Trump, Moore, Bannon, Romney and the Death of the GOP

The eventual destruction of the GOP was set in motion on the day Donald Trump locked up the nomination. Had he lost the general election, there would have been an all-out political civil war in the party. But he did not lose, and so the death of the GOP is now an inside job, perpetrated by a man nominally at its head (Trump), who has never had any loyalty to it and who unabashedly threatened to destroy it himself. 

This political suicide is on display everywhere, but no more so than in the State of Alabama, where yet another creature from under a rock (Roy Moore)  is rising to political prominence on the strength of immoral evangelicals for whom child molestation is now a trifle, and Trumpists who revel in the agitation of their political enemies. Alabama voters may elect a man to the Senate who may more properly be denied the vote, had his felonious behavior been unearthed earlier, in order to support "the President's agenda" which included a tax cut that will benefit those voters very little if at all, while offering great bennies to those fat-cats they claim to disdain.

Homeless man in Alabama 

No stranger to sexual assault and moral turpitude, the President has come out in full-throated support of the Dirty Old Man of Alabama, and he has loosed the Grima Wormtongue of the Alt-Right (Steve Bannon) to whip the Trumpenproletariat into a solid frenzy before next week's election. Bannon delivered what the masses wanted, a stemwinder in favor of Moore that had the doubly illogical (and so therefore perfect for Trump Nation) effect of favorably comparing the "honor and integrity" of a child molester to Mitt F*****G Romney, while attacking Romney on religious grounds, saying "You hid behind your religion. You went to France to be a missionary while guys were dying in rice paddies in Vietnam. Do not talk to me about honor and integrity."  Apparently, the low-information voters cheering Bannon on were unaware of Bannon's liege-lord's four Vietnam deferments for "bone spurs in the foot", but never mind that, we're Making America Great Again.

The Trump Fan Club President from Ticbite, N.C. writes in, asking "Why? Why is this happening? Why is lawlessness being tolerated? The obvious answer is Trump, but has he been that bad? Forget the Tweets for a second (I like the Tweets myself, direct pipeline to America don't you know). What policies can a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Trumper, that claims to be a REAL conservative, what policies can one point to that suggests Trump is unfit? What has he done that any good Bushy Republican finds so egregious?" 

It is unclear which lawlessness this reader references--is it the child molestation of the GOP senatorial candidate from Alabama? Or the admission of sexual assault by the GOP presidential candidate from New York? Or is it the admissions of guilt by several officials of the Trump Campaign and Administration? Oh wait--it is the lawlessness of a broken and dispatched has-been politician who lost the Presidential election. Never mind that there is an active investigation into the unprecedented degree of coziness between the Trump team and Russia, including figures from Russian organized crime and Russian intelligence (but I repeat myself). No, we should forget about that and spend our time worrying about prosecuting a private citizen who is no longer a political threat to anyone.

The GOP was once a party that stood for something. It was once a conservative party. Conservatism--properly understood, has no place for the moral and ethical flexibility of this bunch. Have a read here from a column Jonah Goldberg wrote a couple of years ago, if you want to understand what being a conservative means--or at least means to me.

What my correspondent from Ticbite doesn't get, is that to the extent that Trump has had ANYTHING even remotely resembling policy victories, they were on straight stick greatest hits of the conservative movement, delivered to him by the very "cucks" that they excoriate. If he or any Trumpkin believe that Donald Trump is uniquely about conservative judges, deregulation, or tax cuts--they are even lower information than I thought. I have no argument with these things, and I repeat this fact here and elsewhere for all to hear. It is the man, his behavior, his immaturity, his lack of character, the damage he is doing to our country--that I argue with and for which I find him unfit. We could have had these policy victories without the embarrassing daily shitshow of the Trump Administration, and we could have had these policy victories without the destruction of the Republican Party. But America wanted its temper tantrum, and we now will reap the whirlwind.