Why the Republican Party Hates Trump
There is a concerted effort within the Republican party to oppose Donald Trump. People assume that this stems from Trump being so horrendously offensive and outrageous, that they don’t want the man to be their party representative.
That is not true. Under the right conditions, Trump’s message and presentation would be perfectly acceptable to them, and they would love to have a candidate so successful and popular.
Instead, Republicans oppose Trump for a simple reason: he’s not their man.
In politics (and advertising, by the way), you create an atmosphere, usually based on fear and other negative emotions, and then you use it to manipulate people into acting in your interest. The problem with this method is that the atmosphere is free-floating, and can be hijacked by someone else. This is what happened after 9/11: al Qaeda created an atmosphere of terror—and the Bush administration grabbed it and ran off with it. Republicans used the terror to manipulate people, milking it for every vote and every election they could, until it became a joke (“a noun, a verb, and 9/11”).
This is precisely what Trump did. For years, Republicans and conservatives in general have been carefully cultivating an atmosphere of fear, paranoia, and outright loathing so they could use that atmosphere to manipulate the public, and Trump simply walks right up—excuse me, he just coasted down an escalator—grabbed it, and walked off with it.
Trump is not opposed by Republicans because of his political views, his language, or his outrageousness. The sole reason they are panicking right now is because he is not beholden to him. He’s not a party man. He does not owe the party or its patrons. He hijacked their mojo. He has no reason to do what they want or put their players into positions of power.
That’s why they oppose him: because he’s not under their control.
A very insightful piece, Luis.
I agree with the methods you describe that the GOP uses to manipulate their constituent.
One suggested edit:
“he is not beholden to him” -> ” he is not beholden to them.”
Cheers,
–kensensei
Yep! Thanks! Changed it.
Not just that though.
He slags on everyone for everything.
Calling the neocons liars that intentionally ginned up the Iraq war (!)
McCain not his kind of war hero since he got captured.
Some time ago I realized 30-40% of this country was off their rocker.
You’ve got the 27% crazification factor.
Wallace in 1968 won 1 out of 7 votes (!)
I’m surrounded by conservatives at work now and am often flummoxed by the shit they say.
Imagine if conservatives were forced to face the truth about how stupid their ideology is and how much damage it has done to this country over the decades.
The human mind walls that stuff off though so that’s impossible.
It is true that Cruz and Rubio are “company men” — politicians willing to push movement conservatism forward and be richly rewarded thereby.
Trump doesn’t really need that I guess, he’s indeed his own man.
The neoliberalism of the past 30-odd years has in fact been a “bad deal” for Americans.
We let Japan drink our milkshake in the 70s and 80s thanks to the 320 to 240 yen-to-the-dollar FX rate we allowed, then gave China and Mexico the baton.
So now our cumulative trade deficit is well on the way to $8T:
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/intinv/intinvnewsrelease.htm
It’d be something if the GOP was able to stop spouting their “job creator” supply-side bullshit and was actually able to see what the problems were here.
@Troy
Troy,
you work with conservatives? How is that possible? I thought you were in California haha…
–kensensei
Pretty disgusted by their sanctimonious claim that they’re blocking a supreme court nominee in order to “let the voters decide”. Wedding themselves to that principle actually traps them into accepting anyone who would be nominated if a Democrat wins in November, but frustratingly no one on the Democrats’ side has had enough brains to force them into answering whether they would still hold to that principle if a Democrat won the election. All they can think of is the equally fake-sounding and sanctimonious “responsibility” principle. It would be much more convincing if they just used the Republicans’ stated “principle” to force them into a blatant self-contradiction.
Ironically, the Republicans have already begun walking into that contradiction of their own will, saying now that they would approve Garland in a lame-duck session if they lost the election, deciding the seat on their own rather than letting the people express their choice through their newly elected president. And STILL I have not seen anyone in the media or on the Democrats’ side point out how this is an obvious self-contradiction which makes a mockery of their feigned self-righteousness over ‘letting the people decide’. The closest I have seen is Schumer saying “Cracks are starting to show up in their argument”. How big of a country does it have to be for there to be a single politician or media member with enough brains to see the real weakness in the Repubs’ stance?
The thing that infuriates me: if Hillary wins and the Republicans move to approve Garland, I have no doubt that Obama will let them, and refuse to withdraw the nomination. Once again, he is bending over backwards to give them everything they want, and robbing his own party of any chance of gaining a single damned thing.
Hillary will get her own picks, next decade. Hopefully from a (D) Senate again.
Kennedy’s turning 80 this year.
Thomas is still in his 60s, so he’s got another ~20 years FFS.
One commenter at the NY Times opined that the GOP only seeks power, they want to rule. But they don’t want to govern: indeed they are incapable of governing. I actually think that is the something that the party in opposition to the GOP should be harping on, and they can’t do it too soon, to often or too loud enough.
This disposition of the Supreme Court nominee then can be dove tailed, and amplified into that theme as we approach the autumn. It will squeeze the GOP and create anger (there’s the negative emotion manipulation) in the electorate and cause Sanders or Clinton to become elected, and take the Senate (which is really vunerable now) and if the anger is really heightened, maybe even take the heavily gerrymandered house. I think that is far more likley if Sanders is the candidate because he can take anti-establishment voters from the GOP, motivate the young and independents.
I would love a scenario that has a Dem win at least the Pres & the Senate, and allows President Sanders to nominate the most odious, I mean, someone like a young Lamar Latrell from the Lambda, Lambda, Lambda house in the Revenge of the nerds – 20 years old and on the Supreme Court for another 80 years or something like that. A kind of sort of karmatic revenge inflicted on these people, and for that judge to be instrumental in reversing the last 30 years of reactionary rulings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCWz9U0MtoI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4Wl2r_VlhA.