Trumpism is simply late-stage disease. Nothing about it is interesting except as further proof that we weren’t ready for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. When Nixon decided he could form a voting coalition of conservatives and racists (not the same thing, for those who don’t know any better), he relieved the Democrats of that burden, but set the system wobbling to this probably inevitable stage.
So, we eventually got a black enough president, and the Mitch McConnells in the heartland completely lost it. They relied on the stupidity of their audience: they made their gridlock look like Obama’s fecklessness (which, I suppose, it was). They did not care about our crumbling infrastructure or about “regular order” or allowing the election they had lost to have consequences. They just gummed up the works.
And it almost worked. I say “almost,” because the electorate’s response to the useless Congress was to “drain the swamp,” i.e., to take over the GOP and install a bull as manager of the china shop. Donald Trump is the worst president in our history. The GOP is happy to have their tax cuts and their deregulation and their judges, so traitorously happy that they don’t mind having lost their party and their country. The economy is booming and the mud people are under attack. What more could any good German, er, I mean, American, want?
My hat is off to Ms. Clarke for doing her bit at the phones. In this election, anyone who does not vote against the Republican candidate is a traitor, a racist, or a dupe. (Exception granted for judges.) Some things are more important than job numbers and on-time arrivals. The GOP could have had all of its agenda and its judges without Donald Trump if it had worked with Obama and then offered a better agenda and a credible candidate. Is there really any reason to have a party that would nominate Donald Trump over John Kasich? How does that happen unless the entire party, as a party, has discredited itself? The party that nominated Trump is gone, and it will not be missed.