The Politics of Extinction

Today’s Republican Party is practicing the politics of extinction, pursuing activities and policies that will lead to its destruction — unless and until the decent but cowardly majority members of the party rise up against the minority of evil and stupid people who have declared themselves to be its leaders.

It’s important to remember that Donald Trump holds no office in the Republican Party. In the past, all our ex-presidents have, when termed or voted out of office, retired. They take up painting, or charity work, they build their library, and they shut the hell up. Even MAGA lunatics such as Herschel Walker and Dr. Oz had the grace to dive quietly into obscurity when their political heads were handed to them. Trump, on the other hand, defeated and disgraced,  acts like he is the head of the party and the party acts the same. But the party plan, which is the legally enforceable constitution of the party, does not provide for any such office. It defines a national committee that is the governing board and a chairperson who is its executive. Those people exist, but they are being  ignored.   

Trump’s successful hijacking of the party would be remarkable in and of itself, but his continued hold on it as he leads it full speed toward mass political suicide is just flat astonishing. 

There are two reasons why their fate is inevitable: for one thing, numbers don’t lie; for another, the Trump cultists do, all the time.

It is distressing that so few politicians and pundits understand the basic arithmetic underlying these events, and talk and act as though the country was evenly divided between Trump cultists and everyone else. Hard core Trumpists constitute less than one-third of registered Republican voters; who are one-third of all registered voters; who are 80% of the adult population qualified to be registered voters. Which means that the hard core is less than ten percent of the adult population. 

The numbers are clear. Trump can win a Republican Party primary election that has lots of contestants in it by holding tight to his base. But he cannot win a general election with such a tiny minority.

Things might be different if Trump was a skilled politician intent on growing his base. This is the central work of all politics, to attract ever more people to support your candidacy, your party and your cause. The work is constant, because attrition is unavoidable as people age, die, lose interest, move away, fall in love, etcetera. 

But Trump, supremely confident and supremely stupid, is a one-trick pony who has never learned the basics of politics or government. His one trick is to say things that make his most extreme followers foam at the mouth and howl at the moon. He loves it when they do that. But the more he does that, the more uncomfortable he makes everybody else in the political universe, including the more moderate among his own supporters and in his party.

As a result, his support, even among Republicans, is steadily shrinking, raising doubt about whether he can win even a primary and confirming the certainty that he cannot win a general election for president.

Moreover, while the great majority of his party stand mute, cowed into allowing him to cavort on the national stage as their leader, spewing hysterical lies and ever-more-deranged policies, they are encouraging the rest of the world to conclude that they are all mad, and they are becoming the incredible shrinking party. They are like vampires who have stumbled into full sunlight; soon there will be nothing there but some dust, blowing in the wind. 

This outcome will not be good for the country. We are best served when two vigorous parties subject government policies and intentions to intense scrutiny and debate (assuming that they act in good faith on behalf of their fellow citizens and not their donors). From here it seems unlikely that the country will ever be in such a place again.  

 

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3 Responses to The Politics of Extinction

  1. gwb says:

    I remember poking around the Biden/Harris campaign web site during election year 2020, and I came across the looong list of current and former members of the D.C. foreign-policy establishment, known as the “Blob”, who supported the Biden camp in opposition to Trump. The list included individuals from both Republican and Democratic administrations.

    Trump was/is a dumpster fire – a human hand grenade in the Oval Office – but I thought to myself: Biden is going to be more of the same old crap. These are the clowns that got us into Iraq and Afghanistan, and that sure turned out great, didn’t it? And at the time, some of them were busy getting us into Ukraine.

    Let’s see – Republicans or Democrats? Do I want – MAGA fascism or New World Order / Great Reset / forever wars? Hmm – what a great choice. You know – I think I’ll go with the Green Party candidates. They had no chance at all, naturally, but at least I made a statement, pissing in the breeze. Wouldn’t it be a hell of a note if a second-term Donald Trump would have been the president that kept us out of World War III? At least he sat down and talked with Putin.

    I agree with you, Trump isn’t the answer. This country is becoming increasingly ungovernable. The life goal of all modern American humans should be to become as independent as possible from the prevailing economic system for the essentials for our physical survival.

  2. Michael Fretchel says:

    I am currently reading a book by the Native American botanist Robin kimmerer who is both botanist and environmentalist she has a chapter in her book “Sweet Grass” entitled the honorable harvest the gist of it is about both taking and giving about reciprocity or at times leaving things be, the point being if it is not good for the earth then you should not do it period. that is what I say these days in any political discussion. To so many today facts are malleable so with mankind’s proclivity to make stuff that almost always creates pollution and said pollutants pushing the climate to a place that the earth has not seen or felt since there were dinosaurs walking the earth if it’s not good for the planet then leave it the heck alone! it is if people hate this place.

  3. Greg Knepp says:

    There’s lots of happy talk about Ron DeSantis among the Republicans: ‘Trump Lite’ perhaps – the policies of Trump but without all the crazy-ass baggage.
    What policies? Giving the rich even more tax breaks, cutting back safety regulations so that trains can careen out of control and banks fail, angering our allies while emboldening our adversaries?…They call these ‘policies’?