The response I often hear to these points is: “Well, Republicans at least need to fight.” On this I agree. It is imperative that we fight for what we believe in. But we should fight smartly. I have never heard of a football team that won by throwing only Hail Mary passes, yet that is what is being demanded of Republican leaders today. Victory on the field is more often a result of three yards and a cloud of dust.
The American Idea and Today’s G.O.P.
Today there are some conservative commentators and Republican politicians who talk a lot about American exceptionalism. But when they use the phrase they mean the exact opposite of its original meaning. In fact, they are effectively destroying American exceptionalism.
These commentators and candidates look backward to an America that is being lost.
.. As Peter Wehner, a longtime conservative writer who served in the Bush administration, wrote in the magazine Commentary: “The message being sent to voters is this: The Republican Party is led by people who are profoundly uncomfortable with the changing (and inevitable) demographic nature of our nation. The G.O.P. is longing to return to the past and is fearful of the future. It is a party that is characterized by resentments and grievances, by distress and dismay, by the belief that America is irredeemably corrupt and past the point of no return. ‘The American dream is dead,’ in the emphatic words of Mr. Trump.”
.. They are healthier than native-born Americans. Immigrant men age 18 to 39 are incarcerated at roughly one-fourth the rate of American men.
The Dangerous Doctors of the G.O.P.
What on earth was he talking about? Today, the C.D.C. advises that American children be vaccinated for fourteen diseases before age six—and each of those diseases can, in Carson’s infelicitous words, cause “death or crippling.” “The only one you could reasonably say does not kill is mumps,” Paul Offit, a physician in the division of infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told the Times last week. Offit, who is among the nation’s most outspoken vaccine advocates, added that mumps can, however, cause permanent deafness and sterility in men after puberty. “Tetanus kills, rubella kills unborn children, measles kills, hepatitis B virus kills,” Offit said.
.. This notion, that the vaccine schedule for children has become so crowded that it puts extra pressure on their immune systems, is immensely popular among American parents—and, increasingly, pediatricians are yielding to their requests to delay vaccines.
Party Rules to Streamline Race May Backfire for G.O.P.
And they said they were increasingly convinced that Donald J. Trump could exploit openings created by the party’s revised rules to capture the nomination or, short of that, to amass enough delegates to be a power broker at the convention.
.. And one reason his candidacy seems strong is a change by the party in hopes of ending the process earlier: making it possible for states to hold contests in which the winner receives all the delegates, rather than a share based on the vote, starting March 15, two weeks earlier than in the last cycle. Ten states have said they will do so.
If Mr. Trump draws one-third of the Republican primary vote, as recent polls suggest he will, that could be enough to win in a crowded field. After March 15, he could begin amassing all the delegates in a given state even if he carried it with only a third of the vote.
.. Some Republicans still wince when recalling how Pat Buchanan’s 1992 challenge to President George Bush resulted in his winning a prime-time speaking slot at the convention that renominated Mr. Bush.
“And that set the tone for the election,” Mr. Hohlt recalled of Mr. Buchanan’s fiery speech. “Do we end up again in one of those kinds of deals?”