Old CW: Trump'll be a trainwreck; he can't unify the GOP. New CW: He's unifying the GOP
About a month ago the big orange troglodyte was persona non-grata in the minds and hearts of all Republican leaders. They all loathed him. They plotted and wheedled about looking for a single conservative David to take on this carnival huckster of a Goliath. They nudged Walker, then Christie, and then by God Jeb W. fuckin'Bush out of the race just to consolidate the opposition. It didn't work, as the Insultinator racked up <40% victories and grew increasingly coarser and edged higher and higher in the polls.
The worst part about it all--and I mean worse for America, not for the Republican establishment--the worst part was Donald Trump's Mussolinalicious campaign works just like any other narcotic. The more you take, the greater your tolerance level grows, and the more, the more pure, and the more harsh varieties of the drug you need. By this summer, the Democratic logic goes, Republican voters will be free-basing orangutan hair and outrage enough independent voters to give us a landslide. Trump, in a word, is unelectable. After years of indulging in the gateway drug of dog-whistle rhetoric, the Republicans are now hitting the hard stuff, speedballing outright racism, marching gleefully behind a guy who shrugs off Klan endorsements and revels in retweeting actual Mussolini quotes and openly announces he'll "open up the libel laws" so he defang the First Amendment. In the good old days of the early 2010s, Republicans only had the cops eject noisy protesters from their rallies. Trump, like the true Il Duce bag that he is, calls on his supporters to beat up protestors and lets it be known he'll cover their bail. Democratic logic assures us no one who goes that far in America can get elected.
The Democratic logic is flawed. He's not scaring away potential voters from his camp. He's actually, finally, getting closer to that 50% support threshold in the Republican polls. Instead continuing in a linear devolution down to virulent tribalism and then quietly marching off a cliff toward unelectability with his radical proclivities, The Donald is actually taking a sizeable chunk of the party, including the first outliers of the party establishment, with him. This is the same party establishment that first ignored, then laughed at, then fought, and finally faintly echoed the tar-baby of his substance free entertain-o-thon campaign. They are now, slowly, willingly waltzing into the balls-out, xenophobic, misogynistic, loving arms of Donald J. Trump.
He's not just winning now, he's winning over the quisling leaders of the Right. Those of us who thought the GOP would see a convention walk-out are going to be disappointed. Those of us who thought Rubio or Cruz or Droopy MD were going to launch a 3rd party run and split the Red State votes are going to be disappointed. Those who once reveled in the pouty tweets of Christine Todd Whitman that she'd vote for Hillary over The Donald are going to be the most disappointed of all. That fucker is going to hold them all together. The rats have started running toward the cheese traps, lining up for their slice of the chedder. One thing you can always count on Republicans to do is fall in line and follow the leader when the time comes. Every Republican loves a winner. It is their natural manure.
Thus, come November, they will turn out to vote. But for now, the steady trickle of endorsements for Trump is just starting. More rats will line up as The Donald gets closer to the brass ring. In fact, they've already started doing that. It's not just Chris Christie.
Jeff Sessions, Jan Brewer, Kansas POS Kris Kobach, Sarah Palin, US Reps Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter, and Gov. Paul LePage of Maine are the vanguard. And sure, to you and me this sounds like a run-down of Dick Tracy's Rogues Gallery, but to Republicans most of these people are only a little bit shy of eccentric, the sort of mavericks who "speak their minds" and "don't knuckle under to the PC culture." But they are just the tip of the spear.
Little by little, the GOP is becoming the Party of Trump. And they are becoming a unified party. Before too long, the conservative establishment will come along, convinced like Neville Chamberlain, that they can compromise with Trump, cut deals with him, pat him on the rump, and then get a few choice seats at his cabinet table. They just have to not raise a ruckus while he toes his way into the Sudentenland of their nomination. Surely he won't want the rest of it all, right?
If you're like most Democrats, you've been thinking Trump can't pull them together. He can't rebrand himself and unite the party. Even if he can, he can't then re-rebrand himself in the Fall and be an anti-corporate populist, pretending he's more concerned with curtailing corporate corruption of Congress than with stopping immigrant racists. But when has he not told the next group of voters he's facing exactly what they want to hear? When has he not tailored his message to the fears that motivate the biggest number of panic voters?
But pivot he will, bank on it, when time comes to retailor his messages for a general election in November. Meanwhile, Democratic voter turn out is looking pretty sluggish this year. Despite the expected backlash of floods of Democrats coming out to register a "stop Trump" vote for Hillary or Bernie, we've got crickets. Are our people demoralized, burnt out, or finally driven by this year's trash politics across the thin line between apoplectic and apathetic? We're not the pro-Democratic party this year, just the anti-Trump party. When in US history has that ever been enough?
Of course when in US history have we ever faced an anti-small-d-democratic candidate like Trump before? When I joined this website in 2002, I got a smirk over the hyperbolic name: Democratic "Underground"--ha ha--as if plutocrats like Bush and Cheney were gonna start hunting down the noisy opposition. I'm not laughing at the hyperbole now. This only thing scarier than this Trump guy is the fact that we as a party aren't more ginned up about stopping him.
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