Republicans Built and Own This
And we as Democrats did not resist hard enough and gave in to the Republican message.
It wasn’t the lack of turnout by black Americans causing Trump to be elected. It was not the failure to vote as the numbers of voters exceeded that of the 2012 election. It was the minority of voters who cast their ballots in the “others” column or as the media calls the “anybody but trump or Clinton” vote which was at a historical high. Many voters bought into the Republican message of lies and deceit about Clinton which had been answered years ago, many times over, in multiple investigations of Hillary and Bill Clinton.
In this post, there a little bit of WaPo, some Washington Monthly, and some of me giving an explanation how we arrived to today. As I stood by, watched, and now experience what this president has brought us, I ask the question of myself; what did we miss along the way as many of us still continue to lock down in our homes. How could we have stopped trump as citizens. I have come to this point in time thinking there may be something different I could have done then just bringing what I consider to be cogent arguments to the table. My hands were tied and my words on the topic ignored in sounding the alarm. And fair warning don’t argue about your liberty being violated if forced to wear a mask. You are a fool if you venture into public without mask and get within the six foot area of others. There is more to Covid than just dying which is the easy way out in many cases. Once you are on ventilation, you are probably going to die.
Stuart Stevens the strategist for Mitt Romney’s campaign makes the argument of Republicans being responsible for Trump in that GOP Principles paved the Way For Massive Suffering. One of the critiques often leveled at the Repub “Never Trumpers” is; even as they reject the current president’s words and deeds, they fail to assume any responsibility for them. In the end Republicans built today’s moment and crisis while still looking the other way.
Jan. 22 2020:
“We have it (Covid) totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
More fantasy by Trump which the Republicans enabled and left unanswered.
This comment was made on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” during an interview with Joe Kernen at the Davos World Economic Forum. There were already 500 known cases in China and more unreported cases due to the lockdown in China on reporting and doctors.
“Republicans like me (Stuart Stevens) built this moment and then we looked the other way”.
“Don’t just blame President Trump who has been a failure as a president, “blame me (Stuart Stevens) and all the other Republicans who aided and abetted and benefited from protecting a political party that has become dangerously toxic to America.
Many of us knew better. But we continued to build to this moment and while looking the other way.
We heard the warning sound we chose to ignore, like that rattle in your car you hear which you figure will go away. It didn’t and now we’re broken down, with plenty of time to think about what should have been done.”
The failures of the government’s response to the Covid (coronavirus crisis) pandemic can be traced directly to the fantasies and strategies the Republican Party and promoted over the years. Here are a few:
Government is bad.
Establishment experts are overrated or just plain wrong.
Science is suspect.
Masks are useless and a violation of your liberty.
And we can go it alone, the world be damned.
It’s very much time to start having that conversation of reopening the economy and start figuring that out. (Sen. Pat Toomey)
It’s about promoting liberty and freedom (Stephen Moore)
We have to learn to live with this (Adam Brandon, Freedom Works). And used by Trump recently.
How do you rein in some of the tyrannical enforcement? (Andy Biggs, R-AZ)
In order to sell these lies, Republicans rejected facts, science, and math . . . labeling experts as “elitists” living in liberal coastal states and accusing them of silencing the “heartland.” The rallying cry of the so-called “populists” during the 2016 election. If we could go back in time . . .
Former OH Gov John Kasich explained how Republicans will react to a growing potential for a Trump’s loss:
“I’m glad to see some of these Republicans moving the other way but it reminds me of Vichy France where they said, ‘Well, I never had anything to do with that’”
Vichy Republicans, indeed.
The day after trump is defeated, Republicans will unperson Trump the same as they did GWB and claim they were part of the resistance all along. Donald Who? I never heard of the guy! Why, he was a NYC liberal all along. Now, Tom Cotton . . . there is a real conservative!
And the day after Joe Biden is inaugurated? Republicans will suddenly rediscover the federal deficit too.
“If I could go back and redo anything, it probably would have been to slow down the opening of bars, now seeing in the aftermath of how quickly the coronavirus spread in the bar setting (Rep. Governor Greg Abbott- TX).
Abbott’s sentiment is wildly too late as the seed have been planted and many people will die or suffer bodily impairment from contracting Covid.
Republican’s built these last four years and they own it. It is time we take back the nation and repair the damage done to it.
The thing is that all along big media has provided secure platforms for self-rehabilitating Republicans to play the “what happened to my party” denial game and then STILL push the “both sides do it” duck any blame sharade. It happens almost every night on the MSM and it usually passes without anyone calling it out as BS. What a shock that Joe and Jane Six-Pack, for whom reading the chyron constitures research, believe the Republican story line. Even Democrats almost never call out this pervasive media bias as BS, so, honestly, I have no confidence that anything will change.
We do not respect people who hate us for no good reason and they hate us for being disrespectful. We are beyond the tipping point where it is easy for Trump to wedge the divide open even farther. It seems to me that to “take back the nation” we need some effort on how to reduce that divide.
I do appreciate the food that comes from red states.
@Arne,
“I do appreciate the food that comes from red states.”
Soylent Green is people!
About 100,000 votes in 3 states elected him. I think the reason for that is the media, print and TV, were sure Hilary was going to win and thought it fun to take her down a notch showing her who really runs the country. HER EMAILS!!! Then that son of a leprous syphilitic bastard Comey!!!
The FBI blew the email issue up. They could have dismissed it in the summer of 2015, but they did deep state things and drew it out until July 2016 for a reason.
Clinton’s problems weren’t with the registered democrats, but cynical flank of voters that generally register as indies. Many flung around like mad in polling and was the real issue in state wide polling. You could also see it with the 2016 primary. Joe Biden’s strength there really saved his campaign as registered Democrat blacks were splitting with Bloomberg. They kept him afloat until consolidating came.
I mean deficit hawks single issue voters voted strongly for Trump…….cynical and stupid.
“…It is time we take back the nation and repair the damage done to it.”
[From what I have seen there is a ;powerful consensus to “take back the nation” and entirely subjective and self-serving divisions surrounding “repair the damage done to it.” SNAFU is the alpha and the omega in US politics.]
Job one will be to remember Obama’s original sin. After a disaster, it is simple human nature to cast about for blame. There is going to be a long period of hardship and the public is going to need to pin the blame on a cast of characters. Just as in Obama’s time. If you don’t go after those responsible the public or a large fraction of them will eventually go after you. With a little off camera encouragement from the very people who were the actual cause. So we had better not unlearn that lesson. Those responsible for these multiple disasters are going to have to be held accountable. Letting it slide for the sake of some kind of elusive “national unity” would be a huge mistake. A mistake Obama showed us all how to do and hopefully Biden was taking notes. I’m not very hopeful on this score however.
Not sure why any 2016 voter should be called cynical at all. No candidate had an entitlement to anyone’s vote. As for polling, keep in mind that sample sizes are quite small relative to the final vote tally and the samples are usually recreated every poll. To describe an unidentifiable group of people who individually likely were a participant in one poll (at most) as a group that “flung around like mad” is unsound. The most typical poll question is “if the election were today, who would you vote for?”. Having a different answer to that question at different times is not even indicative of flinging around since every time it is asked, it is no longer the same question. It is impossible to fling around like mad in a process that only has one real test. Finally, polls are entertainment products in reality, much like pre-game shows prior to the Sunday NFL game. If the audience was entertained, then it was a good poll.
I’m with Eric on this one. Some people really wanted Trump elected and voted for him. Other people said Clinton was a shit candidate and didn’t vote for her. These were both things that were obvious months before the general election, and the outcome was conceivable, if horribly disappointing.
JG and Eric:
Lets clear up how trump was elected. Not because of either of you, I will repeat it here again for the umpteenth time. It was the “anyone but trump or Clinton vote” which swayed the election. The voting numbers in 2016 were higher than in 2012. The voting number for the “other candidates” (libertarians, communists, etc.) were historically high in MI, WI, and PA in addition to the nation as a whole and between 2012 and 2016. The lies, innuendo, supposition, conjecture, etc, were enough to discourage voters in three states which made a difference.
A minority of voters put trump in office.
Total National Vote 2012/2016
Swing States
Maybe I missed it, did I mention polls?
The Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign was inadvertently complicit. Clinton enjoyed a favorable-to-unfavorable ratio better than 2 to 1 as late as 2014. That the Republicans were going to do everything possible to dirty her was a given, and it was the most effective campaign ever in destroying a Presidential candidate’s reputation. Even Democrats in the millions could be heard to say, “I’m voting for her, but I don’t trust her,” even while being completely incapable of making a rational argument for that feeling.
The Democrats seemed to accept the notion that Clinton was already well-defined in the public mind, and therefore did nothing to shore up her reputation against the attacks. In effect, it let the right-wing media (with an assist from the left by Bernie) re-define her into something that bore little resemblance to who she actually is and has been. The massive shift from up 35 points to down 15-20 points in favorables-to-unfavorables over a few months was proof that she was not, in fact, well defined in the way Democratic operatives imagined.
The party and the campaign didn’t even attack Trump and the Republican Party for their unpopular policies — like their determination to eliminate health insurance protection for pre-existing conditions, or to give huge tax breaks to the wealthy, or to oppose raising the minimum wage — but relied entirely on (certainly justified) attacks on Trump’s character. A campaign showing Clinton advocating for and actually believing in the progressive Democratic values she has always supported (belying the canard that all that mattered to her was ambition) surely would have encouraged more than 70,000 voters over three states — way less than one percent — either to get off the couch and vote or vote for the Democrat instead of Jill Stein.
Stephen,
Exactly what do you think Clinton’s platform was in 2016 other than ” the progressive Democratic values she has always supported”?
A poll from 2014 when Clinton was not running for President compared to one when she was running for President is worthless and meaningless.
Her platform was the most progressive platform of my lifetime, by far. What happened is a combination of her past attacks on her husband and his actions that were linked to her and, more importantly, that she was not as progressive as Sanders.
I never thought there was a chance in the world she could lose until the Democratic National Convention. When I saw the actions of the berniebros there I got very, vary scared. Another typical case of the phony “both sides are the same” schtick popular with those leftierthanthous that have plagued the Democrats for decades.
It gave us Bush and Trump and the current Supreme Court and has devastated this country.
This group needs to take an 8th grade civics class and figure out that under the Constitution, there can only be two parties that can possibly make differences. And not taking sides, or attacking the side most closely in agreement with their progressive goals is taking the other side.
Truest thing in American politics: You are either part of the solution or you are part of the problem. There is no third choice.
Well, this is a start.
Though, during Bush/Cheney time I was having conversations with a republican lawyer who knew they were a mess and pointed out to him that it was citizens like him who let it happen as they voted party and not nation.