The Runback: Trump's Rot
The Rot of what Trump Brought to the GOP has damaged the GOP's brand. Possibly forever.
Welcome to another week of The Runback. Have you been enjoying The Duckpin? Do you have comments or suggestions? Do you want to write for us? Let me know at theduckpin@gmail.com. And please be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Thanks in advance.
Podcast Episode #13
This week we talk with John Frenaye, the founder and publisher of Eye on Annapolis and host of the Eye on Annapolis Daily News Brief Podcast.
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News and Politics
The Folly of Writers in Bubbles: Ignorant Characterizations of Politicians of Years Past Taint Credibility of Writers Obsessed with Modern Bubbles, and Curt Mills calling Larry Hogan, Sr. a "liberal" is but one example.
Can Baltimore's Latest Mayor Break with Past Failures? For his next four years, let his report card include bringing the city's murder rate down to a level at least comparable to other major cities.
Cooper Urges MDGOP Support of Bogus Texas Lawsuit: Now former MDGOP Vice-Chairman Brandon Cooper introduced a resolution urging MDGOP support of Paxton lawsuit. The resolution was not considered at the convention because it was no longer relevant after the case was rejected by the Supreme Court.
Sports
Season Ending Heat Check: The College Football Coaching Carousel is really starting to spin.
Let's Have a Real Playoff, Week 15: How did our theoretical playoff look before this weekend’s action?
2021 (finally) NBA Preview: Part 1: Can Lebron do it again? Can Milwaukee get its act together? Learn more.
A Bad Baseball Day: Major League Baseball's reorganization of the Minor Leagues has killed professional baseball in Western Maryland.
Did you see this week’s NFL Preview? Take a look at how the picks went down and be sure to tune in Friday to this week’s picks.
The Monday Thought
Let’s be realistic: not every Republican bought into what President Donald Trump was doing to the GOP and what policies he was enacting in the name of “conservatism.”
There are plenty of people like me, conservatives who were not down with Trump’s left-wing antics and policies.
There are still more people who are “professional” Republicans; not people who get paid necessarily, but party leaders and officials who support the nominee even if they weren’t always their cup of tea.
But then of course we have the “truuuuee conservatives”, those who think they are the purest conservatives of all. Often recent converts from the Democrats, they often believe that they and they alone are the arbiters of what conservatism is.
It is those people, the last group, who are thoroughly rotting conservatism and the GOP.
For example:
The Arizona Republican Party is asking people if they are ready to “die for Trump”.
Meanwhile, 126 members of Congress signed on to support the bogus lawsuit brought forth by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton trying to overturn election results in four swing states that Trump lost, a shocking abandonment of Constitutional principles and any sense of small-r republican governance. Several of these members of Congress lacked the self-awareness to realize that they were also suggesting that their own elections be thrown out.
Allen West, a former Congressman and military officer and now the Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, is actively calling for secession:
Yesterday was its own day filled with insanity. We have Congressman-elected Bob Good of Virginia declaring the pandemic phony:
Then there was the “Jericho March” which was a bunch of Trump supporters saying absolutely insane an un-Christian things in the name of Christianity.
And then finally, the MAGA crowd listening to Nick Fuentes (who isn’t exactly somebody anybody should be listening to) decides that it does in fact want to kill the GOP.
The Republican Party in large part has lost its mind and lost its way.
This is what was always bound to happen. The die-hard Make American Great Crowd, the kind who would drop everything for a car parade or attend a pro-Trump rally six weeks after he lost the election, never wanted to Make America Great. They wanted a champion that would take it to the man, regardless of what the end game actually was. They aren’t Republicans, in any sense of the word as we knew it prior to 2016. They have no loyalty to the GOP or to conservative principles. Many of them do, in fact, believe in a kind of white identity politics that would be more home in the Wallace-era American Independent Party than it ever would have been in the modern GOP.
Ultimately, though, this isn’t the fault of those MAGA folks. They were not politically involved prior to Trump, for better or for worse. This is all the fault of the people who turned the keys of party leadership over to Trump’s biggest fans in fear of Trump.
This is the fault of former RNC Chair Reince Priebus. He made sure the establishment got in line for Trump, suppressed the votes of Delegates at the 2016 Republican National Convention, and made Trump the establishment candidate. He was kindly rewarded with the post of White House Chief of Staff, of course.
This is the fault of Ronna Romney McDaniel, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, for not having a spine and standing up to what Trump was doing to the GOP.
This is the fault of every member of Congress who has abandoned their principles to kiss Trump’s ring at every opportunity.
This is the fault of Republican officials up and down the party infrastructure who prioritized the Trump brand over actual party-building.
This, ultimately, was the problem that the GOP’s full embrace of Trump was destined to bring. It was destined to bring an abandonment of principle. It was destined to make conspiracies and anti-republicanism predominant throughout the party. It was destined to make the support of big government a new pillar of GOP policy.
In four years the Republican Party has gone from a party supporting small government, constitutional principles, family values, and a strong national defense to a party that wants big government, a weak national security posture, and would prefer to throw out the Constitution to keep a strongman in power at any price.
Has any party in U.S. history sold its soul quicker than the GOP?
On January 20th at 12 Noon, the GOP will no longer be Trump’s party. Whether or not it is a party that can be saved is a conversation we will be having long after Trump flies off, hopefully into political obscurity. But a GOP that exists solely for the purpose of grievance-mongering, conspiracy theories, and unprincipled populism is a party that will be destined for the ash heap of history.