How the Republican Elite Created Frankentrump - David Corn

[flamingdem]

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

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" and pushing socialism. She suggested 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 "kill him" or "off with his head." Little of this was discouraged. At a town hall meeting in Minnesota, 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 to thwart Obama, often enabled the hate. While delivering a speech to a joint session of Congress in 2009, Obama was heckled 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—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. In the fall of 2009, then-Rep. Michele Bachmann called for a Capitol Hill rally to protest Obamacare. Several thousand people showed up. Protesters questioned Obama's citizenship, depicted him as Sambo, or called him a traitor. Referring to Obamacare, the crowd shouted, "Nazis! Nazis!" The atmosphere was full of animus. And here's the thing: The entire House Republican leadership, led by Rep. John Boehner, was there. Boehner did not admonish the crowd for its excessive rhetoric. In fact, he joined in, declaring Obamacare the "greatest threat to freedom I have seen." Clearly, he and his lieutenants believed the hate-driven energy of these activists and voters could fuel the Republicans' bid to take control of the House. So the more red meat, the merrier. Republicans fed the paranoia, claiming Obamacare would bring about "death panels" and ruin the country (as would Obama's stimulus bill, his climate change bill, his budget, and almost every other initiative he advanced). In March 2010, after another Capitol Hill rally headlined by Bachmann, tea partiers reportedly hurled racial epithets at members of the Congressional Black Caucus and shouted anti-gay chants at then-Rep. Barney Frank. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said one of the protesters had spit at him.

[rhett o rick]

1. Thanks, great post. The Republicons are idiot pawns of the Oligarchy. The Oligarchy loves the

mess in the Republicon Party. They can then run their favorite candidate Clinton and we will have no choice. Since the Democratic Party Leadership has been bought by the Oligarchy, we have a one party system. Either vote for the Oligarchy choice or the clown.

This is what we on the left are fighting. We must retake control of our party from the Conservatives like the Clintons/Goldman-Sachs.

[Takket]

2. wrote a post quite similar to this a while back

can't find it now but basically said the same thing. Trump is the culmination of GOP efforts to use hate and racism to secure their base.... now they are stuck with him.............

[politicaljunkie41910]

3. As much as I agree with this, the McCain campaign did bring Palin in to be the Pitbull whose role

was to attack Obama, while allowing John McCain to remain 'stately' while not getting his hands dirty. Also most of her speeches were written for her by campaign speechwriters, so the campaign also has that stain on their hands for the lack of civility and discourse she contributed to the campaign. McCain just couldn't in good conscious allow it continue in his presence having worked with Obama in the Senate previously and knowing that Senator Obama wasn't the Kenyan muslim palling around with terrorists his campaign presented him as which is why I can't stand the fact that MSNBC has Nicole Wallace on their program all the time now because apparently she can't get a regular job with Fox and Friends.

FTR, my guess is her famous line "about the difference between a hockeymom and a pitbull was probably written for her too. If you've seen how she does during appearances since the campaign, she's not as sharp as she was during the campaign, so I concluded long ago that speechwriters were responsible for those zingers aimed at Obama that the RWers loved so much. Anything she's done since then via her SarahPAC has been scrambled word salad that makes you go WTF did she just say.