Going Against the Republican Herd

[applegrove]

Peter Wehner at the NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/21/opinion/sunday/republican-party-bannon-ethnonationalism.html?emc=edit_th_20171022&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=43075556

"SNIP..........

But the reasons for the rise of Mr. Trump lie still deeper than that. There is a nihilistic strain coursing through the veins of a significant number of people on the American right. They delight in Mr. Trump’s effort to annihilate truth and peddle conspiracy theories, and they draw energy and purpose from the unsettling effect he has on the nation as a whole. For them, Mr. Trump is a “fighter,” and politics needs to be weaponized in order to be enjoyed. They see politics as World Wrestling Entertainment, and Mr. Trump as the best wrestler in the ring.

As a result, they are bending their will to his ways, seeing the world as he does. Take just one example that continues to startle: Russia. It wasn’t long ago that Republicans were nearly unanimous in their critical outlook on Russia. But today, because of Mr. Trump’s repeated praise for President Vladimir Putin, Republican attitudes toward Russia are far more favorable. A Pew Research Center poll found that the share of Republicans expressing confidence in Mr. Putin has doubled in just two years (from 17 to 34 percent).

Republicans, then, are faced with an existential question. Will Mr. Trump and his most ardent supporters succeed in their effort to reconceive the party? Can they be stopped? Certainly, if they don’t encounter more spirited resistance than they have so far, they may well pull it off.

.........

In the short term, there may well be a cost to challenging the ethnonationalist wing of the Republican Party. But while the leaders of this wing are politically formidable, they are hardly invincible. Their record at backing successful insurgents is not very impressive, with Roy Moore in Alabama being a rare exception. In fact, according to some reports, Mr. Bannon is now backing candidates supported by the “establishment” he declared war on, probably in part so that he can claim victories to make himself appear more powerful than he is, and in part because his bench is thin. And whatever else we say about him, President Trump is hardly a model for most Republicans running for office.


...........SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. The old Republican coalition is based in part on dog whistle racism. They are boxed in. And they

did it themselves what with citizen's united and gerrymandering.

[ProudLib72]

2. But the crazies just don't seem to work

Look at how many have been pushed out of the administration so far. Is it backlash from traditional GOPers, or is it recognizing that crazy may be popular but does not equate to good governance? I don't know how long they can keep up the charade when there is such high turnover and they yield such pitiful results during their short tenure.