What’s on Display in Cleveland? The Republican Id

[elleng]

The triumph of Trump has demonstrated the cost of the devil’s bargain that party elites — and the media — have accepted over the years.

'What is on display at the RNC in Cleveland is the Republican id. We always suspected it would look something like this. But even though it reared its ugly head on occasion on Fox News or in Congress — on the lips of some right-wing preacher or billionaire hedge-fund manager. They would compare gays to Satan, progressive taxation to Naziism and people of color to criminals at best, animals at worst — but the more polite, polished folks who spoke for the party would always regretfully shake their well-coiffed heads and explain that wasn’t what the party was really about.

Well thanks to Donald Trump and his followers, the jig is up. Melania Trump’s plagiarism of Michelle Obama was just about the least offensive thing one heard from the podium on Monday night. The rest was a near orgy of hatred, racism, sexism and ethnocentrism. Rudy Giuliani has always presented himself as an avatar of “law and order.” This has been a conservative mantra for half a century. We always suspected it was code for the suppression of African-Americans and now we know. Ditto all this talk of “Judeo-Christian” values. It’s a code for Islamophobia and oppression. And the attacks on Hillary Clinton sound an awful lot as if they are being spoken by people who simply cannot accept the fact that women have the same rights and capabilities as men. And to their eternal shame, most in the media ran interference for this confidence game, only to be blindsided when Trump demonstrated that it had always been a charade.

Listen to the speeches by the Republican heavyweights who have agreed to take the stage in Cleveland; not one of them has put forth an actual idea that makes sense in terms of how to govern the United States. That’s because governance has long ceased being relevant to the Republican coalition. What holds it together is nothing more than nostalgia for a more oppressive America and resentment toward those who refuse, any longer, to sit on the back of bus.'>>>

http://billmoyers.com/story/whats-display-cleveland-republican-id/

[matt819]

1. Excellent piece

But he falls into the trap of asserting that of course not all republicans are like this. Stop. Just stop.

They are. Kasivb may not be able to stomach trump, but his leadership and policies are no less vile.

They are all like this. I thought Giuliani would start foaming at the mouth. These people are selling for summary executions of Hilary, gays, Muslims. This is who they are. End of story. No wiggle room. As bush was fond of saying, if you're not with us you're against us. The corollary us if you're a republican, this is now who you are: fear mongers, haters, racists, misogynists, islamophobes. You own it now, and we on the left should not concede that not all of them are like that. Scratch the surface and the sulphurous ooze emerges.

[awoke_in_2003]

2. Off to the Greatest...

Trump is just the GOP with the mask removed.