Dear Commons Community,
It was a busy day yesterday for the Republican Presidential nominees following on the heels of the debate Thursday night. The media was awash with comments from Trump, Rubio, and Cruz. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced his endorsement of Trump. Mitt Romney and others continued to call on Trump to release his tax returns. Rubio was poking fun at the way Trump applied make-up to his chin and around his lips during the debate. In the midst of this, The Washington Post had an op-ed by Robert Kagan likening Donald Trump to the Republican Party’s Frankenstein monster. Here is an excerpt:
“Let’s be clear: Trump is no fluke. Nor is he hijacking the Republican Party or the conservative movement, if there is such a thing. He is, rather, the party’s creation, its Frankenstein’s monster, brought to life by the party, fed by the party and now made strong enough to destroy its maker. Was it not the party’s wild obstructionism — the repeated threats to shut down the government over policy and legislative disagreements, the persistent calls for nullification of Supreme Court decisions, the insistence that compromise was betrayal, the internal coups against party leaders who refused to join the general demolition — that taught Republican voters that government, institutions, political traditions, party leadership and even parties themselves were things to be overthrown, evaded, ignored, insulted, laughed at? Was it not Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), among others, who set this tone and thereby cleared the way for someone even more irreverent, so that now, in a most unenjoyable irony, Cruz, along with the rest of the party, must fall to the purer version of himself, a less ideologically encumbered anarcho-revolutionary? This would not be the first revolution that devoured itself.”
The op-ed also mentions the Party’s unbridled demeaning of President Obama and his policies as well as its bigotry towards immigrants.
Kagan concludes:
“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.”
Tony
