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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe G.O.P. Is a Mess. It's Not All Trump's Fault.
By PETER SUDERMAN OCT. 13, 2017
If the modern Republican Party can be said to stand for anything, it is tax relief. Yet as the Republican effort to write and pass tax legislation develops, it looks increasingly possible and perhaps even likely that it, like the health care overhaul attempt that preceded it, will end in failure and disappointment.
When the year began, the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, cited health care and taxes as his top legislative priorities, predicting that both would be completed by August. Yet after nine months of party control of Congress and the White House, the Republicans have accomplished essentially nothing. They have become a party without a consensus.
It would be easy to simply blame the president for the partys disarray. Donald Trumps aversion to policy detail, his chaotic management style and his combustible personality have all contributed to the partys failures this year.
Yet it would also be a mistake to pin the partys problems on Mr. Trump alone. He is not their root cause. Instead, he is an avatar of the partys pathologies, the culmination of its cynical and shambolic trajectory over the last two decades.
Many of those issues can be traced back to the administration of George W. Bush, which functioned as an enormous political bait and switch. The 43rd president campaigned on humble foreign policy and prudent conservative solutions, but his presidency quickly became oriented almost exclusively around a political defense of the Iraq war.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/opinion/trump-republican-party-mess.html?emc=edit_th_20171014&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=57435284
Brainstormy
(2,381 posts)that's spot on all right.
ananda
(28,885 posts)45 represents all the baser instincts and sociopathy
that the GOP has been trying to cloak in an aura
of family values and respectability.
Haha
Wounded Bear
(58,737 posts)Not sure I could say it much better: