These were sentences heard on Morning Joe on Monday, November 9th:
“This is sui generis. We’ve never seen anything like this.” “Confusing beyond confusing to any established politician.” “I’ve never seen anything like it.” “There is no logic to it.” “It doesn’t make any sense.”
What Mika, Donnie Deutsch, Willie Geist and the others were discussing was a weekend full of comments from Donald Trump, Ben Carson and other Republican candidates. Carson was having to explain away some inconsistencies in his background, some of which seem fairly innicent (getting a scholarship’ to West Point, which all cadets attend for free), and some weirder (insisting that he did in fact try to stab, but instead hit the belt buckle, of a person whom he cannot produce and will not name. Trump was having a blast, pointing out that this was the first occasion when a candidate was turning down an alibi. ““Give me a break, give me a break, give me a break,” he told listeners during a rally. “He took the knife and he went like this and plunged it into the belt and amazingly the belt stayed totally flat and the knife broke. Anybody have a knife and want to try it on me? Believe me, it ain’t going to work. You’re going to be successful. How stupid are the people of Iowa? How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?” And yet Trump was making no headway.
Perhaps the pundits do not recognize these phenomena is that they have not happened in any American’s lifetime. The Republican Party is cracking up. It has ceased to be a party that is interested in governing, but wants instead to establish a stasis, a paralysis, that serves those against social progress. In 1955, describing the purpose of the magazine he founded, William F. Buckley said that its purpose was to stand athwart history, yelling Stop. Today that takes the form of a balky GOP House of Representative that will not legislate, and this crazy collection of candidates who are almost entirely strangers to the truth. The Constitution was designed to protect the rights of minorities. The Republicans are interested in promoting the preferences of the minority, or thwarting democracy. of blocking the way ahead.
And we are watching them tailspin into irrelevance.