In The Plum Line Gary Sargent reckons the already-notorious anonymous op-ed piece in the Times is little more than a cover for officials in the White House as well as the GOP’s reputation:
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this internal resistance doesn’t think these other things — the corruption, the bad-faith white-nationalist agenda and the immense human damage it is inflicting, the authoritarian attacks on our institutions — are as damaging to the country, or at least as worthy of sounding the alarm about and acting to constrain, as, say, his trade policies are.
What all this really signals is how those who are currently enabling Trump will try to circumscribe the post-Trump reckoning to come. As Chris Hayes notes, this emerging blueprint of the internal resistance is really an “insurance policy” to “preserve the reputation of the GOP’s entire political and governing class,” insulating them when “things get much worse.”
If and when this reckoning comes, it will be on us to make sure that all these things that do not seriously concern this “resistance” form an important component of that reckoning.
Which is to say, this is an attempt to drive a wedge in the Party between Trump and the rest of the extremists who are not married to Trump’s agenda. I think this is a reasonable interpretation.
However, I also think the GOP is developing a well-deserved inferiority complex. I may not be an expert in these matters, but as an interested onlooker, the candidates being put forth by the Republicans since the turn of the century have not been up to snuff. They have been hypocritical in that when the Democrats are in control, they proclaim the budget is terribly, terribly out of control and sure to doom the country, but when the Republicans in control, they’re more than happy to indulge their own priorities, from making war in the aughts to rewarding the economic top 1% with yet more tax breaks.
Their candidates have been ideologues rather than thinkers, populists rather than leaders, and, too often, religious nut-cases that have drawn not condemnation for their often two-faced ways, but admiration. Just two examples are former half-term Alaskan governor Sarah “Quitter” Palin and former Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), whose electoral success drew a question from a rather conservative relative of mine, who wanted to know why we kept on electing “that nutcase” to the House.
I hardly need mention to long time readers the problems the GOP has had with climate science. A first class political party would have grasped that nettle with courage, innovative thinking, and deployed their principles of free markets to try to resolve the problem. Instead, it retreated into conspiracy theories and outright denial.
It’s been a disappointing 20+ years, since it really starts with Newt Gingrich, but most of my readers won’t remember his start – and abrupt finish – in politics in the House.
With Trump, they’ve really – hopefully – reached a nadir. Constant and verifiable lying, autocratic tendencies for anyone to read, and the Republican members of Congress refuse to do anything about it.
The Democrats, of course, have their problems. Names like Conyers and Menendez come to mind as morally suspect members. Some folks condemn the Democrats for disorganization, for not speaking with a single voice – traits which I think have some value. But my impression is that they tend to field people who want to help other people, who see problems and want to fix them, and that’s the first step. They may make mistakes, and that’s just fine, because making mistakes is part of life.
And, of course, there’s President Obama lurking in the background. There’s a reason he still draws attacks, even two years after he left office, and that’s because he reminds the Republicans of just how inferior they’ve become. Elected twice to high office, he helped lead the country out of economic ruin, and built a bridge to lower health care costs. His Administration appears to have been virtually spotless, ethically speaking, and he appears to have appointed the best. It’s far too early to honestly evaluate his performance – give him 50 years – but early indications is that he’s thought to have done very well.
All this comes together as a great challenge to the Republicans, one they’ve failed at badly. As national party officials, those leaders cannot acknowledge their feelings of inferiority, it’s just not something you do in America. Their only real choice is to continually attack Obama, accuse him of any old crime they can think of, and try to muddy the whole opposition lot.
Because then their own failures, the convictions, the deceit, their rigidly nonsensical ideology, hell, we may even discover they’ve been bribed, all of that is then blurred by the “crimes” of their opponents.
Even if those are fantasy crimes.
This anonymous op-ed may try to immunize the common Republican official from reprimand by suggesting Trump himself is a RINO (Republican in Name Only), and that he is mentally incompetent. But as many others have no doubt pointed out, that leaves the Republicans with an outstanding question:
Why did you never impeach and convict him, or use the 25th Amendment to remove him?
At this juncture, there is no acceptable answer. Given his mental state, Trump has been a danger to the country from the day of his Inauguration, and to argue otherwise is to neutralize this op-ed. Even the methods they claim they are using are full of danger to the long-term functioning of this democracy, as I’ve discussed a while back, and should most appropriately be answered with criminal charges – which will not be acceptable, given the circumstance.
The only excuse offered, that Trump was, in essence, a tool for the powers behind the throne to use, is in itself a sad commentary on the GOP ideology. They had a bench full of ideologues who tried to win the nomination by advertising how orthodox they were, and instead they all lost to Trump, who was only half-interested in that ideology. In short, their ideology lost. But they decided to take advantage of a mentally incompetent President to implement it anyways.
Doesn’t say much for the acceptability of their ideology, does it?
In essence, this op-ed, in seeking to immunize the Republican against the cancer of Trump, instead invalidates the analogy and tars them with utter responsibility for permitting a mentally incompetent President to continue to try to run the Nation. The GOP continues to look worse and worse.
And I only hope the Democrats don’t follow them down the same kind of path, as it smells of doom. Keep fielding people who want to fix problems and are smart about it, Ds. Show the Republicans the true path to greatness, because they’re off in the hinterlands that all false ideologies will lead to.
