Trump, quite literally, is an actor; he’s delivering the lines his audience (the Republican base) wants to hear. But he’s not the first of his kind. He’s doing what many Republicans have done in recent years: pretend to run for president in order to promote his personal brand. Trump is playing a role previously filled by people like Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann, both of whom, at one point, were front-runners in the race for the Republican nomination. And of course there’s Sarah Palin, the failed reality-TV star and once half-lucid part-time governor of Alaska who Republicans thought capable of running the country.
Everyone (well, almost everyone) acknowledges that Trump is a bloviating clown totally unfit for public office, but is he really that much different than Herman Cain or Sarah Palin? None of these people have any business running for president or vice president or any other office. Bachmann, admittedly, was at least an experienced member of Congress, but her campaign was thoroughly unserious. Like so many of her fellow Republicans, Bachmann became a Pez dispenser of fatuous Fox News talking points – and that’s the problem.
These people exist in the Republican Party for a reason: the GOP sold its soul to Fox News and the broader conservative mediascape years ago. Republicans are now constrained by these forces, which manufacture unhinged, absolutist narratives that dominate discourse in the party. Republicans, as a result, can’t afford to compromise or propose realistic policies – the zealots won’t let them. Worse still, any Republican who dares to step out of line gets pummeled on Fox News for weeks on end. In the face of such pressure, is it any wonder the GOP has become what it has?
The GOP, in many respects, is no longer a legitimate governing party. They’ve become a self-perpetuating hype machine, a jobs program for conservative political entrepreneurs. When running for office, Republicans are forced to say and do stupid things in order appease their disconnected base, whose worldview is shaped almost exclusively by conservative media. When elected, Republicans continue to say and do stupid things – and for the same reasons. This is what they’ve become. Trump didn’t emerge wondrously out of a whirlwind; he’s an authentic expression of the contemporary Republican Party. If he wasn’t, he would have been laughed out of the room, not catapulted to the top of the polls by Republican voters.
Salon goes on to point out that the Republican party was not always brimming over with right wing lunatics, and at one time actually had some reasonable ideas for the country. (I know, so hard to believe isn't it?.)
The thing about contemplating the extinction of the Republican party from the point of view of a liberal political blogger like myself is that a part of me wants to stand on the roof of my house shirtless and shout "VICTORY!" over and over at the top of my lungs, but the more logical part of me is more than a little terrified at the prospect.
Personally I think that closing up the Republican shop would be a really bad thing for the country as ANY political party given free rein could not help but to become corrupt and totalitarian over time. (And yes Democrats that certainly includes us.)
However as of right now I don't exactly know what the GOP can do to repair their image, nor do I see a viable political party waiting in the wings to take their place if they should fade away into the mists of history.
That leaves the kind of uncertainty in this country which allows truly horrible political operatives to rise up into powerful positions and for citizens to totally lose faith in their political system altogether.
As bad as the continued existence of the Republican party in its current form might be for the nation, the alternative could in fact be far worse.
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