Trumpocalypse Now

The horror, the horror!

Lindsey Graham may as well have been thinking that when he came to the painful conclusion that the GOP may have to coalesce around Ted Cruz, in order to stop Trump. Ted Cruz, perhaps the one man the Republican establishment hates more than Donald Trump, is shaping up to be the last best hope for staving off a Trump disaster.

In other words, the chickens have finally come home to roost for the GOP. Nearly 50 years after the creation of the famous Southern Strategy by Lee Atwater, the Republican Party is witnessing the logical conclusion of their strategy of appealing to the people shunned by the Democratic Party for its embrace of civil rights. March 1st, 2016, was a turning point in American politics, a symbolic moment reminiscent of Governor George Rockefeller getting shouted down at the 1964 Republican National Convention by Barry Goldwater which had ushered in the 50 years of right wing dominance over the party.

Republicans everywhere may pretend that Donald Trump is anathema to everything the party stands for. And in some ways, that is not necessarily wrong. Trump has praised planned parenthood, supported the individual mandate in Obamacare, and blamed George W. Bush for 9/11. Yet do not let that fool you. Trump is the culmination of everything the mainstream of the party has been cultivating since ’64.

While Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney claim the party cannot support racist policies in the wake of Trump refusing to condemn David Duke and the KKK, neither of them said a word when the Supreme Court struck down key provisions in the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. A leading Senate Republican, Jeff Sessions, who has now endorsed Donald Trump, was denied confirmation to a federal court in the 80s due to his racist remarks regarding African Americans. On August 3rd, 1980, GOP Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan gave a speech in Neshoba County Mississippi, a few miles from where civil rights workers were murdered in 1964, on “states rights”. Reagan became the master of racially coded language, attacking affirmative action and nonexistent “welfare queens”.

All Trump is doing, is removing the veil of the code language and refusing to hide his racism. He openly calls Mexicans “rapists”, rather than imply it. He eagerly calls for banning all Muslims from entering the United States, something that a large majority of Republican primary voters agree with. He’s been endorsed by David Duke, regularly retweets a twitter account called @WhiteGenocideisReal and is a rockstar among the reactionary “Dark Enlightenment” crowd.

The number one reason Trump supporters give for supporting him, aside from the myth of his business success, is “he says what needs to be said” or “he’s not politically correct”. It doesn’t matter that his war against political correctness means openly using derogatory remarks against Mexicans, Muslims, African Americans, the Chinese, Asian-Americans, the disabled, women (have I covered every able bodied white male group in the world yet?) etc. His base, which has been waiting for the GOP to follow through on their promises for decades, loves that there is a presidential candidate that is openly saying what is on their minds.

They don’t care that he is “not a true conservative”. They don’t care that party insiders loathe him. They don’t care that he’s an outsider. As this election season has shown, the only people in the Republican Party that care about being a “true conservative” are east-coast GOP business elites that never really believed in all of their racist rhetoric to begin with. So when Trump survives being attack by Jeb Bush, survives being attacked by Ted Cruz, survives the entire GOP establishment turning against him, survives Marco Rubio stooping to his level, survives gaffes that would have destroyed other presidential candidates instantaneously, it should not be surprising. When he not only survives, but thrives and sweeps Super Tuesday, it should not be surprising.

The GOP establishment might still be in denial. Marco Rubio may still think he can win the nomination. But Donald Trump is well on his way to being the Republican nominee for President of The United States, and he’s leading the party straight into the heart of darkness. And when they emerge, the party of Reagan and Goldwater, which hijacked the party of Lincoln and Rockefeller, will never be the same again. In fact, it might not even survive.