Category Archives: Politics

Worth a read. Also includes this local-interest gem from operative Mike Murphy:

He cites the old Eric Hoffer maxim: Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.

Take, for instance, he says, the Tea Party — “a racket, though it’s supposed to be a nonracket,” full of faux four-star generals who say, ” ‘You’ve got to pay me because … I represent the Nebraska sub-Army 14 of the Tea Party,’ and there’d be like four or five guys arguing over who’s in charge of it.” It reminds Murphy of when he used to do referendum campaigns in Dade County. “There’d always be these charming old Cubans who’d come in and say, ‘Colonel Escobar is willing to endorse on his radio show, but he requires certain considerations. One million dollars.’ “

“And we’d be like, ‘Thirty-five hundred dollars cash and lunch today.'”

“‘We agree!'”

— Debriefing Mike Murphy | The Weekly Standard.

Link if you can’t see above

Time to salute Robert Kagan. I do not share his ideology but I can recognize a patriot writing in Trump is the GOP’s Frankenstein Monster. Read it all, savor the historical allusions, but here’s the takeaway:

We are supposed to believe that Trump’s legion of “angry” people are angry about wage stagnation. No, they are angry about all the things Republicans have told them to be angry about these past 7½ years, and it has been Trump’s good fortune to be the guy to sweep them up and become their standard-bearer. He is the Napoleon who has harvested the fruit of the revolution.

There has been much second-guessing lately. Why didn’t party leaders stand up and try to stop Trump earlier, while there was still time? But how could they have? Trump was feeding off forces in the party they had helped nurture and that they hoped to ride into power. Some of those Republican leaders and pundits now calling for a counterrevolution against Trump were not so long ago welcoming his contribution to the debate. The politicians running against him and now facing oblivion were loath to attack him before because they feared alienating his supporters. Instead, they attacked one another, clawing at each other’s faces as they one by one slipped over the cliff. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie got his last deadly lick in just before he plummeted — at Trump? No, at Rubio. (And now, as his final service to party and nation, he has endorsed Trump.) Jeb Bush spent millions upon millions in his hopeless race, but against whom? Not Trump.

So what to do now? The Republicans’ creation will soon be let loose on the land, leaving to others the job the party failed to carry out. For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The party cannot be saved, but the country still can be.

We need more like this.

PS. Has the GOP rehabilitated David Frum yet?

Digby:

I keep thinking there’s got to be a large number of Republicans who are appalled by Trump and will never vote for him. He is, after all, a neofascist megalomaniac. But maybe I’m wrong.

God, I hope I’m not wrong.

Update: I’m wrong

Look at this graph of national GOP voters gradual, growing acceptance of Trump as nominee pic.twitter.com/3bINR9TQgb
— Martin Gelin (@M_Gelin) February 21, 2016