It’s almost sad – almost – that the Republican Party is finding itself in a tug-of-war.
But it’s not surprising. The Party brought this war upon itself for a number of interlocking reasons, starting long ago. In 1964, the Party nominated Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater to run against incumbent Lyndon Johnson. Goldwater was (at least perceived to be by mainstream voters) a dangerous right-wing extremist. He lost abysmally.
That Goldwaterite purist conservatism would come back to haunt the Party. The right-wingers kept making promises they could not deliver while trashing popular programs like Social Security and Medicare. They also dragged their feet hopelessly on issues of social and civil progressivism. Not to forget, left-wing promisers have from time to time been just as guilty. Those dashed promises, right and left, led directly, with a vengeance, to the Tea Party insurgence of eight years ago, as well as to the more recent free-for-all populism of Bernie Sanders.
The Tea Party began with people disgusted by the government bailing out big banks. With good reason. But that passion quickly morphed into an anti-Obama hate group, led by rabid cheerleaders such as the likes of Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Ted Cruz. Rah, rah, rah! Shish, boom, bah! Hate the government. Shut it down. Impeach Obama. Shred ObamaCare.
That motley crew of misguided fabulists held sway with so many voters who were, rightfully so, disgusted by the inaction of government to help solve problems such as joblessness, low wages and growing inequalities. Many Tea Partiers, then and now, blame all of their problems on Obama, immigrants and conspiracy theories. Trouble is, the Tea Party windbags never once attributed their or anybody else’s problems to the powers that be, largely billionaires’ corporate control as administered by their minions in Congress, mostly Republican yes-men but by no means limited to Republicans. Unfettered free-market forces, as defined under the Reagan Era, weren’t the answer. In many cases, they were the problem. Greed was a cocaine high, but what about the rest of us? Reagan, in many respects, was the Santa Claus who never was. Many have yet to learn that.
Well, anyway, flash forward. To win elections (local, state, federal), the Republican Party thought it had to court the right-wing Tea Party types. It turned out to be a game of Russian roulette in which “I’ll primary you!” became a big threat, as Eric Cantor of Virginia, among many others, soon learned the hard way.
The Tea Party faction gradually hijacked the Party through bullying tactics (i.e. Cruz, the Temper Tantrum King, reading the great Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham for hours in his pathetic filibuster. Seuss is still rolling over in his grave!) And, sad to say, most of the good, rational, reasonable Republicans let it happen.
Now they are paying the price.
Like a hawk, Donald Trump swooped down. He understood so slyly that Tea Party hotheads had made fools of good, sane, rational Republicans, rendering them all but politically impotent. And the good Republicans were dumb enough to let it happen.
It’s almost slapstick comical that after a series of debates among 17 Republican candidates, only a few were left standing: Trump, Cruz, Kasich. And what’s even crazier is Cruz is widely despised by Establishment Republicans, Trump is a nightmare wild card (possibly even a secret Democrat, God forbid), and Kasich, the only one who had a chance of winning the White House, is kaput, at least for now.
Who knows? Trump just might be our next president (God forbid), and if he is, the Republican Party might just as well say goodbye, adieu, lights out. If there was ever a tight fix between a rock and a hard place, this is it: the Republican Party stuck hopelessly in a fix of its own making.
