Former Bush Administration speech writer and persistent Beltway stalactite, Michael Gerson, abuses the verb "would" until it passes out.
Buying into Trump’s fake pivot would ruin the GOP
"Would" ruin the GOP? "Would"?
The GOP was ruined long before Trump showed up.
Hell, it was ruined long before Gerson took the king's coin to help Dubya sell his Excellent Iraqi Adventure to a terrified, gullible public.
But that isn't the story the Beltway wants to hear, so it isn't the story Mr. Gerson tells them.
Instead the problem is simply Trump. Just Trump. Only Trump. Mr. Gerson continues to find it infuriating that Trump does not give a shit about the good opinion of dainty Beltway fops like Michael Gerson. Mr. Gerson also continues to be completely flummoxed by the fact that his Republican Party does not respond to stimuli like a well-disciplined phalanx of David Brookses.
It also never occurs to Mr. Gerson these facts are somehow related to each other.
...Any rebranding effort must honestly confront the problems of the brand. Trump has a disapproval rating of 70 percent among women and the highest overall disapproval rating recorded by Gallup since it began tracking this measure in 1992. Among voters 18 to 24, Trump loses to Hillary Clinton (who is notoriously weak among younger voters) by 25 points. A recent poll found Trump with 11 percent support among Latinos, the lowest support for a Republican presidential candidate since polls began tracking Latino votes. In Florida — which was won by Jeb and George W. Bush as governor and president — Trump is losing to Clinton among Hispanic voters by 51 points. Fifty-one points.A recovery from these problems would require spectacular and sustained political skills that Trump has never demonstrated. Trump has shown only one skill: displaying the Trump persona in public. His campaign is crippled by a technology developed by Thomas Edison — the ability to record the human voice. Trump can’t be the candidate who didn’t call for the systematic exclusion of Muslims at the border; the candidate who didn’t call for the mass expulsion of 11 million undocumented immigrants; the candidate who didn’t call women bimbos and fat pigs and attack the looks of an opponent’s wife.In fact, Trump has been so vitriolic, so irresponsible, so far over the line, that he would need a commensurate repudiation of his previous views in order to be persuasive...
Clearly there is a problem a'brewin' here, but Mr. Gerson has a bold solution. If the duly elected Republican nominee for president dares to come to Cleveland to collect the nomination of his party...
,,,the Emptiest Suit in American Politics (h/t Brother Pierce) should leave in a huff.
...If Priebus ends up blessing the Trump nomination, the results would reach far beyond 2016. It would turn the sins of Trump into the sins of the GOP. And Priebus would go down as the head of the party who squandered the legacy of Lincoln, the legacy of Reagan, in a squalid and hopeless political effort.If Trump wins in Cleveland, Priebus should think beyond the current election and demonstrate the existence of a party better than its nominee. The head of the RNC should resign, rather than be complicit as his party is defiled.
Or if that's too soon, he can leave in a minute and a huff.
Mr. Gerson, the Republican party is defiled for the simple reason that it's full of Republicans.
But that is not a story that anyone in your profession and pay-grade has ever been willing to tell.
12 comments:
"It would turn the sins of Trump into the sins of the GOP"
Damn, I see what you mean about that "would" business. Stress fractures and catastrophic failure all over that thing right there.
I really liked this article and others you've authored.
Would you be OK if I shared one of your articles with the WriterBeat.com community? I can provide more information about Writer Beat or answer any question, but better than anything I can say in words, please take a look at the site.
If yes, just give me an "OK": and I'll handle the rest (there is no fee).
Autumn
AutumnCote@WriterBeat.com
The Republicans squandered the legacy of Lincoln the second they forged their Southern Strategy back in the 1960s.
What they're squandering now is the illusion of Reagan as a great Presidential figure of epic Conservative resolve.
What the Republicans are building is a reputation for failed policies, inability to run their own offices - Has Congress passed a damn thing this year yet? - and raging bullying towards anyone who's not a aging white male.
