The Republican Party is dead

[Zorro]

I have been a Republican as long as I can remember. Joining the Grand Old Party seemed like a natural choice for someone like me who fled the Soviet Union as a boy and came to Los Angeles with his mother and grandmother in 1976. Refugees from communism, whether from Russia or Cuba, generally oppose socialism and embrace conservative political views.

My allegiance to the GOP was cemented during the 1980s, when I was in high school and college and Ronald Reagan was in the White House. For me, Reagan was what John F. Kennedy had been to an earlier generation: an inspirational figure who shaped my worldview. Reagan had his faults, like JFK, but he was optimistic and gentlemanly. He was pro-free trade and pro-immigration. He believed in limited government at home and American leadership abroad.

That's what I believed in too — and that's what I thought the Republican Party stood for. That's why, despite my disagreements with social conservatives, I worked as a foreign policy advisor to John McCain in 2008, Mitt Romney in 2012 and Marco Rubio this year. All of those candidates, different as they were, recognizably represented Reagan Republicanism.

For the time being, at least, that Republican Party is dead. It was wounded by the tea party absolutists who insisted on political purity and rejected any compromise. Now it has been killed by Donald Trump.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-boot-republicans-in-exile-20160508-story.html

Nice to hear this expressed by a once-committed Republican.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Max Boot is a hard-core neocon.

He kind of likes Hillary (quelle surprise!) but can't bring himself to vote for her because of all the evil socialist Democrats she might bring with her. Sounds like he's planning on staying home. I hope a lot of other GOPers do the same. Much as I don't care for Hillary I do relish the destruction of the GOP.

[EdwardBernays]

2. Max Boot

is a liar.

All this is is more #nevertrump propaganda from the neocons.

Many GENUINE old school conservatives are probably turned WAY off by Trump, but Max ain't one of them.

[unblock]

3. he's very, very late to the party.

donald trump is basically different from the standard-issue republican in only two ways:
1) he is not an ideological purist and
2) he does not respect the usual republican dog whistle boundaries between decent and indecent hatred.

1) is not such a big deal for reagan republicans because reagan was a big-time compromiser and hypocrite. moreover, trump is conservative on the things republicans care about the most -- cutting taxes and regulations, and an overly macho foreign policy.

point 2) is the most damning for republicans who suddenly fear for the gop, because it's all about branding and image, not substance. hate was just fine with them as long as it was phrased in that barely deniable and ever-so-slightly ambiguous coded language that republicans have perfected over the years. now it's not fine with them only because trump has made the hate just a little too obvious.

if you were still a republican up until trump effectively clinched the nomination, where the hell have you been? what the hell did you think your party was all about all these years?

[ablamj]

4. The Democratic Party

Is Also Dead