Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 07:08 pm
*The following is an opinion column by R Muse*
It is no exaggeration to assert that Republicans are proficient at being overly dramatic to cover over their inadequacies and their lies. Over the weekend a ‘Republican’ pundit and Washington Post columnist, George Will, put on quite a show at a Federalist Society luncheon and it was as much of a ‘show’ as it was an opportunity to cover over his valuable contributions to the success of Donald Trump’s candidacy. Now, the “show” was the conservative George Will announcing that because Donald Trump was the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency, he had officially left the Republican Party and registered as “unaffiliated” in Maryland.
Mr. Will’s reason for leaving the Republican ranks, in his own words, was because the GOP was “not my party” any longer. In fact, not only did Will announce he was no longer a Republican, he urged ‘conservatives’ not to support Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump regardless it would lead to a Democratic victory in November. Will’s message to Republican voters was that they should, “Make sure he loses. Grit their teeth for four years and win the White House.”
Interestingly, Mr. “Republican” Will “mentioned” that one of the primary “factors that led him to leave the Party” was House Speaker Paul Ryan’s endorsement of Donald Trump for the presidency. He said that a “President Trump with no opposition from a Republican-led Congress would be worse than a Clinton president with a Republican-led Congress.”
During a conversation with Chris Wallace at Fox News, Will expounded on how Speaker Ryan’s ‘endorsement’ of Trump drove him to leave the current Republican Party, the Party of Trump that George Will spent the past thirty years helping to create. Will told Wallace:
“After Trump became the presumptive nominee, he had a summit meeting with Paul Ryan where they stressed their common principles and their vast shared ground, which is much more important than their differences. I thought that was puzzling doubly so because Paul Ryan still didn’t endorse him. After Trump went after the Mexican judge from Northern Indiana, then Paul Ryan endorsed him. And I decided that, in fact, this is not my party anymore.”
So, despite Republicans spending the past two decades, at least, demeaning and demonizing every demographic in America that didn’t include white rich males, religious extremists, and nativistic white supremacists it was Ryan’s endorsement after Trump attempted to besmirch the reputation of a highly-respected jurist that drove Will out of the GOP. What was seriously interesting is why Chris Wallace failed to call immediate ‘bullshit’ and berate Will mercilessly for being a lying hypocrite; but it was Fox News and calling out conservative hypocrisy and mendacity is obviously strictly verboten.
The only thing George Will, or any of the several other conservative pundits condemning Trump, has to complain about the Donald is that he is parroting what the base has learned the GOP establishment says is fair and right in their version of the real America. Still, another Republican pundit, and former Reagan speechwriter, Peggy Noonan fairly agreed with George Will and said that because of Donald Trump’s successful Republican primary, “we’re seeing a great political party shatter before our eyes.”
There is only one thing to say about these staunch Republicans and establishment conservatives, and in no small way the mainstream media; “Donald Trump isn’t the destruction of the Republican Party, he is the fulfillment of everything the party has been saying and doing for decades.” As Neal Gabler with BillMoyers.com wrote, and this column has reiterated ad nauseam, “He [Trump] is just saying it louder and more plainly than his predecessors and intra-party rivals.” Trump’s “louder and plainer” earned him the nomination and that is what has Republicans in a dither; a non-establishment celebrity entertainer stole their hate and hard work and won the primary.
Gabler went on to state what is obvious to any conscious American; Donald Trump’s popularity reveals “the decades-long transformation of Republicanism from a business-centered, small town, white Protestant set of beliefs” into what it is today that propelled Trump to take over the Party; “America’s primary institutional force of bigotry, intellectual dishonesty, ignorance, warmongering, intractability and cruelty against the vulnerable and powerless.” Both George Will and Peggy Noonan know, like their “stunned” Republican cohorts, that without the pre-production work of establishment Republicans and attacks on every- and anything, Donald Trump would have already negotiated several deals hosting more reality television programs.
What Will and Noonan have to explain is: Where was their outrage and disappointment that their “great political party” was shattering over the past eight years when establishment Republicans and conservative pundits brutally demonized Muslims, gays, women, African Americans, the poor, and immigrants? Donald Trump was not any kind of politician when the GOP attempted to restrict women’s access to birth control, withheld funding for programs for the poor, passed laws prohibiting construction of Mosques or rejected court rulings giving gays the same rights as heterosexuals. Oh it’s true that Trump embraces, promotes and pledges to continue those atrocious policies now, but he didn’t create them; Republicans did and they know it.
As if to punctuate that point, Will told the Federalist Society audience that, assuming Republicans retain their majorities in both houses of Congress, with a Democrat in the White House there will certainly be crippling “gridlock in government” that Will claims “is a good thing. Gridlock is not an American problem. It’s an American achievement.” He also said that other nations were envious and just wish that their governments were gridlocked and failed to get anything accomplished for the people or their nations. His justification for promoting the Republican refusal to govern throughout President Obama’s tenure is “that gridlock stops things the government should not be doing;” like working for the people and not just the NRA, corporations, religious maniacs and the one-percent. George Will didn’t leave the Republican Party no matter what his voter registration status says, he is just distancing himself from the man saying everything out loud that he, George Will, has promoted and championed for decades.
Donald Trump and his supporters, as twisted, bigoted, and hateful as they are, have every right to lash out with extreme prejudice at establishment Republicans and hold them in contempt. Donald Trump has not said, and his base has not supported, one thing other Republicans have not said and conservative pundits have not defended over the past eight years, at least. But because it is Donald Trump in “a baseball cap” saying them and not Ted Cruz in a suit, conservative pundits and establishment Republicans are weeping and gnashing their teeth in phony despair.
If George Will was not a hypocrite, a coward, and a liar, he would celebrate Donald Trump for what he is; the conservative movement’s crowning achievement and “fulfillment of everything the Republican Party has been saying and doing for decades.” Trump is just saying it louder and more plainly than his predecessors and George Will and his turncoat conservative cohorts have no-one to blame but themselves; because they created the Republican brand that Trump is not going to allow them to escape whether they leave the Party or not.
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