congressional Republicans divided into five loose categories about the problem that is Donald J. Trump.
.. 1. The Fast Walkers
.. 2. The Grumps
.. “I don’t know that I really have a lot to say,” adding that he had tried to advise Mr. Trump and was “discouraged by the results.”
.. 3. The McConnells
.. Mr. McConnell preemptively cuts off discussion by saying things like, “I’m not going to be commenting on the presidential candidates today.”
.. 4. The Free Speakers
.. 5. The Vaguely-Upset-But-What-Can-You-Do
.. Mr. Trump has created a feedback loop in which he says increasingly outrageous and at times incoherent things about national security, immigration and other issues and Republicans are forced to answer for it.
.. “Don’t talk. Please, be quiet,” he said. “Just be quiet, to the leaders, because they have to get tougher, they have to get sharper, they have to get smarter, and we have to have our Republicans either stick together or let me just do it by myself.”
.. His top surrogates remain Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Representative Lee Zeldin of New York, with no sign of newcomers to the list.
.. “If Donald Trump continues to conduct himself in a way that’s unbecoming of a nominee, let alone a president,” said Rory Cooper, a senior adviser to the #NeverTrump PAC, “then delegates and party leaders in Cleveland should be empowered to open the convention, just as Democrats are able to do. If there is no such mechanism, then you are essentially saying there is no unacceptable line Trump can cross.”
The Republicans’ Big Hot Mess
In the Year of Trump, Republicans are racing for the exits.
.. one of Trump’s advisers recently suggested that the candidate not wait until the climactic hour to deliver his remarks but, in a break with precedent, speak every single night.
.. Now they’re looking at four excruciating days that will be light on appropriate speakers, short on cash
.. Politico published a story noting that Trump’s vice-presidential finalists may come down to the puny band of miscreants who can bear to say yes.
.. but how many blacks and Hispanics will be willing to buttress Trump?
.. So I suppose they stand sheepishly at the microphone and rant without interruption about the evils of the Clintons. Do politics-soured swing voters really crave hour upon hour of that?
.. Chris Christie is at the ready, with a hunger for attention that’s not quickly sated. So maybe we get several scoops of each of them, with an omnipresent topping of Trump.
Donald Trump, Mainstream Conservative
Those who have long stoked the flames of populism should not be surprised by the results.
.. The American Right has become willfully disengaged from its fellow citizens thanks to a wonderful virtual-reality machine in which conservatives, both elite and grassroots, can believe anything they wish, no matter how at odds it is with reality
.. They can wake up in the morning and read email newsletters filled with nonsense from the likes of Dick Morris along with false promises of “secret cancer cures.” As they make their breakfast, they can flip through websites utterly devoid of reporting and data analysis predicting that Democrats are on the run and Hillary Clinton is sure to be indicted. During the work day, they can turn on the radio and listen to Christian nationalists like Bryan Fischer tell them how the Founding Fathers intended to provide religious freedom only to Christians.
.. Fischer and Trump are not alone in their desire to illegally target Muslims. Fischer’s preferred candidate, Ted Cruz, has proposed that law-enforcement officers conduct perpetual campaigns to “patrol and secure” Muslim neighborhoods in a sort of secret-police arrangement. Family Research Council president Tony Perkins has repeatedly said that liberal Christians and Muslims do not deserve religious freedom as well. Anti-Muslim activist Frank Gaffney wants to bring back HUAC.
.. One of the most persistent right-wing claims against Trump has been that he is better described as a nationalist than a conservative. The accusation has no power against him, however, since he has freely admitted to it, knowing as he did that the majority of Republican voters and the nation as a whole have never been particularly interested in constitutional conservatism. The data points on this subject have been out there for years,
.. But usually, instead of arguing with him on the issues, #NeverTrumpers challenge him on process questions or criticize him because his supporters are on the fringe. Conservatives cannot support Trump, the argument goes, because some of his backers are outright racists.
.. The time to stop Trump was in the 1990s, when the movement’s intellectuals were busy prostrating themselves before Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as they sought to remake the GOP into a party for white Christians.
.. The time to stop Trump was in 2009, when Sarah Palin was dumbing down conservatism into an alternative lifestyle that glorified anti-intellectualism. The time to stop Donald Trump was in 2013, when Ted Cruz was opportunistically telling Republican voters that obstreperousness was the equivalent of conservative philosophy.
Can He Be Stopped?
He is winning the nomination on the strength of the unshakable bond he has built with the white Republicans who consider themselves to be the most dispossessed of Americans.
.. in North Carolina, where one of his white supporters sucker-punched a black protester, he said, “I thought it was very, very appropriate. [The protester] was swinging. He was hitting people. And the audience hit back. And that’s what we need a little bit more of.”
A videotape of that event had emerged, and needless to say, Trump was lying. The black protester was walking up a flight of stairs inside a sports arena with his arms at his side when seventy-eight-year-old John Franklin McGraw yelled “Hey!,” got the young man to look his way, and hit him in the face.
.. Each new outrage only confirms to his supporters that Trump is gleefully defying the establishment, and they love him for it.
.. He first vowed that he would look into paying the sucker-puncher’s legal costs; then a few days later denied he ever said that, even though it was there on video tape for all to hear.
.. The Trump movement clearly has some elements of the fascistic, at least in affect and tone. He evidently does not call for a one-party dictatorship; but he has been willing to approve of force against the opposition; and he has expressed “belligerent nationalism, racism, and militarism,” as one basic definition has it.
.. As long ago as last November, I was hearing from conservative sources that the big Republican money people were drawing up plans to mount an extensive campaign of attack ads against Trump designed to finish him off before Iowa. I was told that a few such meetings or conference calls took place. But nothing ever came of them. The different players had different ambitions, supported different candidates, or couldn’t agree on the best lines of attack.
.. The racial politics Trump has brought to the surface is something the party is particularly incapable of dealing with, since they all must know deep down that he is only doing openly what they have done more subtly for decades.
.. If you’re scheduled to do a segment at a certain time and date, and it becomes apparent once you get to the studio that Trump might be speaking at any moment, you know there’s a very strong chance your segment won’t happen. The channel will cut away to Trump.
.. And Trump? He’d spent not more than $10 million on paid media and received $1.9billion in free media. That’s nearly triple the other three major Republican candidates combined.7
.. Moonves said that the Trump phenomenon “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS,” adding:
Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now?… The money’s rolling in and this is fun…. I’ve never seen anything like this, and this is going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going. Donald’s place in this election is a good thing.8
.. Sanders attacked Clinton effectively on the ill effects on employment of trade deals, which she had supported throughout her career until her recent turnabout on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. She had no answer