Republicans must stop Trump
This is what a Donald Trump cabinet is likely to look like: Donald Jr. installed as secretary of the treasury; daughter Ivanka serving as secretary of state; second son Eric at Commerce; Gary Busey at the Pentagon; and a Kardashian somewhere, a real important job maybe, say an ambassadorship to one of the nations that really needs our help, maybe in the Middle East.
The Donald is not going to be sworn in anytime soon; his chances of securing the Republican nomination for president are slim. And even if by chance he should be the nominee, the Democratic landslide would be so big it would make 1964 look like child’s play: hello, single-payer health insurance.
And yet, the fact that Trump has gotten this far suggests the state of our politics is not good.
Maybe the progressives of another era had it all wrong. Back before the automobile, it was the mantra of the progressive movement that the cure for democracy was more democracy.
In the age of political bosses, things wouldn’t have gone this far; the party kingpins, with at least veto power over who ran for the White House, would have seen to that. Who would have thunk that we would look back at Boss Tweed as a fount of responsibility.
Boies Penrose, where are you? Oh, for the glory days of Mark Hanna.
And yet, here’s the GOP scuffling with Donald Trump, a malefator of great mouth with no discernible business being in the middle of a race for president.
How is this possible?
It’s possible because the Republican Party has turned sobriety on its head. Kookiness has gone mainstream, and there are millions and millions of Americans who respond to the siren song that was first sung in the 1930s when the country was going to hell thanks to farm subsidies, human subsidies, and Social Security.
It’s like Father Coughlin grandfathered Glenn Beck.
Here’s some more history for you: Facing wrenching changes stemming from the Civil War, Lincoln told Americans they must “disenthrall” themselves from the past. New breed Republicans are taking the opposite approach, promising to return this land of ours to the past.
“The country as it was” was the mantra of Lincoln’s opponents; and it’s the political battle cry of most of the Republicans running for president today.
Well, antebellum America was dead and gone long before the clash of the Blue and Gray came to a close.
The country these modern candidates promise to return us to is gone, too — the unraveling began long ago, ironically enough, during the Big One — World War II — which laid the groundwork for a host of changes, like the upheavals in gender, sex, and race.
But I digress. Back to Trump.
The Donalds’ spell of popularity is a triumph, in part, of celebrity and the modern celebrity-breeding, celebrity-sustaining machines. True, he has a winning (if to some a grating) personality. Outsize personality, excuse me. And he has made millions, no, make that billions. He’s “really rich”, you know. But so are others.
Trump has distinguished himself by staying in the public eye for decades. For sure, this is no small accomplishment. It takes talent. It’s a real art. So many grow stale after just a short stay in the spotlight. To maintain a certain level of notoriety in the face of a virtual revolving door of new and would-be celebrities is demanding, and Trump has met the challenge time and again. The Mogul of Manhattan knows his way around a microphone and camera.
Trump’s standing as a presidential candidate reflects something more telling than the celebrity name-game, however. The Donald is tapping into the classic American distrust of politicians. Let’s be honest: distrust and wariness have nearly always been there, and for good reason. As a class, politicians are such fakers.
Of course, there is proof that politicians lie all the time and engage in all sorts of nefarious activities. The proof lies in the attack ads that are played without end every political season. The commercials amount to an attack on democratic politics itself. In essence, they are an attack by politicians on politics. A backlash was inevitable.
Politics has always been rough: Thomas Jefferson was a rapist; Lincoln was a baboon; FDR wanted to be dictator.
But this somehow is different. Maybe it’s the relentless, unrelieved nature of the attacks blasted dozens of times a day into our living rooms.
In the case of Donald Trump, will rank-and-file Republicans return to earth in time to save their party from catastrophe? I’ll tell you one thing I’d love to see: a head-to-head clash – Trump vs. snarky Rick Santorum. Now, that would be television worth watching.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown and is the author of two books – “Grand Salute: Stories of the World War II Generation” and “Our People.” He can be reached at grandsalutebook@gmail.com.