Donald Trump is right: The GOP is utterly pathetic
By Michael Gerson October 13 at 6:52 PM
washingtonpost.com
In the interest of fairness, I wish to raise an issue on which Donald Trump has been consistently and resoundingly right: The Republican Party is utterly pathetic.
During a decade of commentary, and in a career of government service before that, I have often argued that the GOP is better than its liberal stereotypes. It is a case I can no longer make, at least when it comes to presidential politics.
The Trump ascendancy is the triumph of anti-reason — of birtherism, of vaccine denialism, of suggestions that Justice Antonin Scalia was smothered with a pillow and that Hillary Clinton may have been involved in the death of Vince Foster. It is the triumph of nativism — of a political appeal based on hatred against migrants and Muslims. It is the triumph of white nationalism, which has moved inward from the fringes of Republican politics. It is the triumph of misogyny, demonstrated with words that require a disinfectant shower after hearing. It is the triumph of authoritarian impulses. Since the Constitution is “broken,” argued Maine Gov. Paul LePage, “we need a Donald Trump to show some authoritarian power in our country.”
Trump has made the party a laughingstock among the young, a toxic brand among minorities, an offense to many women, and a source of worry among U.S. allies and alarm among national security professionals. And this was before Trump pronounced himself unshackled from the style-cramping expectations of his establishment Republican captors. The main use of his newfound freedom has been to attack GOP leaders. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) has authored “bad budgets.” In what way? They were “very, very bad budgets,” Trump elucidated. He “wouldn’t want to be in a foxhole” with Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) — which, presumably, was the point of Trump’s five Vietnam deferments.
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