- Joined
- Nov 18, 2016
- Messages
- 37,522
- Reaction score
- 16,959
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Liberal
The GOP has been telling us it's the party of "family values", "freedom", "American Democracy", "rights of citizens", "law and order", and other such euphemisms. Those were supposed to be its "core values"- the things it steadfastly stood for. It was not supposed to be about charismatic leaders and people, it was supposed to be about the ideas.
But Donald Trump has clearly shown that the party is, and never has been, any of those things. He boldly ripped away that skimpy little veil and revealed what is, and has always been, at the core of the party, since Barry Goldwater's campaign:
Racism.
Trump "said it like it is", and that's why he was so beloved by so many millions.
This is not liberal propaganda. It turns out there were a few Republican party members who naively and innocently really thought those values were what the party was all about. Now, in the Trump era, with that skimpy little veil stripped away, they are finding themselves out in the open with nothing to cover them. They are outcasts of the party.
Here is a former GOP political strategist explaining the disillusionment that came after he realized what the party had always been really about.
" Once upon a time, Republican legislators and party leaders claimed they cared deeply about certain foundational issues—the deficit, family values, free trade, hawkish foreign policy. Now they were cheering a twice-divorced adulterer who had run up the federal debt, sloppily imposed tariffs, and embraced the anti-American autocrats leading Russia and North Korea—a man devoid of serious thought and guiding policy principles, a self-fixated candidate who presented no intellectual framework for his presidency. Had the GOP become the party of no ideas?...
He (GOP political Strategist Stevens) huffed that the Republican Party had not merely drifted away from its core positions, as sometimes occurs with political parties: “Fair trade, balanced budgets, character, family values, standing up to foreign adversaries like Russia—we’re all against that now. You have to ask, ‘Does someone abandon deeply held beliefs in three or four years?’ No. It means you didn’t ever hold them.” He added: “I feel like a guy who was working for Bernie Madoff.”...
In our conversation, Stevens exploded with loathing for the party he once faithfully (and lucratively) served. He rejected the common view that Trump had hijacked the GOP. No, he explained, the triumph of know-nothing Trumpism marked the culmination of an internal conflict that had existed for decades between the party’s “dark side” and its professed ideals. Even William F. Buckley Jr., often hailed as a grand public intellectual and the founding father of the modern conservative movement, was “a stone-cold racist” in the 1950s, Stevens pointed out. (Buckley at that time considered white people more “advanced” and more fit to govern.)...
“A lot of us in the party liked to believe the dark side was a recessive gene, but it’s a dominant theme,” Stevens, a seventh-generation Mississippian who was named for Confederate Gen. Jeb Stuart, told me. “And it’s all about race... But we’re talking about the Confederacy—literally,” Stevens said."
www.motherjones.com
But Donald Trump has clearly shown that the party is, and never has been, any of those things. He boldly ripped away that skimpy little veil and revealed what is, and has always been, at the core of the party, since Barry Goldwater's campaign:
Racism.
Trump "said it like it is", and that's why he was so beloved by so many millions.
This is not liberal propaganda. It turns out there were a few Republican party members who naively and innocently really thought those values were what the party was all about. Now, in the Trump era, with that skimpy little veil stripped away, they are finding themselves out in the open with nothing to cover them. They are outcasts of the party.
Here is a former GOP political strategist explaining the disillusionment that came after he realized what the party had always been really about.
" Once upon a time, Republican legislators and party leaders claimed they cared deeply about certain foundational issues—the deficit, family values, free trade, hawkish foreign policy. Now they were cheering a twice-divorced adulterer who had run up the federal debt, sloppily imposed tariffs, and embraced the anti-American autocrats leading Russia and North Korea—a man devoid of serious thought and guiding policy principles, a self-fixated candidate who presented no intellectual framework for his presidency. Had the GOP become the party of no ideas?...
He (GOP political Strategist Stevens) huffed that the Republican Party had not merely drifted away from its core positions, as sometimes occurs with political parties: “Fair trade, balanced budgets, character, family values, standing up to foreign adversaries like Russia—we’re all against that now. You have to ask, ‘Does someone abandon deeply held beliefs in three or four years?’ No. It means you didn’t ever hold them.” He added: “I feel like a guy who was working for Bernie Madoff.”...
In our conversation, Stevens exploded with loathing for the party he once faithfully (and lucratively) served. He rejected the common view that Trump had hijacked the GOP. No, he explained, the triumph of know-nothing Trumpism marked the culmination of an internal conflict that had existed for decades between the party’s “dark side” and its professed ideals. Even William F. Buckley Jr., often hailed as a grand public intellectual and the founding father of the modern conservative movement, was “a stone-cold racist” in the 1950s, Stevens pointed out. (Buckley at that time considered white people more “advanced” and more fit to govern.)...
“A lot of us in the party liked to believe the dark side was a recessive gene, but it’s a dominant theme,” Stevens, a seventh-generation Mississippian who was named for Confederate Gen. Jeb Stuart, told me. “And it’s all about race... But we’re talking about the Confederacy—literally,” Stevens said."
The Republican Party is racist and soulless. Just ask this veteran GOP strategist.
Stuart Stevens says he now realizes the hatred and bigotry of Trumpism were always at the heart of the GOP.
www.motherjones.com
