I don't like it, but here it is.
Jonathan Rauch and Benjamin Wittes in The Atlantic:
A few days after the Democratic electoral sweep this past November in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere, The Washington Post asked a random Virginia man to explain his vote. The man, a marketing executive named Toren Beasley, replied that his calculus was simply to refuse to calculate. “It could have been Dr. Seuss or the Berenstain Bears on the ballot and I would have voted for them if they were a Democrat,” he said. “I might do more analyses in other years. But in this case, no. No one else gets any consideration because what’s going on with the Republicans—I’m talking about Trump and his cast of characters—is stupid, stupid, stupid. I can’t say stupid enough times.”
This, then, is the article we thought we would never write: a frank statement that a certain form of partisanship is now a moral necessity. The Republican Party, as an institution, has become a danger to the rule of law and the integrity of our democracy. The problem is not just Donald Trump; it’s the larger political apparatus that made a conscious decision to enable him. In a two-party system, nonpartisanship works only if both parties are consistent democratic actors. If one of them is not predictably so, the space for nonpartisans evaporates. We’re thus driven to believe that the best hope of defending the country from Trump’s Republican enablers, and of saving the Republican Party from itself, is to do as Toren Beasley did: vote mindlessly and mechanically against Republicans at every opportunity, until the party either rights itself or implodes (very preferably the former).
Two things up at the front:
People doing things mindlessly is a big reason we're in this jam to begin with. But it seems that's how the Republican brain works now, and so maybe these two guys figure, "if that's what got us here, that's what gets outa here" (?)
Second, it's important to remind these guys (guys like Rauch and Wittes) that maybe if they hadn't been sitting on their hands for the last 30 years, we wouldn't be quite so deep in the shit now.
On we go:
One more nonreason for our stance: that we are horrified by the president. To be sure, we are horrified by much that Trump has said and done. But many members of his party are likewise horrified. Republicans such as Senators John McCain and Bob Corker and Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse, as well as former Governors Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, have spoken out and conducted themselves with integrity.
"...conducted themselves with integrity." Except that those first 4 guys have voted to fuck over millions of us, practically at every opportunity. Every one of them is All In on the policies - they just don't like 45*'s Trailer Trash Approach. An approach, btw, the Right Wing Dis-InfoTainment Complex has been pimping for those same 30 years.
I'm certainly not the first to point any of this out (see: driftglass and Blue Gal), but we have to keep repeating it until it starts to sink in - what these guys are trying to do is to build lifeboats. They're already rebranding the shitty monster they've allowed the GOP to become by calling it "Trumpism". They intend to set fire to it and escape, watching it sink, as they sidle up to the rest of us and pretend they had nothing to do with any of it.
AKA: The arsonist wants credit for his courageous efforts in fighting the fire.
And get this:
Abandoning an entire party means abandoning many brave and honorable people. We would not do that based simply on rot at the top.
Uhh - fellas, that "rot" didn't get to the top without a shitload of support from the bottom, and the bottom doesn't support the Rot-At-The-Top without a shitload of support and direction coming from The Rot At The Top.
Then this (which goes to the very heart of the problem):
Future generations of scholars will scrutinize the many weird ways that Trump has twisted the GOP.
Trump hasn't twisted anything. A twisted GOP made Trump not just possible or probable - but inevitable.
But since even a blind hog roots up an acorn once in a while, these guys are making one thing very clear - we still have a decent chance to start putting things right.
Two things up at the front:
People doing things mindlessly is a big reason we're in this jam to begin with. But it seems that's how the Republican brain works now, and so maybe these two guys figure, "if that's what got us here, that's what gets outa here" (?)
Second, it's important to remind these guys (guys like Rauch and Wittes) that maybe if they hadn't been sitting on their hands for the last 30 years, we wouldn't be quite so deep in the shit now.
On we go:
One more nonreason for our stance: that we are horrified by the president. To be sure, we are horrified by much that Trump has said and done. But many members of his party are likewise horrified. Republicans such as Senators John McCain and Bob Corker and Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse, as well as former Governors Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, have spoken out and conducted themselves with integrity.
"...conducted themselves with integrity." Except that those first 4 guys have voted to fuck over millions of us, practically at every opportunity. Every one of them is All In on the policies - they just don't like 45*'s Trailer Trash Approach. An approach, btw, the Right Wing Dis-InfoTainment Complex has been pimping for those same 30 years.
I'm certainly not the first to point any of this out (see: driftglass and Blue Gal), but we have to keep repeating it until it starts to sink in - what these guys are trying to do is to build lifeboats. They're already rebranding the shitty monster they've allowed the GOP to become by calling it "Trumpism". They intend to set fire to it and escape, watching it sink, as they sidle up to the rest of us and pretend they had nothing to do with any of it.
AKA: The arsonist wants credit for his courageous efforts in fighting the fire.
And get this:
Abandoning an entire party means abandoning many brave and honorable people. We would not do that based simply on rot at the top.
Uhh - fellas, that "rot" didn't get to the top without a shitload of support from the bottom, and the bottom doesn't support the Rot-At-The-Top without a shitload of support and direction coming from The Rot At The Top.
Then this (which goes to the very heart of the problem):
Future generations of scholars will scrutinize the many weird ways that Trump has twisted the GOP.
No.
Ah, hell no.
And No fuckin' way.
Trump hasn't twisted anything. A twisted GOP made Trump not just possible or probable - but inevitable.
But since even a blind hog roots up an acorn once in a while, these guys are making one thing very clear - we still have a decent chance to start putting things right.
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