Joe Scarborough posted an Op-Ed in the Post: No amount of disaster can shake the GOP loose from Trump. He wails about the unfairness that Trump took over the Republican Party. Sorry, Joe, but that’s wildly wrong. Trump didn’t create the wingnut fringe. The modern Republican Party was birthed in racism, lies, segregation, and corruption. Until Trump, Republicans pretended that wasn’t true by hiding behind dog-whistles and code-words. Trump broke the codes, but the roots of Trumpism go back decades.
Joe Scarborough’s Discontent
Here’s the first paragraph to Scarborough’s Op-Ed:
Five years ago, Donald Trump seized control of the Republican Party by attacking conservative icons, insulting former GOP presidents and disregarding Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment that warned against criticizing other party members. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham told me at the time that Trump was like a hijacker taking control of an airplane while the passengers cheered him on.
Joe Scarborough, Feb. 23, 2021, Washington Post Op-Ed: “No amount of disaster can shake the GOP loose from Trump”
Dude, really? So, Trump took over by attacking good and honorable conservatives, and then what? All the rank-and-file suddenly accepted Trump’s racism, lies, and conspiracy theories into their hearts? Did none of those White Nationalists exist before 2016? Your Republican Party was pure and clean until the Big Bald Don showed up?
Republican History
Try this narrative instead. Joe’s precious Republican Party has been sliding into white nationalist populism since the Segregationists switched to the GOP over the Civil Rights Act. That was the deciding point. They left the Democrats en masse, and the Republican Party accepted them without conditions. I don’t remember anything like, “Sure, you can come over, but none of that racist stuff!” Nope. Open arms. A century after the South lost the Civil War, the Party of Lincoln decided to accept the old slaveholders into their club, whole and unreconstructed. That’s when the poison began working its way through your party. They tacitly, quietly allowed unshakable racism and white supremacy into their big tent. Think about this: In January, Trump launched the Uncivil War out of the heart of the Republican base, waving the Virginia Battle Flag.
Joe, I’m sorry, but rot at the Republican heart didn’t magically begin in 2016. I admit, Trump carried fabulist lying and self-dealing to new heights, but he wasn’t starting from zero.
Racism
The racist roots of Trumpism are easy. Don’t pretend that Reagan’s “Welfare Queen” wasn’t red-meat racism. How about Bush’s “Willie Horton?” Scary black people! For a quick trip down the memory hole, think about the Republican architects: Lee Atwater, Roger Ailes, Newt Gingrich, Larry McCarthy, Roger Stone, and more. Republicans are Pro-Prison, pro-Death Penalty, pro-COVID, and rabidly against (non-White) immigration. Nothing in Republican racism is a damn surprise. I see a straight line from GOP acceptance of segregation to the Proud Boys’ insurrection to spark a new race war.
Manipulation
And the freaking lies? Trump was an inspired fabulist, but he was following earlier party examples. The GOP has a loyal base they’ve been training since the fifties to believe plain lies and dubious conspiracy stories. Every Right-Wing attack campaign back to Reagan included at least a couple of open howlers. Republican voters knew their leaders were feeding them bald-faced lies. Why didn’t they mind? They’d been trained to assume the lies weren’t for them. The base accepted that the extreme lies were just tribal markers. The manipulative roots of Trumpism are easy to find, too.
I’ve written about Republican Brainworms before, so here’s an example. The whole point of the “Own the Libs” meme is to give the Republican base an excuse to revel in GOP lies. Somehow, Republican operatives convinced their loyal base that Republicans lying to them was somehow good for them. That’s impressive.
Corruption
What about corruption (using the powers of your office for personal gain)? Oh, sure, that’s been there as long as I’ve been watching. Want a good example? How about Nixon using the IRS as his personal attack wing. Everyone knew that if you talked smack about Tricky Dick, you’d get an IRS audit. Nixon was the first to capture and undermine the DOJ, too.
Remember when Republicans were satisfied just being millionaires? Not now. Republicans have been front and center to get as much money as possible into politics. Notice how much of it seems to stick to their fingers?
Here’s a great Republican example: voter suppression. The Republican determination to stop brown and black voters? That meets all three goals: it’s plainly racist, corrupt, and everyone knows they’re lying about it, front to back. A three-fer!
Ideologically Empty
There isn’t much left to Republican policies. Even before 2016, all that fiscal caution and small government talk had atrophied, leaving Republicans two remaining “GOP” activities. Their base got red-meat speeches, lies, and racism delivered by death-match hyper-partisans. The Republican donors got tax cuts and “deregulation” (legal immunity) for the rich and powerful.
And now you get a Presidential pardon if you’re rich enough. That’s new.
Want a laugh? Rich people like to think they’re in on the joke. Naa. It’s easy to show that Stocks do much better under Democrats, especially during the last 20-30 years. My 401(k) still hasn’t recovered from Dubya’s mismanagement. It’s no surprise: the modern Republican party has been oddly uninterested in governance. But rich and powerful people overwhelmingly vote Republican anyway. They’re chumps, too.
We’re All Suckers
The only surprise about Trump was that someone so psychotic actually won in 2016. We all knew he didn’t look right in the head. We just hoped it was an act. Imagine that. We gave that barely functional human being the most powerful position in the world in the hopes that he was fooling about everything he said.
What pissed off the operatives and establishment Republicans wasn’t that Trump was a lying racist grifter. It was that Trump grabbed the levers of power out of their hands without permission. They weren’t bothered by the racists or the corruption; they were most afraid he’d break the machine they’d spent decades building.
Trump Reflects the Republican Party
The roots of Trumpism go back a long way. Trump didn’t change the GOP into his image; he reflects what was always there. It was an act of mutual creation.
So no, I don’t want to hear any never-Trumpers profess their shock and surprise that the Republican party is full of goddamn Republicans.
