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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhere Were You The Night the Republican Party Died?
NEW YORKWhere were you the night Donald Trump killed the Republican Party as we knew it? Trump was right where he belonged: in the gilt-draped skyscraper with his name on it, Trump Tower in Manhattan, basking in the glory of his final, definitive victory.
I have to tell you, Ive competed all my life, Trump said, his golden face somber, his gravity-defying pouf of hair seeming to hover above his brow. All my life Ive been in different competitionsin sports, or in business, or now, for 10 months, in politics. I have met some of the most incredible competitors that Ive ever competed against right here in the Republican Party.
The combined might of the Republican Partys best and brightest16 of them at the outsetproved, in the end, helpless against Trumps unorthodox, muscular appeal to the partys voting base. With his sweeping, 16-point victory in Tuesdays Indiana primary, and the surrender of his major remaining rival, Ted Cruz, Trump was pronounced the presumptive nominee by the chair of the Republican National Committee. The primary was overbut for the GOP, the reckoning was only beginning.
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But unity may not be so easily summoned. As Trumps hostile takeover of the party drew to a close, many of its leaders, particularly members of the conservative intelligentsia, were in revolt. George Will had denounced collaborationists who sided with Trump, branding them ineligible to participate in the partys reconstruction. David Brooks had proclaimed a Joe McCarthy moment, adding, People will be judged by where they stood at this time. They had stood athwart Trumps nomination, yelling, Stop!but the Republican voters had ignored them, and now they feared their party was lost.
Could it ever be regained? Many partisans surely would rally around the nominee like they always did, not seeing what was supposedly so world-historically terrible about Trump, or seeing his opponent as a greater evil. But to the anti-Trump faction, the GOP they cherished for decades as a vehicle for right-of-center ideas seemed to be no more. It was likely too late for a third-party candidate to swoop into the breach. With Trumps nomination, the old party establishment went into exile, perhaps never to return. On Twitter, conservative operatives, writers, policy wonks and talk-show hosts gravely lined up to turn in their Republican registrations. I am a fiscal conservative and I am a social conservative, declared blogger Ben Howe. That will not change. But I will not vote for an egomaniacal authoritarian. The New York Daily Newss cover showed a red, white, and blue elephant in a casket.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-day-the-republican-party-died/481176/
global1
(25,253 posts)lame54
(35,295 posts)Gothmog
(145,353 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)Brickbat
(19,339 posts)nominee is now being poured into tossup House races.
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)They can spend what they want but if a good percentage of republicans don't bother to show up, it won't matter.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)The idea of another President Clinton will have them belly crawling naked through poison ivy to vote against Hillary.
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)I've heard of its impending death more times than I can count.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)It's never over, the evil is never really defeated permanently forever.
The calls are coming from inside the house.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)I wish I had a dollar for every "the Republican Party is dying" post on DU.
Iggo
(47,558 posts)herding cats
(19,565 posts)It's still twitching a bit as they try and rally support around Trump.
The Party of Hate has finally gotten what they've openly promoted for the past 8-years. A racist, bigoted, isolationist as their candidate for president.
Good bless America, USA, USA!
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