt to delegitimize Obama and his supporters. At McCain-Palin rallies, the atmosphere was ugly. Supporters of the Republican ticket wore T-shirts and carried signs branding Obama a communist. Some shouted [4] "kill him" or "off with his head." Little of this was discouraged. At a town hall meeting in Minnesota [5], one woman told McCain that Obama was an "Arab." When McCain, to his credit, replied that this was not so, others in the audience shouted "terrorist" and "liar," referring to Obama. McCain noted that he respected Obama and admired his accomplishments, and the crowd booed him. The hatred that Palin had helped to unleash was too much for McCain to tamp down.

And it only intensified once Obama took office. Of course, much of this was fueled by the conservative provocateurs and windbags, led by Rush Limbaugh and the like. But elected Republican officials and leading GOPers, who had adopted a political strategy of never-ending obstructionism [6] to thwart Obama, often enabled the hate. While delivering a speech to a joint session of Congress in 2009, Obama was heckled [7] by Rep. Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican who shouted, "You lie." Wilson apologized, but following his outburst, he received a surge of campaign contributions and went on to win handily his next election. Meanwhile, a dozen or so GOP members of Congress were pushing birtherism [8]—the notion that Obama had been born in Kenya, not Hawaii, and was some sort of usurper of the presidency. This conspiracy theory seemed tinged with racism, despite the denials of birthers, and ran parallel to other right-wing claims that Obama was a secret Muslim or a secret socialist or both. The big point was obvious: He wasn't a real American, he had achieved power through furtive means, he had a clandestine agenda, and Obama hatred was fully warranted.

Top Republicans played footsie with all this…...

[lasttrip]

1. good read, and good for them.

Thanks for the post blm.
Peace.
LT

[Solly Mack]

2. There was never a time in my political memory that the GOP didn't use fear and hate

and, yes, Trump is the living, breathing creation sculpted from the bigotry-infused clay of Republican minds.

The only difference between a so-called "establishment republican" and Trump is the former expresses hate using code words, while the latter skips the fancy dress.

[blm]

3. Bingo!

.