I’m a big fan of Driftglass, who is constantly and accurately reminding us that today’s “Never Trump” Republicans consist largely of political operatives who helped shape the electorate that brought us Trump. As he points out, it is considered impolite (though he does it all the time) to remind these people that they shaped the modern Republican Party, and that Trump is merely the natural outgrowth of all their hard work. Indeed, many among them still maintain that Trump is not the Republican Party, and we can expect, if we’re able to dislodge him, that come January 21st, the media and the Never-Trumpers will make common cause once again in their never ending proclamation of the false equivalency that our woes are equally attributable to both major parties. Driftglass has, until now, also pointed out that none of the GOP operatives that helped bring us to where we are have acknowledged their responsibility for doing so.
So give Stuart Stevens , a Republican operative who I’ve never heard of before, some credit for actually fessing up to being partly responsible for the fact that the Republican Party is the party of racism, reaction, and fascism.
I spent decades working to elect Republicans, including Mr. Romney and four other presidential candidates, and I am here to bear reluctant witness that Mr. Trump didn’t hijack the Republican Party. He is the logical conclusion of what the party became over the past 50 or so years, a natural product of the seeds of race-baiting, self-deception and anger that now dominate it. Hold Donald Trump up to a mirror and that bulging, scowling orange face is today’s Republican Party.
…
… There is a collective blame to be shared by those of us who have created the modern Republican Party that has so egregiously betrayed the principles it claimed to represent. My j’accuse is against us all, not a few individuals who were the most egregious.
How did this happen? How do you abandon deeply held beliefs about character, personal responsibility, foreign policy and the national debt in a matter of months? You don’t. The obvious answer is those beliefs weren’t deeply held. What others and I thought were bedrock values turned out to be mere marketing slogans easily replaced. I feel like the guy working for Bernie Madoff who thought they were actually beating the market.
For the most part, the highly visible never-Trumpers have failed to acknowledge their own roles in laying the groundwork for Trump. As I’ve said before, I got a degree in theology from Our Lady of Sorrows Grammar School, and I can tell them: you can’t go to heaven unless you confess your sins and perform a sincere act of contrition. So maybe Mr. Stevens, having confessed on the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times has a chance to enter the pearly gates.
On the other hand, I’m not sure about Federalist Society co-founder Steven Calabresi’s chances for the hereafter. He is now calling for Trump’s removal after defending him in the face of a mountain of evidence of his criminality. The Federalist Society has helped lay the judicial groundwork for the move toward fascism that Calabresi now deplores. Seems Trump’s suggestion that the elections be postponed was the tipping point for him. I guess we have to assume that Calabresi prefers good old fashioned voter suppression.