The Week

Here's another one we can file under: Holy fuck, I just realized the Republican party is chock full of Republicans! (hat tip = Driftglass)

Op/Ed piece from Damon Linker, at The Week:

In the raging debate among Trump-critical conservatives over whether the goal in November should be merely to defeat the president or to pursue the more radical strategy of burning the Republican Party to the ground, I'm firmly on the side of scorched earth.

The case for maximalism is strong. The head of the party is a corrupt and malicious imbecile. Republicans in Congress are a mix of Trump enablers, obstructionist-demagogues out to maximize the wealth of their donors, know-nothing conspiracist loons, and a few reformers experimenting with the most politically palatable way to blend nationalism with socialism. All of them are primarily motivated by the drive toward self-promotion within the right-wing media complex. And when we move further down the Republican hierarchy to the state and local level, things only get worse.

- and -

There's just one difficulty with the plan: It does nothing to address the root of the problem, which no one — not the minimalist Trump haters, and not the fiercest maximalists out to pummel the party's establishment — has a clue how to solve.

That is, the problem of the Republican voter.

- and -

The voters who swooned for Sarah Palin in 2008; who seriously considered giving the nod to Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Ben Carson, and Rick Santorum in 2012; who four years later elevated a reality-show conman to the head of their party, cast ballots for him to win the presidency, and have rallied around him ever since — most of these voters remain undaunted in their conviction that politics is primarily about the venting of grievances and the trolling of opponents. The dumber and angrier and more shameless, the better.


I've made the point before:
Trump has not remade the GOP in his own image. He is the perfect reflection of what that party has become.

And Linker ends with:

So by all means, aim to burn down the GOP in 2020 if you can. But don't for a minute think it will solve the bigger problem that confronts us — the problem of the malignant Republican voter.