In 2016 the punditry class told us of the takeover, even the hijacking, of the Republican Party by Donald Trump. As Trump progressively dropped his competitors in the GOP primaries, won the party’s nomination, and defeated Hillary Clinton in the general election, his presumptive takeover became complete. The party was now his, for worse or worse yet.
This story had considerable street cred. After all, his GOP primary opponents
and the traditional Republican Party “establishment” sharply denounced Trump for almost everything: his (lack of) credentials, his extravagant lying, his crudeness (if less so his misogyny), his violation of longstanding political norms. No one, they asserted, was less prepared or less fit for the presidency. The party’s most recent standard-bearer, Mitt Romney, urged during the 2016 primaries that “Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University.” Continue reading “The Trouble with the Trublicans”