Trump is not the cause of this: he's just feeding off of the media-fomented outrage that the REAL Republican leaders - Roger Ailes and his Right Wing Noise Machine allies - have been shilling since 1992.
One of the depressing things about all this 'Trump is a bad person and will destroy the GOP!" blather is that one knows, to the innermost part of one's marrow is that about eleven seconds after Trump gets the nomination, This fellow, Brooks and the whole RW chorus will be lining up to kiss Trump's butt and write flattering articles about how the campaign trail has matured him and how much better a president he would be than horrible Hillary. What of course makes that even more depressing is that our guardians in the main stream media will not call them out on this but nod in agreement over how mature Trump is now and how horrible Hillary is.
This of course will be followed up with the Sunday Shows asking Hillary and her campaign people deep questions like 'Trump thinks you are a horrible evil person, so why does Trump think you are a horrible evil person, and are you in fact a horrible evil person?"
persistent Beltway stalactite
Best insider-pundit description ever!
Oh, and the Republicans lost the right to invoke Lincoln when they became the party of Confederate-flag fetishists. Their ability to overlook the irony of this is stunningly myopic even for them.
Dear Mr. Gerson:
The sky is not falling. The GOP is incredibly resilient, and the Democrats are notorious for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. If you were to speak with Republican operatives instead of listening to the bats in your belfry, you would (there’s that word again) discover that all sorts of plans are in the works to transform the lemon that is Donald Trump into lemonade.
The GOP excels at the long game. So chill out and let the game-makers of the party do their jobs.
--Banker Puppy
From your mouth to Gods ears Puppy. The best - BEST - Repubs can hope for in November is hanging onto Congress. Those long game skills don't work for national elections anymore. If they did President Ronney would be running for reelection.
Trump's sins? What, you mean assholery? Sure, his manners are atrocious, but he hasn't done any actual war crimes yet, so I think if anyone is staining anyone else with sins, he has it completely backwards.
Oh and a little off topic, but I read something last night that reminded me of that Angels in America video that's been posted here a few times:
https://www.salon.com/2015/09/26/mentored_in_the_art_of_manipulation_donald_trump_learned_from_the_master_roy_cohn/
-Doug in Oakland
A little o/t, but the goopers keep claiming Lincoln as a forebear. That's like them claiming Plato because 'Republic' was in one of his titles.
Gerson and that phalanx of D.C. Bobos can't seem to wrap their minds around the fact that just because "Trump has a disapproval rating of 70 percent among women and the highest overall disapproval rating recorded by Gallup since it began tracking this measure in 1992," many people will still vote for him.
Never underestimate the power of self-loathing among an electorate forged between the hammers of manipulation and the anvil of suffering.
Find the writer.
Find the writer, like driftglass, a name that evokes a grey-eyed captain on a tall sail schooner around Cape Horn, and you found what used to be spelled out in lead type.
None of us were born when the bullshit of today was spotted from a nautical mile.
For what it's worth, harken' back to "Two Year's Before the Mast," how it once was (which the Conservatives think they want, but really, they would be awashed fore in a second.
To the last Cape Horners, driftglass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUhKBZb7A7c
This is all hilarious, but as others have pointed out, the gop isn't going to lay over and die. They'll vote for Trump in November, they're a pack of liars. And in between, the media will allow Trump to act reasonably and rebrand himself, while mean time attacking Clinton. Liberals need to get out the vote and show up in November big-time, can't act like this shit is in the bag. Looking especially at Bernie voters; I voted Bernie too. This election is way too important to sit out in a huff. Even if the gop is coming apart at the seams, that's not how it is presented in the media, any reader here knows that, so they will be given every advantage to get back in the race. We need to press and maintain the advantage, because the Supreme Court is at stake. Question for Bernie voters considering not voting: after 8 years of enduring republican bullshit, the last 2 years will be Obama alone without Congress, you want to reward them and give the keys back?
Post a Comment