Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Monday, February 22, 2021

Decline And Fall

 One question has seemingly stymied the professional chattering classes: What happened to Lindsay Graham? The guy who attached himself to John McCain like a remora has now attached himself to Donald Trump. How could this be? 

As Martin Longman explains, it's because Lindsay Graham is both smart and unprincipled. Donald Trump has turned the party in the National Front or UKIP or AfD: crypto-fascist parties who appeal to an entirely different set of voters that the Party of McCain (or Bush 41).

Current Republicans say that if Trump breaks with the GOP, they will follow Trump 46-27. Given all we know about Trump, that's a depressing number. If there's any reason to hope, it's that sane people are departing the Republican Party. Jennifer Rubin argues that "sane Republicans" should leave the party. 

There can be little argument that the GOP has become a Cult of Personality surrounding arguably the worst person (much less President) that this country could produce. 

What needs to happen is a full on schism. Sure, if Susan Collins wants to be an independent and vote with Democrats on some things, fine. But it's Susan Fucking Collins. There is no way I want to depend on her for anything. Maybe liberating her from the party whip would move her in a saner direction, but she's hopeless.

We need two rightist parties in America. We need the party of Wall Street: Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins. And we need a party of Trumpism: Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Trailerpark Greene and Lauren Boebert. They need to run slates of candidates everywhere and split the vote. What's more, they need to do it KNOWING it will hand universal control to the Democratic Party for several years.

Only the Democratic Party of the late 19th century is less deserving of running the country than the GQP is right now. And frankly it's neck and neck.

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