"America Has a Crazy Uncle Problem [View all]

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From today's Portland (Maine) Press Herald. Yeah, we've all had a crazy uncle, and now one is in the White House.

Crazy uncles used to be a family problem. Most families have had at least one, who was guaranteed to produce embarrassment and hard feelings at Thanksgiving gatherings. They never seem able to get along with people, and are always quick to push what they think are their absolutely correct and outsized ideas on everyone else. Many are little more than annoying misfits, though some end up closer to the raging sociopath end of the scale.

Now, unfortunately, they’ve escaped the protection of their families, formed a movement of similarly angry folks, taken over the Republican Party and emerged as a major disruptive force in politics in places like Augusta, the United States Congress and the White House.

Donald Trump is, of course, the face of the movement, along with the likes of Ted Cruz, Paul LePage, Deep South and remote Western Republican governors, Rush Limbaugh and what’s left of Chris Christie.

The ideas of this movement were, not so long ago, considered at best amusingly kooky, and at worst obviously unstable. Now, their ideas have been repeated so often that they’re becoming mainstream, if not normal. And that has created a larger circle of imitators and supporters who we used to think of as sensible conservatives.

http://www.pressherald.com/2017/07/09/alan-caron-america-has-a-crazy-uncle-problem-and-its-leaving-republicans-unable-to-govern/