Conservative WaPo Columnist Mourns Death of Republican Party

[bigtree]

The GOP died this weekend
by Jennifer Rubin

Those Republicans mortified by the presidential nomination of Donald Trump have been pondering a series of questions over the past few months:

Have Republicans put party above country in backing Trump?
Can the GOP survive Trump?
Should the center-right let bygones be bygones after the election?

The answers have become clear over the past few days. Trump’s campaign put out an egregiously false statement on Thursday claiming Trump “ended” the birther controversy in 2011 and blaming Hillary Clinton for starting the racist smear. Trump, without explanation or apology, on Friday announced the president was in fact born in the United States. A series of surrogates, including Kellyanne Conway, Gov. Chris Christie and vice presidential nominee Mike Pence, fanned out on Sunday to double down on the lies, reiterating this was all Clinton’s fault and insisting, despite Trump’s multiple utterances since 2011, that he had not fanned the racist fires and built his political image on birtherism.

— it is hard to seriously argue that a man who would lead a racist conspiracy theory and then try to blame his opponent is fit to be president. Trump, like a small child caught misbehaving, simply denies the evidence or blames someone else or lashes out in anger. (He also this weekend called former defense secretary Robert Gates a “clown” in response to Gates’s well-reasoned argument that Trump is unfit to serve as commander in chief.) Again and again he’s proven his views so extreme (e.g., rounding up 11 million people), his judgement so egregious (e.g., embracing Vladimir Putin) and his character so twisted that only someone in deep denial or blinded by partisanship could defend him and insist he is worthy of the office.

As for the fate of the GOP, the evidence mounts that it cannot go merrily on its way after the election. A party that would sanction people who call out a racist deserves to go out of business. A party whose congressional leaders remain supportive of a nominee who incites violence, perpetuates racism, blatantly, and traffics in conspiracy theories loses the moral authority to govern.


read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/09/19/the-gop-died-this-weekend/?postshare=5691474294890437&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.9f35849cbb65

[riversedge]

1. it is hard to seriously argue that a man who would lead a racist conspiracy theory and then try to

... it is hard to seriously argue that a man who would lead a racist conspiracy theory and then try to blame his opponent is fit to be president.......................

[Iliyah]

2. GOP were dying years ago.

[get the red out]

3. I won't believe it has lost any power

Until they drive a stake into its Zombie heart.

[trusty elf]

11. .....

[img][/img]

[salin]

4. the comments section on that one is very active - and rather interesting.

eom.

[KG]

5. as if.

[Missn-Hitch]

6. Just a like a church sign in Indiana says,

Vote Pro-Life.

Yes, they don't like the orange menace but they sure do like the platform. Effing idiots. Are they not about to die of natural causes within the next 10 years or so?

[Jade Fox]

7. Good article. But the only reason the GOP hasn't died already.....

is that they keep being buoyed up by mid-term, low voter turn out elections, where the voters are mostly conservative, IMO.

Years of courting the Tea Party, and now the Alt Right, have backfired on the GOP. We are now witnessing the failure of the GOP to protect their own Party from a Narcissistic Monster like Trump.

[hibbing]

8. This again? not hardly

Look at all the statehouses the party controls, let alone congress.


Peace

[electron_blue]

9. No, it's not dead. It's just full-on racist/sexist

It's become more racist and sexist for decades. Now it's just full tilt It's still there, though. Republican. Nobody changed their name or pocketbooks.

[kentuck]

10. The Wise and Foolish Builders

Matthew 7:24-27

24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

[malaise]

12. Now make them stay dead

[MynameisBlarney]

13. I guess Jennifer Rubin never noticed

the GOTP putting party before country waaaaaay back in 2000.

[bigtree]

16. Rubin has been working for years to legitimize republican bigotry

...de-legitimize the Obama presidency.

[geek tragedy]

14. The Republican party has been a white nationalist party for 40 years.

The only thing that's changed is that it's no longer trying to hide the fact.

The actual Republican party is not dying, it's getting stronger as it consolidates all of the dumbfuck racist trash behind it--and there's a lot of dumbfuck racist trash in this country.

What is dying is the myth that the GOP is the "party of Lincoln" that believes in liberty and equality.

[bigtree]

15. well that's just it, isn't it?

...Rubin is mourning the fact that the veil is off of their pig party; bummed that they can't continue their right-wing kabuki dance, sophistry of GWB's 'kinder gentler' republican party, like JEB tried to engineer earlier in the campaign.

They've been trying to put this one over for years. Trump gave their game away.

[geek tragedy]

17. I think Jack Kemp was the last one who legitimately gave a crap

His ideas were dog poop, but he actually believed they would help.

The rest of them have been nothing but sub rosa white nationalists or at the very least their enablers.

The "Never Trump" Republicans don't dislike him for his racism or authoritarianism, they dislike him because they think he's too 'liberal'

Phuckemall.

[citizen blues]

18. Not only wounded, but Reince drove another knife in

by threatening anyone who refuses to get on board with Trump. That was the stupidest thing he could have done.

[Oldem]

19. It's best to remember that Rubin is Conservative.

She's singing the blues. The repugs aren't dead b/c
a. they could still hold the House and Senate,
b. they still tell big lies, and the American public has shown no evidence of catching on about Clinton "scandals" and trickle-down economics--just to name a couple of their most successful big lies.

Otoh, she's dead right that many repugs have put party above country, Paul Ryan and John McCain chief among them. If there were any justice, these two would have already forfeited their right to lead. (Not to mention the likes of King, Gohmert, Gowdy, Chaffetz, and Kingston.) But that kind of justice doesn't exist--or prevail, at least. If Rubin is really talking about the center-right party (and that's hard to believe) she might be right, at least in the short run. But the repug party hasn't been center right for many years. It's now run by people like the above. It's hard to exterminate some pests.

[bigtree]

20. she's trying to engineer a new facade for the party

...a new vehicle for their clown car after Trump crashes their classic model, complete with it's own contradictions and prevarications.

Trouble for Rubin is, Trump still has 50 days to completely destroy any pretense the republican party stands for anything remotely in the interest of anyone beyond their sweet selves.

[Oldem]

22. Also a valid possibility.

By bewailing the death of the Panned Cold Farty, she could be hoping to gin up the base of a party that no longer exists. To paraphrase Bill C., it depends on what the definition of "death" is.

[tanyev]

21. Not so much dead, as the party elites have finally realized they've been co-opted--

by the people they thought they were manipulating.

[Skittles]

23. here's a clue:

YOU SUCKED BEFORE TRUMP, TOO

[kwassa]

24. Does this make Trump undead? A zombie?