June 23, 2018 By: El Jefe Category: 2020 Election, Trump
Yesterday, there was another defection of a major conservative from the Republican Party. In a speech before the Federalist Society on Friday, George Will announced that he left the Republican Party and that he was urging other conservatives to defeat Trump and to “grit their teeth” for the four years after 2020. You know it’s bad when George Will jumps ship.
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Republican Party, (January, 1854-~January,2017.)
As a supporter of a healthy, vibrant two-party system in the USofA, I lament the murder of the Republican Party, and the ascension of the Donald Trump Cult in its place.
The list of suspects is a long one. Certainly Donald Trump is one. But don’t forget the Tea Party movement or Grover Norquist or Sarah Palin or John Boehner or Newt Gingrich or Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan. And Ronald Reagan. And the Koch brothers and Warren Stephens and Sheldon Adelson and Geoff Palmer and Steve Wynn and Paul Singer and Harold Simmons and Peter Thiel and Robert Mercer. And the list of immoral selfish greedy Republican-centric billionaires could go on. And on. But you see my point.
1None of these people will admit to having built the monster. The Republican Party and the anti-tax rhetoric that has divided the nation was built by George Will, Steve Schmidt, and all the others who are now being threatened by the monster they created. Mary Shelley redux.
2Born as “the Party of Lincoln”. Died as “the Party of Trump.” That is as sad as seeing a respected acquaintance falling ill of cancer.
3@Don A in Pennsyltucky
Y’know my thinking somehow didn’t get around to including the long list of conservative talking heads that sought to move the country from firmly middle of the road, although right leaning, to a firmly right position with no lean toward the middle.
So to add to my previous list, think Rush Limbaugh, Fox News/Rupert Murdoch, Gordon Liddy, and all the rest in conservative media.
4I think it’s hilarious that George Effing Will thinks the rubes who voted for the Orange Moron know, much less care, what he thinks. He’s been wrong about everything from the beginning and an arrogant buffoon the whole time, too.
I’m not holding my breath waiting for a “mea culpa” from that guy or any of the other Rethugs who are solely to blame for the mess we are in.
5he was happy to support reagan the azheimer liar, and bush43 lies about the war in iraq. too freaking little too freaking late. the thing that please me most is that he claims to be christian. how is he going to explain all this to zombie jeebus???? maybe sarah almira gantry huckabee sanders will help
6My early memories of the Repuglican Party are of “dirty tricks” and impeachment, and lies about Vietnam, so I can’t really agree that the Repugs have ever been “healthy” or “vibrant”.
7The greed and cruelty towards minorities have always been there and now we’re seeing the end game under Dump.
This is where those political theories got us: chaos. Hasta la vista Repugs.
Are we better off now than during President Obama’s administration? Heck no! Trade wars, losing allies, child kidnapping, invaded by foreign agents, environmental disasters.
the monster they created. Mary Shelley redux.
Fascinating that all these policy wonks, life long politicians, well (over or miss) educated people fail to understand that revolutions always eat their children and founders.
Maybe Eric Hofer and Arthur Koestler should be on their reading lists.
8@maryelle:
My earliest memories of the GOPs are of fiscal and social conservatives. The kind that didn’t want social welfare, but did charity work in their communities. The kind that were raised in a racist society but weren’t afraid of getting past it. The kind that allowed people to prove their worth and keep it. The kind that allowed me to be nurtured and grown to reject fear of people that don’t look like myself.
45’s @$$monkeys aren’t like that…
9History repeats itself, be it the French Revolution and la guillotine, The Romanovs or name the dictator & bunker. These recent “change of heart” defections are less “heart” and more the result of their reptilian brains kicking in their survival instincts. They ‘ran the ship into the ground’ and want us to conflate their flight with change. Tricky little word masters they think themselves to be, I don’t wish them luck. I didn’t believe Nicolle Wallace’s magic transformation. I don’t believe in parthenogenesis for Elise Jordan. So no, whatever magic miracle George Will is now attempting to sell, he needs to be there. Be “there” be the White House lawn, Mar-a-blow-hole, or wherever the pitchforks prevail.
10OK … forgiveness and all that. Maybe after a few sincere mea culpa to the long list of things about which they were wrong. Perhaps not a “I was wrong” to every item on the list, but enough times to be convincing they won’t retreat to their old patterns once Orange Foolius is gone.
11Sorry, George. This is the monster you helped create and nurture—until it turned on you—and now you, and others like you, want to disown it. No such luck, fella. Donald Trump is yours. If you want him gone, convince your fellow Republicans in Congress to do their duty. Impeach Trump and convict him, and then maybe we can talk.
12Yeah, I heard about him jilting the party. Its a good sound bite but after all these pecksniffian years, I would be shocked out of my Keds to see this guy actually lead in one way or another a breakaway faction of the party. What bugged him the most into the defection was the very good probability that he would also be referred to in future as an “invertebrate”, what he recently called the party. Self survival is his motto. Now he can recede into his shaded study and maybe write a book or two but mostly molt.
13Sure, George Will is unfashionably late to the party. Extremely late. But if he works at keeping Trump out of the White House in 2020, I for one will be curious to read his future commentaries. His newspaper column is still widely read and might affect the leanings of moderate-right voters, although it will be interesting to see how many editors pull him and offer Tomi Lehren another platform for her blond Republican hair style.
14Nobody on the right was listening to him, anyway.
George, if you really want to do some good, tell us how best to attack the beast you helped create.
