Why Is THIS Enough? NOW They Want Trump To Pull Out!
By
Leonard Zwelling
A friend just emailed incredulous that the latest revelatory video of Donald Trump speaking like a 16-year old locker room gym rat about a woman is the straw that seems to have broken the back of the rest of the GOP who cannot run away fast enough. He posited that while Trump has vilified Muslims, Mexicans and the disabled, none of whom would vote for him in appreciable numbers, once he bad-mouths women, that’s the last straw.
I think Donald has been on the last straw for over a year and the camel is a dead horse.
People are begging the Republicans to do something, but Michael Steele, a former GOP chair, made the point on MSNBC that the only way Trump can be replaced on the top of the ticket at this point is by dying or by quitting. The first is far more likely than the second.
Personally, I don’t find these latest Access Hollywood comments to a Bush cousin any different than the other offensive comments that Mr. Trump has made all along. What is curious now is how each other Republican will be positioning himself or herself over the next 30 days to make sure they have a future in politics, because in two or four years, a reporter is going to ask every one of them what you did in the days and hours following the release of this videotape and it had better be “I withdrew my Trump endorsement.” That Trump has a potty mouth and dirty mind is not exactly news. Maybe it is to all those Republicans who backed him. That should disqualify them from holding further office.
What is not clear at all is whether or not this will affect the down ballot races for the Senate and House given that many of the former seem to be predetermined and most of the latter surely are.
So let’s say that the likely occurs.
Donald will not withdraw and will go down to a landslide defeat to an opponent that almost any of his primary challengers could have beaten except perhaps Ted Cruz and Gentle Ben. Mike Pence will likely have cemented his hold on the Republican nomination for 2020 so that we can finally find out if the reason the Republicans keep losing the White House is that they run lousy candidates (Bush 41, Dole, Bush 43 in 2000, McCain and Romney) or ones who are not conservative enough. Pence is conservative enough. Enough to make you heave if you check into his voting and governing record. If you want to find someone who wants to narrow the rights of women, Mike Pence is your guy. It is truly ironic that the first woman to be nominated for President by a major party is running against the most misogynistic ticket in history.
The Senate will likely swing to the Dems by a hair. Given that the President of the Senate is likely to be Tim Kaine, the tie breaker-in-chief will give all the Senate committee chair seats to the Democrats. Hillary might be able to get something through the Senate, although she will still need 60 votes to get by the filibuster-loving GOP with the bruised male egos that are likely to be a significant minority. I saw it for myself in 2009 after the Obama landslide.
Not in the House where even a hint of working with the new President Clinton will get you primaried from the far, far right. My guess is that Mrs. Clinton will focus on foreign policy because she knows it well and can do a lot there without having to pass legislation through the hostile House. It is doubtful that health care reform can go forward and ditto just about everything else on the domestic front. Maybe she can get investment in infrastructure through. If I were she, that would be my first domestic priority as it would increase jobs and stimulate the economy and even the GOP might vote for that if the new President makes sure the infrastructure pork is seeded to GOP as well as Democratic congressional districts.
It appears that the 2016 election will end with a whimper, not a bang. The Republicans are going to be contemplating how they could have let this happen for years. Reince Priebus may never work in Washington again. He probably shouldn’t.
The GOP has made a mess of this whole process. The Dems almost did, but The Donald saved them.
It is always mystifying to me why one event is the tipping point when there have been so many others that could have served the purpose of functionally ending the Trump train wreck.
I certainly feel that way about MD Anderson. What is going to take to finally wake up the sleeping sloths in Austin to the damage being done on Holcombe to the crown jewel of the UT System? I have no idea. Maybe the $400 million short fall will be enough. Maybe.
And as for the debate, as if that matters any longer, I don’t see why the GOP is happy with Trump’s performance, but the networks appear to think the Trumpites are satisfied. Good for them. There was only one person on that stage who could be President and it wasn’t the one with the Y chromosome. Heck, Trump even turned on his running mate. And he wants to lock up his opponent, clearly thinking he is in a banana republic. But as Hillary said, Trump does live in an alternative world.
9 thoughts on “Why Is THIS Enough? NOW They Want Trump To Pull Out!”
Yes on pretty much all fronts. As you said, I'll be very curious to see how all this affects the down-ballot races. Also, see this quote from Avik Roy:
"None of [Trump's previous gaffes were] enough to prevent nearly all leading GOP lawmakers from endorsing Trump as their nominee. But the latest tape just might. Why? Because few Republican lawmakers have Muslim relatives. Few Republican lawmakers are of Mexican heritage. Few Republican lawmakers have faced discrimination based on the color of their skin.
But nearly all of them have white wives and mothers. Many have white daughters. And therefore, when Trump talks about grabbing white women by the genitals, they can directly relate.
If you want to understand why Republicans keep losing the minority vote, it’s quite simple. Most Republicans are outraged by prejudice that is directed at people that look like them or their families. But most Republicans are indifferent to discrimination that is directed toward people who don’t look like them."
That is certainly part of it. The other part is that the current GOP office holders are going to have "to answer for Santino" in 2 to 4 years. If they backed this loser, they will be tarred with the same brush.
In other words, RIP the careers of Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, and Rudy Giuliani (although his career was over long ago anyway).
Not Cruz. He is very much alive and very quiet.
His presidency would be limited and restrained by our system. After hers, the country won't be recognizable and will be, essentially, a one-party, poorer, insecure country.
I am not sure how you can be so sure. Mr. Trump does not even understand how our country works and that includes the Executive Branch of the government. Mrs. Clinton does. The country is unlikely to be recognizable to anyone who knew it in 1960. For those of us living in the present, I suspect it will look more diverse and under lots of strain. It's a dangerous world out there. Better her than him.
Knowing as much as is possible about both I am unable to agree. I guess there's nothing more to do at this point, though. You're right about it being a scary world. I wish Pogo weren't right again…
Alas, but he is
Trump is also exactly whom Putin wants in the Oval Office. Even if you discount Trump's likely financial ties to Russia, Putin would eat Trump alive in diplomatic relations, as Trump is a clinical fragile narcissist who talks big but will fold when personally attacked. Hillary, meanwhile, has stood up to Putin continually and knows she'd likely be a more active agent against pernicious Russian interest (both cyber and military) than Obama has been and certainly more than Trump ever would be. There's no doubt that the country is safer with her in office. And more economically stable, as the financial markets would take a huge hit in response to the volatility of a Trump presidency.