As long as I’ve covered politics, Republicans have been trying to scare me.
Sometimes, it has been about gays and transgender people and uppity women looming, but usually it has been about people with darker skin looming.
They’re coming, always coming, to take things and change things and hurt people.
A Democratic president coined the expression, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” But it was Republicans who flipped the sentiment and turned it into a powerful and remorseless campaign ethos: Make voters fear fear itself.
The president has, after all, put a tremendous effort into the sulfurous stew of lies, racially charged rhetoric and scaremongering that he has been serving up as an election closer. He has been inspired to new depths of delusion, tweeting that “Republicans will totally protect people with Pre-Existing Conditions, Democrats will not! Vote Republican.”
He has been twinning the words “caravan” and “Kavanaugh” in a mellifluous poem to white male hegemony. Whites should be afraid of the migrant caravan traveling from Central America, especially since “unknown Middle Easterners” were hidden in its midst, an alternative fact that he cheerfully acknowledged was based on nothing.
The word “Kavanaugh” is meant to evoke the fear that aggrieved women will hurtle out of the past to tear down men from their rightful perches of privilege.
Naomi Wolf told Bill Clinton, and later Al Gore, they should present themselves as the Good Father, strong enough to protect the home (America) from invaders.
The Never Trump Delusion
The Left is still looking for scapegoats for his 2016 victory, and the coterie of critics on the right — loosely referred to as Never Trump — often sound like they are in denial.
.. A serious primary challenge is not in the offing. For that to change, it would probably take a smoking-gun revelation in the Mueller probe or some other jaw-dropping scandal, plus a significant political betrayal. And if Trump crashes and burns, it is doubtful the 2020 nomination would be worth having. This means that Trump’s welfare is inextricably caught up with the party’s.
.. Ronald Reagan wouldn’t have been the potent figure he was in the late 1970s if he hadn’t pounded away at the premier populist-nationalism issue of the time, resistance to giving up the Panama Canal: “We bought it. We built it. We paid for it. It’s ours.”We can argue about what role populism and nationalism should have in conservative politics, but that they have a place, and always have, is undeniable.
.. Trump is not seriously engaged enough to drive this himself, while congressional Republicans lack interest in immigration restriction and oppose Trump on trade. But make no mistake: On immigration and China trade, Trump is closer to the national Republican consensus than his conservative detractors.
.. By all means, criticize him when he’s wrong. But don’t pretend that he’s just going away, or that he’s a wild outlier in the contemporary GOP.