Speaking at the Commonwealth Club last week, Rick Wilson made very plain his view that as distasteful as it might be (to him) policywise, the salvation of America lies with the Democrats.
(There is no transcript, so please bear with my paraphrases of the quotes).
Wilson has skin in the game, nay, he has his whole being in the game. If Dems are serious about electing more and better Democrats, they ought to pay attention to him. He is especially and gleefully proud of his role in defeating Roy Moore. After Dems save America (as usual), the self-styled “king of negative ads” will likely go back to trashing Dems (he did not say that; I am just guessing). In the meantime, he is a valuable ally. He is committed to saving America.
The GOP has no excuse for supporting Trump. They knew what Rick Wilson’s friend knew, what everyone who knew Trump understood,
“Trump is not a billionaire; he’s a clown living on credit. Trump has always looked for one scam after another, one mark after another. Unfortunately, this time the mark was the Republican party and the conservative movement.”
We are mistaken if we think Trump wants to roll back only Obama administration policies. Trump wants to be king and “all the works of the past must be torn down.” Case in point; the plan to repudiate the Enemy Forces Treaty, signed by that “noted liberal extremists Kenyan Muslim sleeper agent Ronald Reagan. That has to be torn down now because it is an artifact of the non-Trumpian past.”
The fundamental core values established by the founders are the ground and foundation of nonpartisan/bipartisan cooperation and compromise. Trump seeks to tear this down as well because it is an impediment to his kingship, and his cult is on board with whatever “Dear Leader” wants. Scary and dangerous.
The GOP tripod of social conservatives, foreign policy conservatives and economic/individual liberty conservatives acted as a check and balance preventing any one leg of the tripod gaining ascendancy.
“That’s all gone now. There is only one pillar of the Republican party now and that’s Donald Trump. [The nuance] is all gone now. It’s been replaced by Do you love the Dear Leader enough?… [The Republicans] recognize they are one tweet away from absolute disaster in any given moment. But they are also terrified of his base. They live in abject fear. … I carry a gun now. These people [Trump supporters] are bonkers. They feel unhinged and liberated by Donald Trump. This is the reason for the projection about Democratic “mobs” that you hear. The people calling for blacks to be put back in chattel slavery are not a bunch of Democrats. Trump supporters are political enforcers by threat of violence.”
According to Wilson, they and their families have all received credible death threats if they have ever expressed anything short of 100% support for Trump. Meanwhile, the Trump noise machine loudly maintains it is the left that is threatening violence on a continual basis. Lindsay Graham may have morphed before our very eyes during the Kavanaugh hearings in a desperate attempt to protect his family.
Wilson says there are currently three types of Republicans in Congress. 1) A small number of opportunists like McConnell, 2) A much larger number of frightened Congresspersons “afraid that Trump is going to tweet an attack on them and they will have to live in federal protection for the rest of their life,” and 3) and maybe 40 or 50 true believers in the House and maybe 10 in the Senate.
Wilson predicts that the millennials will not save us, that maybe only 25% of them will vote in this midterm even though nearly all identify with the Dems. He also believes the Dems will fail to gather all the potential Hispanic vote that is well within their reach because Dems think that the driving issue for Hispanics is immigration, when the real driving issue, the issue that Dems have left on the back burner, is education.
“Education is way up here, and the Dems never give them the answers they are looking for. With the Dems, it is always, “You are an oppressed minority and we are going to take care of you.” They care about immigration, but they care about education and jobs more.
I agree with Wilson. About half of my community is Hispanic. The Hispanic community has not waited for politicians to address immigration. They have already taken the lead and put systems in place to educate Hispanic at risk about their rights, and what to do if they encounter ICE. They also have in place an organization dedicated to making sure they have pro-bono lawyers if they are detained, as well as a clearinghouse to meet their housing and other needs. From the Hispanic community point of view, Dems have largely been absent on the issue most dear to them---education, the perceived gateway to full inclusion and assimilation into being an American. In particular, Dems have worked against them on the the one issue that was on the ballot—the elimination of bilingual education which has become a warehouse keeping them from being able to attain the English skills necessary to compete successfully on the SAT. White supremacists unwittingly helped Hispanics get rid of bilingual education in California twenty years ago, and Dems helped bring it back in 2016 under the guise of Spanish immersion lessons for white kids. I wrote about it here and here, and received mostly censure for daring to oppose what is apparently a cement plank of the Dem platform.
Wilson believes that Trump “broke the seal” and created the major inflection point he came out as a nationalist.
Nationalism is not patriotism. Nationalism is not conservatism. Nationalism is not even populism. Nationalism is a gateway drug to authoritarianism and state-ism that leads to people being stacked up like cords of wood in camps. It never ends well... People are going to have to make a call pretty soon and choose a side, either the republic or the dark side.
Wilson analysis of the economy, castigation of the White House staff (with the notable exception of James Mattis) and diatribe against Steve Bannon is worth listening to. Trump “has many masters.” The Russians, Chinese and Saudis all own him. Wilson says he tried to get the MSM to follow the money first during the primary and then during the general, but the press was not interested in a story about a guy who was going to crawl back under his rock after Hillary won the general. In this sense, the press—far from being Trump’s enemy— were complicit in his election.
Republicans are not going to bring him to heel. They have become Trump’s servant’s rather than his master, or even a co-equal peer. It is up to the Democrats. Wilson is not a concern troll. He really wants the Dems to win in order to save the republic. He believes that Dems should nominate someone who can go toe-to-toe with Trump on TV.
“If it’s Bernie or Elizabeth, Trump’s going to be president. I’m telling you right now…. Hillary should raise money, but stay out of the public spotlight. Every time she’s on TV, it reminds (waffling) Trump voters why they voted for him. Dems need someone who is great on TV. That’s where this election is going to be fought. It is not going to be fought in caucuses and policy debates. Dems, don’t feel like the it’s-my-turn person needs to be the person who can fight Trump. … People who voted for Trump did not vote for Trump. They voted for the character Trump played on The Apprentice,” smart, worldly, deal maker, competent, knew good people from bad, billionaire, commanding. They did not realize they were voting for Trump’s script-writer. They did not realize they were voting for a TV character. (Implied: Trump will not have that advantage in 2020).
Actual governing qualifications and ideological purity are a nice plus, but not worth the risk of giving Trump another four years to continue to wrought his worse especially if he and his supporters can claim a real mandate, rather than the false mandate they claim now.
I used to think the GOP could be rescued. I am increasing skeptical that Republicans will do anything but excuse their behavior. The evangelicals have proven they are unbelievably hypocritical. The golden calf in the White House is a demonstrated adulterer a gazillion times over, but we want our Supreme Court justice…. I am not denigrating their religion; I am denigrating their politics.
Wilson’s point is that there is no one to save the GOP, so let it die or kill it, and maybe rebuild a conservative party from the ground up. The evangelicals could have provided a proper foundation, but too many have forfeited their moral authority and the rest are not up to the task. Since the GOP cannot be saved, and contribute to saving America from Trumpism, it’s on the Dems.