The Party of Responsibility

President Obama spoke yesterday, saying that Trump represents not an absurd, one off event, but a logical conclusion to years of the Republican Party losing its mooring with reality.  He noted the retreat of the GOP from things like math, science and history.  No one would expect Republicans to agree with this - at least not on record.

Ben Shapiro - alleged rising star within the "conservative" movement - responded with a tweet that read: "Obama lecturing us is LITERALLY how you got Trump."  Ezra Klein takes it apart here.

I would stress one thing: We got Trump because a plurality of Republicans supported him.  They supported him because he represents "owning teh libs."  Is he qualified by experience or temperament to be president?  No, but he upsets the people I hate, so cool.

Obama and Trump are obviously about as different as two people can be. Obama is thoughtful to a fault, Trump impulsive to a fault.  Obama reflexively sees the best in others, Trump the worst.  Obama looked 25 years in the future, Trump 25 minutes. Obama is an exemplary family man, Trump's marital history is a dumpster fire.

But as Klein notes, it was Obama's "otherness" - his blackness, his name, his urbane demeanor - that alienated large swaths of white America.  Their fears and paranoia were stoked by years of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.

But in the world of Ben Shapiro, "conservatives" are not to blame for embracing those fears and fanning their own paranoia.  It isn't THEIR fault they picked a raving narcissist, a racist and an intellectual dwarf.  How could it be?  Conservatism is never wrong.  It never fails.  The op-ed by Anonymous was simply setting the stage for the electoral calamity most are predicting.  It wasn't CONSERVATISM that was the problem, only Trump. Of course, GOP tax cuts, immigration policy, abortion positions and spending priorities are all very unpopular and have been for years.  The GOP survives precisely because it mobilizes large numbers of white people angry at the cultural transformation of the country.

There was a joke a few years ago that if Obama came out in favor of breathing 27% of the country would asphyxiate itself.  Not as funny right now.