Today, many conservative political pundits and establishment Republicans recoil in disbelief as two of the Party’s worst of the worse candidates in terms of intolerance emerge as its Presidential frontrunners. In August the pundits and politicos smugly scorned that Trump would be history by September. But they couldn’t get enough of him. Whenever Trump opened his mouth the media fell all over itself to cover every syllable spoken.
Many of us regular guys and gals laughed at Trump’s outrageous comments because they are so absurd, though some have a ring of truth to them. I will admit I laughed out loud when Trump trumpeted Rick Perry’s willful ignorance and the rationale for the former Governor’s need to take an IQ test. Trump played the same tune about Jeb Bush’s lack of energy.
All of a sudden it is November. Trump continues to gain traction. Trump TV rocks on the cable TV news channels.
Fast forward to January. The holidays are over. It’s time to get serious.
Few among us are laughing anymore. The pundits and politicos are running on empty fumes in their helpless search for answers. How did the Donald get this far? Some journalists pointed fingers at themselves. We created this monster!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the cable TV news industry sold its soul to Trump TV. Tune into Fox, CNN or MSNBC. Voila! Trump is on every screen. Saying much about nothing of substance. But hey. Ratings and ad buys are blowing off of the charts in the world of the corporate mainstream media. Money rolls in to pay for and promote the ad buying narratives.
Well, folks it is now April and guess who is the GOP’s front-running devil?
Who knew?
Trump readily booted prominent Republicans such as Jeb Bush, Rick Perry (prominent in terms of crooked buffoonery), Chris Christi, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Scott Walker out of the race. Only Ted Cruz, a right wing extremist and religious fundamentalist still stands. Ted Cruz is also among the most deplored Republicans nationwide. This is especially true in New York City where Cruz trashed NYC values.
New York, tough and resilient, hit back. Hard.
Snake oil dealing Cruz cancelled a speaking engagement at a school in the Bronx because the students wanted nothing to do with a bigot. They revolted. “His views are against ours” they said.
Indeed they are. Cruz’s views are against those held by the majority of us. You see, Cruz won the election in Texas in 2012 because only a tiny handful of voters showed up to vote in a late May primary. Most of the Cruz voters belong to the GOP’s tea party wacko wing. The other Republican voters took a nap or went on vacation.
Smart students matter. It is no small wonder why Texas ranks at the bottom of the national pile in education. The former slave states know how to maintain certain forms of slavery, alienation and ignorance in order to keep the powerful in power.
So, how did the Republican Party end up with candidates who can easily be described as a fringe fascist and a not so borderline Christo-fascist?
Last week in one of my blog posts I had discovered an article written by a reporter for The Guardian. He exhaustively dissected how Trump became the GOP’s front runner. The author reminded us of the Republican Party’s long history of dog whistling racism.
American Crossroads: Reagan, Trump and the devil down south.
How the Republican party’s dog-whistle appeal to racism, refined by Richard Nixon and perfected by Ronald Reagan, led inexorably to Donald Trump.
Please follow me below the fold to re-discover U.S. political history since 1948. My blog post last week did not get much attention, at least here. I believe the information is crucially important enough to share it again.
We need a deep understanding of the Republican devil before we can fight and render it irrelevant.
The article is a sobering and fascinating description of how the Republican Party evolved to the cynical and corrupted disgrace it is today.
One of our community’s members, RETIII, posted the following comment.
Your post sets forth what I think is the worst, undiscussed thing in modern politics: the Republican party has become the neo-Confederate party.
When I talk to Republican friends in my North-East, I always cut to the chase: I am not voting for the “Mississippi Model,” are you? I am not voting for the party of Alabama, are you? NE and coastal Republicans are flat-footed by their denial about this basic fact. They start sputtering about Rudy Giuliani or George Pataki — two candidates who couldn't even get a courtesy vote in the modern, Southern dominated Republican party.
As far as the Republican party is concerned, we have moved beyond the (obscure) “Southern Strategy” to the (unacknowledged) “Mission Accomplished.” Look at an electoral map . . . it looks pretty damn close to the Confederacy vs. the Union. Follow recent events — government shutdowns, debt defaults, permanent filibusters and Supreme Court blockades — are the new (yet old) nullification and secession battles.
One day — in order to become its best — this country will have to openly acknowledge, and decisively, beat the destructive ideology of the South
Let us remember how we got to this very ugly place in our history. Knowledge is power.
Read More