15😀 The rabble is becoming rowdy. Mikey Dense being booed before a performance of “Hamilton” was a beginning. Kirstjen Nielsen being unwelcome at a restaurant a couple night ago followed by Sarah Chuck-a-Load Sanders unwelcome at a restaurant last night is progress. There is a solution for them, one of their own making. Remember when this maladministration wanted to replace SNAP with boxes delivered to the door? Bingo. Let them subscribe to a food service to cook at home delivered to their doors. There. Problem solved. Spend more time with the kids, Sarah. More problems? No worries. There are more of your ‘solutions’ to bite you personally in the posterior. Next!
PS Sarah – thoughts and prayers with all the warmth Stephen Miller and Corey Lewandowsky can generate.
16I wish I could believe in Will’s high-mindedness, but his son Jonathan was born with Down Syndrome. It was probably Cory Lewandowski’s mocking of another such child that pushed him over the edge. The viciousness of the Trumpites finally reached him personally, that’s all.
17Y’all should actually read what George Will said; I’m not sure you did. The reason he wants the Dems to take over Congress is that the GOP that’s there now won’t take back the powers that the Constitution gives to the Legislative branch which the Executive branch has taken over in recent decades. He still thinks the Dems are “deplorable,” and would be equally supine before a Dem president, but they’ll put up enough opposition to a GOP president to establish that we do indeed have three functioning branches of government, which we don’t have now. He’s also sure that the GOP remaining in Congress will be enough to keep the Dems from achieving any real Dem goals. He hasn’t gone blue and isn’t about to do so. He’s even willing to give up some judges for the sake of a real Legislature again.
18Direct link to Will’s column:
19https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/vote-against-the-gop-this-november/2018/06/22/a6378306-7575-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html
Rhea, after re-reading the Will article. Just for you, honest. Came away thinking Will to be more convoluted and insidious than after the first reading. My dilemma being which of Will’s points to address. Conservative control of the courts? Conservative return to Reaganomics? Or, maybe the overall error in his premise – that snacilbupeR can ever again be trusted to govern – in Will’s *if only* proposition that they be voted out to teach them a lesson. Wake up George, they refuse to learn just as you do.
So Rhea, please throw me a life line. From where I sit ‘traditional’ Rs like Will and Ryan are ready to repeat all the mistakes of the past Republicans, while their crazy caucus are prepared to repeat all the mistakes of totalitarians in history.
Neither option is appealing to me. My solution is to send more Democrats to Congress to work with Senator Harris (CA), Cortez-Masto (NV) and Rep Wilson (FL) to actually govern and, if he’s still there, deliver the needed checks & balances to Dotard45. My main rant with Heller (R-NV) was giving Donnie every dimwit he nominated to destroy every government dept. & agency.
20I can never forget how truly hateful they were to President Obama, blatantly, openly hateful. And it was based in racism right down to their lily white toes. karma has come home to roost.
21@ maryelle #21:
It wasn’t just Obama: Check this out about how badly the Minnesota GOP treated *their own chairwoman* because she was born Korean:
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/outgoing-minnesota-gop-chairwoman-claims-subjected-slurs-dragon-lady-chnk-party-officials-execs/
22The only thing I have to say to George Will, David Brock, Steve Schmidt [who brought us Sarah Palin] et al. is, “What the hell took you so long? You were part and parcel of the descent and NOW you complain?
Guess what this is: {==}—-= Yep, it’s the world’s tiniest violin — and it’s playing just for you.
23Jane & PKM, I’m not saying I agree with Will. I was just pointing out that his saying “Vote against GOP control of Congress” doesn’t mean he’s gone over to the Dems and wants blue goals to succeed. He just wants opposition to Trump (or anyone) as tyrannical executive, and figures the Dems are a better bet than the spineless GOP for that, since they will oppose the nominal GOP currently in the WH.
As true blue as I am, I’d like to have a functioning GOP too, just as a brake on runaway Dem tendencies. Speaking now of sensible moderate Republicans, of the Lowell Weicker sort, who aren’t knee-jerk in their opposition to everything Dems propose and don’t get their marching orders from rich Kochs or hypocritical Bible-thumpers, and who are rational about science. My husband and I have noticed that it’s a good idea if we don’t have the same obsessive fandoms or hobbies at the same time, so there’s someone with a hand on the budget who can say, “You want to spend how much on what?” Same thing goes with Congress– you need a reasonable opposition. We haven’t had that in some years, and it’s getting worse instead of better. I don’t know what to suggest.
24Rhea, understood and thank you. Doubt that I am stating this clearly, but I would agree with you that many if not most of us who trend Democrat are the true fiscal conservatives. Was it Frank Luntz or before him in the Reagan years that economic discussion became so entangled? Somewhere along the line erroneous phrases like “tax & spend liberal” were thrown into the mire along with Reagan’s infamous Cadillac welfare queen that morphed into tri-state welfare queen.
Just a thought here. Believe me, I know I could be wrong because I don’t always trust the numbers available for comparison. That makes it difficult to have discussions, if the numbers have been adjusted for some policy or otherwise manipulated. But here goes. Has the GOP tracked so far right that they are irrelevant? Thus for two actual parties of thinking folks representing centrists and small d democracy would need to come from the two fractures of the current Democratic Party? Basically to reacquire a center line or balance post Reagan to now would require a significant shift left. Maybe even hard left to reach center.
25Just random thoughts whirling around my brain at the beginning of a whole weekful of opportunities for the republicans to further not running the ship of state into the ground, but rather scuttling it over the Mariana Trench. Sarah Hawk a Lie should count herself fortunate that she was “politely” (to use HER word) asked to leave that restaurant: she could have been chased out by protesters. This way, at least HER children were not traumatized. And last, and I admit I didn’t fact check this, but Gorsuch has reportedly expressed the rather megalomaniac notion that he can remove the Fourth Amendment. I don’t think he’s thinking it through, there’s a lot of Deplorables who really don’t want to have all their stuff tossed out on the front lawn. Maybe they would be exempt.
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