Name:   copperline - Subject:   A Change is gonna come. Date:   2/21/2016 11:35:12 AM

I continue to believe that this election cycle is going to create a new GOP in the end, but not one that will be led by Donald Trump or Ted Cruz. It seems to me that years after many years of ginning up various fears (i.e., immigrants taking over the US, Islamic terrorists threatening the existence of the nation, minorities getting unfair advantage because of a Black President, a President who is secretly a Muslim intent on destroying the country, etc), the Right Wing of the GOP has created a monstrous paranoia in their voters. And it is a monster they can no longer control as it weaves religion and politics into some kind of crazy populism characterized by brash & shallow-minded solutions (build a wall across the Mexican border, prevent all Muslims from entering the US, more US military engagement in the Middle East). All of that thinking is sort of hysterical and unrealistic, but the GOP/Tea Party has de-emphasized caution and careful decision making in favor of following the catchy & glib outbursts from their leaders.

And Here Comes The Donald, stepping right into a scene made just for him: all catchy sound bites, no critical analysis. It’s a showman’s paradise when everyone is listening, but none of his followers are thinking critically about what he is saying. Of course, to his credit, if you listen carefully to him… he says so much that it is sometimes hard to pin down exactly what to hold him accountable for. Confronted with his own quotes, he is likely to reply that he would need to review the documents before he can confirm what he meant. For a non-politician, he has mastered the art of dodging responsibility for what he has said exceptionally well.

Ted Cruz is making much of his Christian credentials and bases his campaign on an apocalyptic world view. Those of us who don’t share his version of religion rightly fear a President who feels the end of the world is near, or who would codify his religious beliefs into a political movement to the exclusion of non-Christians. The only good thing about Donald Trump is that he is holding back a guy who is smarter and more sinister than he is.

I believe there is a moderate, even somewhat socially liberal, wing of the GOP that still exists. I also believe that the deep pockets of GOP financiers do not want a President who promises so much disruption of US domestic, economic and foreign policy that it would result in massive adverse changes to their business interests. For instance, they would not want to elect a fellow who shut down the US Government and cost us a billion dollars in lost productivity… and then taunted the entire country by reading Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor. Nor would they want a President who has already crippled his ability to perform foreign policy such that he is the first US Presidential candidate who actually triggered a vote in the British House of Commons regarding whether he should be banned from entering a nation that has been our biggest ally for over a 100 years. He has even alienated a gentle soul like the Pope, and makes no apologies for his offensive comments. Ever.

So, I think the GOP is now on a dead end road… or at least one that will require that they come to a fork and reconfigure themselves into 2 parties….. One, the Tea Party/Right wing… and the other something more akin to a centrist, moderately conservative GOP like it has traditionally been. My guess is that Trump will enter the Convention as the front-runner, but the core decision makers in the GOP will prevent him from getting the nomination. When that happens, I think he will split off to run as an independent and the GOP will have to reconfigure itself into a party that avoids the excesses of these candidates while still defending itself from its own right wing.

We should remember that after the last presidential election, the GOP did a review of their political agenda and published a position paper that called for candidates to be more inclusive, less divisive, appeal more to minority voters, and generally move more toward centrist positions. This election cycle’s top two candidates will prove that this would have been a better idea for the survival of the Party.