The Republicans could not be in a worse spot with Trump.  I am fascinated by the choice they have in front of them.

What happens when your constituents are so fed up with you they elect an outsider, non Republican (Trump)?

Well, here are the options for the Republican Party:

Option 1 – Listen to your constituency and let Trump get nominated:  

In this case you are allowing many core Republican values (Supply Side Economics, Free Trade, Neocon Foreign Policy, etc.) to get pushed aside by Trump, who is leading in a different direction.  Additionally, Trump is flat out nuts, fascist, white supremacist on immigration (can you even really put up a wall to keep Mexicans out?  Are we going to build a N. American version of the Great Wall of China…really??).  He is rabblerousing; bringing out the worst in the base.  Does the party want to listen to its constituency if the constituency is wrong (at least in the Republican view)?

Nominating Trump is the equivalent of the Republicans admitting that their voting base does not like the Republican Party platform or any of their politicians.  How can a party continue to exist under that condition?

It basically spells the death of the party in its current form.  And the form it would morph into with Trump leadership is not a kinder, gentler, more forward looking version of the current iteration of Republicanism.  It is worse.

On the bright side, the Republicans will still have the House and will perhaps keep the Senate.  Their voters don’t like them, but is that anything new?   (For years, Republicans  have bashed the government and DC, which they are part of.  Is it any wonder their voters now bash them with the same passion?  They seem to vote for them anyway.)

Trump will likely lose the general election if nominated, so the Republicans can try to recover in the intervening 4 years until they can put forward a Republican that is more “of the party” (if that person even exists) and adjust their platform to better fit their voters.

Essentially this is would be their message to voters:  “Dear voters, We loved Trump because you loved Trump, even though we hate him and you know it.  He was defeated unfortunately….though we can still rally around our common dislike of the Democrats and refuse to govern for 4 more years…which is what got us in this situation in the first place!!  Let’s forget Trump existed and get back to our roots, which you soundly rejected in the 2016 primaries by nominating Trump.”

It is nonsensical.  The party is in a bad spot.

This strategy relies on the same Jedi-mind-trick, slight of hand, factlessness that has guided the Republicans for some time.  I think the chickens have come home to roost on that approach….Trump is the culmination of it.

I would vote for a clean break, to move forward with something new and rebuild.  I think the Republicans have firm intellectual and ethical ground to build on. I think the Republicans can do better.  I reject option 1.  

Option 2 – Don’t listen to your constituency and nominate someone else:

This is the equivalent of writing a hate letter to your voters: “Dear voters, I know you all voted for Trump, but we think you’re wrong.  We aren’t going to listen to you; we know you are mad at us for not listening in the past 8 years or so, which is why you voted for Trump…but we are going to not listen again!  (All for your own good of course!)  Now please vote for this other guy no one likes and forget you don’t like us…and we’ll try to forget that we don’t listen to or like you.”

Wow.  It seems like a terrible idea when put like that.

The viability of option 2 needs two preconditions to make it a better idea: 1) an acknowledgement that the party needs to move in another direction and 2) a decent candidate to put forward that represents the new party direction.

Number 1 doesn’t exist yet:  The party lost in 2008 and 2012 and didn’t really change direction.

Number 2 doesn’t exist yet:  If that person existed, they would be winning the primaries (hopefully).

So I reject option 2.  It isn’t a good idea because the party can’t make it work.

So…in the spirit of participating, after having rejected both options because they stink:  I would pick option 1 and spend the next 4 years formulating a plan to make sure this awful situation doesn’t happen again (coincidentally this is exactly what the Republicans did when the Democrats were re-elected in 2012 and yet here we are!).

I cannot believe the Republicans got themselves into this situation!!

Which option would you choose? 

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2 Responses to “Can the Republicans exist if their electorate doesn’t like them?”
  1. Josh says:

    I’m willing to give communism a try.

  2. Rachel Fenimore says:

    Hello,

    I noticed you haven’t posted in a while and I was wondering if you would be willing to sell your domain name.
    I run a non-profit that builds schools in Haiti and our organization is called Chasing Eden. We have the .org but I know the sites get mixed up and confused for people sometimes and I would love to own the .com as well.

    Please consider.

    Thank you.

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