This has been one crazy political week. It has been so tumultuous and, in some ways, so calamitous for the Republican party, that we may be witnessing a fatal rupturing of the GOP.
The week began with Donald Trump disastrously equivocating before making an outright repudiation of the Ku Klux Klan and ended with elements of the Republican establishment declaring war on Trump. In between: on Tuesday, Trump won primary contests in seven more states; on Wednesday, the GOP's 2012 nominee, Mitt Romney, delivered a blistering attack against Trump declaring that he had to be stopped from winning the 2016 nomination; and, on Thursday, the four remaining Republican candidates met in Detroit for what can only be called "the ugliest, dirtiest, meanest, and, at times, most childish presidential debate" in recent history.
There is no question that the GOP establishment is alarmed. Their leading candidate is most certainly not a conservative. In fact, he has taken positions during this campaign that not only violate conservative orthodoxy, many of them also fly in the face of common sense (building a wall and forcing Mexico to pay for it, imposing a 35% tariff on Chinese imports, to name a few). More than that, Trump is an embarrassing vulgarian whose life-style, values, and language offends the sensibilities of the Republican elite. And so, they are panicking. And their panic is compounded by the fact they see no clear path forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment