NY Magazine: Andrew Sullivan on Trump's "Extinction Level Event," & Democratic Complacency

[villager]

<snip>

And so those Democrats who are gleefully predicting a Clinton landslide in November need to both check their complacency and understand that the Trump question really isn’t a cause for partisan Schadenfreude anymore. It’s much more dangerous than that. Those still backing the demagogue of the left, Bernie Sanders, might want to reflect that their critique of Clinton’s experience and expertise — and their facile conflation of that with corruption — is only playing into Trump’s hands. That it will fall to Clinton to temper her party’s ambitions will be uncomfortable to watch, since her willingness to compromise and equivocate is precisely what many Americans find so distrustful. And yet she may soon be all we have left to counter the threat. She needs to grasp the lethality of her foe, moderate the kind of identity politics that unwittingly empowers him, make an unapologetic case that experience and moderation are not vices, address much more directly the anxieties of the white working class—and Democrats must listen.

More to the point, those Republicans desperately trying to use the long-standing rules of their own nominating process to thwart this monster deserve our passionate support, not our disdain. This is not the moment to remind them that they partly brought this on themselves. This is a moment to offer solidarity, especially as the odds are increasingly stacked against them. Ted Cruz and John Kasich face their decisive battle in Indiana on May 3. But they need to fight on, with any tactic at hand, all the way to the bitter end. The Republican delegates who are trying to protect their party from the whims of an outsider demagogue are, at this moment, doing what they ought to be doing to prevent civil and racial unrest, an international conflict, and a constitutional crisis. These GOP elites have every right to deploy whatever rules or procedural roadblocks they can muster, and they should refuse to be intimidated.

And if they fail in Indiana or Cleveland, as they likely will, they need, quite simply, to disown their party’s candidate. They should resist any temptation to loyally back the nominee or to sit this election out. They must take the fight to Trump at every opportunity, unite with Democrats and Independents against him, and be prepared to sacrifice one election in order to save their party and their country.

For Trump is not just a wacky politician of the far right, or a riveting television spectacle, or a Twitter phenom and bizarre working-class hero. He is not just another candidate to be parsed and analyzed by TV pundits in the same breath as all the others. In terms of our liberal democracy and constitutional order, Trump is an extinction-level event. It’s long past time we started treating him as such.

<snip>

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny-donald-trump.html

[villager]

1. The second paragraph of the excerpt is, of course, ironic, given Sullivan's help setting in motion

....those very events, with his earlier, unabashed GOP support...

[MisterP]

3. "moderate the kind of identity politics that unwittingly empowers him ... address much more directly

the anxieties of the white working class"

IT'S A POD!

[MisterP]

2. I thought it was Huckabee that was gonna bring about the end of all life on earth?

much heat with little fire

[villager]

4. Except that Trump will actually be the nominee.

Is that smoke I smell?

[MisterP]

7. the klaxon of America's fall into GOP dictatorship sounds every other year now

he's literally beating a whole party into his own image Mussolini-style--but that's been done before 1992-4 and that time it was to send jobs OUT of the country

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-trump-big-government-20160301-story.html
this shows just where Trumpism is dangerous for the existing system, because both have embraced Reaganomics and thought there'd never be a countermove against them--or at least that they'd be out of office once the bubble popped; but now both parties are exposed as backscratching, champagne-popping, corporatists who've tricked Hardworking AmericansTM for 30 years, throwing in some mouthed prayer or pinkwashing depending on the party

[Renew Deal]

5. Thanks for posting it

I don't believe the election should be stolen by the powerful. The voters made their choice. But the rest of it makes sense.

[mooseprime]

6. i love the "facile conflation of [clinton's experience and expertise] with corruption"!!!

when in fact, she has two totally distinct things:

her experience and expertise

AND

her corruption!

they're totally unrelated! connecting those things IS PUTTING THE PLANET AT RISK!!!!

brilliant, sullivan, you've outdone yourself on this one.

in fact precisely the reverse is true: failing to see the rampant corruption in her recent past is exactly what's threatening the environment and the democratic party and many other enormously important things.

CORRUPT GOVERNMENT IS UNAMERICAN. we're not going to ignore it because YOU WANT A PONY

[scottie55]

10. Government Corruption Is American

Where have you been?

[djean111]

8. Boiled down - stop pointing out Hillary's flaws.

No.

[Ford_Prefect]

9. The lesser of two evils is still not an argument, it is a cudgel to beat down the "unfaithful"!

Last edited Mon May 2, 2016, 11:41 PM - Edit history (1)

How dare we say in public that the emperor has no clothes! We give aid and comfort to a great enemy by observing what are obvious and documented truths? Where is our Loyalty? Loyalty by definition must be earned, or had you forgotten that Mr. Sullivan?

I take no comfort in the current status of the GOP primary nor the impending apparent disaster of their convention.
I have no doubt that whoever is the GOP candidate we are in for the worst kind of slime and smear campaign driven by all the money they can spend. We have already seen the signs of voter disenfranchisement in the primaries. Be certain that there will be much more of it at every level possible during the general election.