The Death of the Republican Party
FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | August 27, 2020
“Trump has spent three and a half years as President working to establish that lying doesn’t matter, that rules, norms, and laws don’t apply to him, and that the powers of the presidency exist for him to impose his vengeance on those who fail to agree with him.”
The Republican Party is no more.
But there are still two major parties: the Democratic Party and the Trump Party.
The death of the Republican Party is symbolized by the fact that, for the first time since 1856, the so-called “Republican Party” did not bother to even adopt a platform.
It is demonstrated by the fact that what used to be core principles for the Republican Party have disappeared into dust.
It is shown by the fact that congressional Republicans, with rare exception, follow Trump like lemmings headed to the sea.
The death of the Republican Party was topped off this week by President Trump treating himself like an emperor at the “Trump Convention,” with a horde of supplicants present to bow and scrape and feed Trump’s insecurities and fragile ego.
Trump demeaned the White House by using it as a political prop. He dishonored and damaged Fort McHenry, a national monument, in order for Vice President Pence to make a convention speech that sounded like a “Dear Leader” homage.
When questioned about the obvious violations of the Hatch Act that are occurring at the Trump Convention, the response from Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was: “Nobody outside of the Beltway really cares.”
This is the view of a key spokesman for an administration that is rolling out the “law and order” political playbook, while ignoring the killing of Black men and women by police officers, whose brutal actions go unremarked upon by Trump.
Trump has spent three and a half years as President working to establish that lying doesn’t matter, that rules, norms, and laws don’t apply to him, and that the powers of the presidency exist for him to impose his vengeance on those who fail to agree with him.
There are some who understandably think that our democracy and system of representative government as envisioned by the Founders may be at stake in this presidential election.
While the stakes in the election are of enormous consequence, we will survive Trump.
A nation that survived the Civil War, two World Wars, the Great Depression, and other momentous events, will survive this charlatan who sits in the White House and delusionally believes he is the czar of the United States of America.
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