Will The GOP Split? Or A Few Thoughts II

[Kathianne]

another article that is addressing the split that may come. Again though, the focus is on Trump, I don't think that's correct or fair. He's a symptom, not the cause.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...-trumo/402074/

Can the Republican Party Survive Trump?

The GOP frontrunner’s surprising staying power has inspired soul-searching and agony among party elites.

...

But many Republican strategists, donors, and officeholders fret that the harm goes deeper than a single voting bloc. Trump’s candidacy has blasted open the GOP’s longstanding fault lines at a time when the party hoped for unity. His gleeful, attention-hogging boorishness—and the large crowds that have cheered it—cements a popular image of the party as standing for reactionary anger rather than constructive policies. As Democrats jeer that Trump has merely laid bare the true soul of the GOP, some Republicans wonder, with considerable anguish, whether they’re right. As the conservative writer Ben Domenech asked in an essay in The Federalist last week, “Are Republicans for freedom or white identity politics?”


“There is a faction that would actually rather burn down the entire Republican Party in hopes they can rebuild it in their image,” Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican admaker, told me...

In the main, this article is a hit piece on Trump, I've bolded the parts that to me represent some of the schisms that have been taped together for a long time. Whether or not they'll blow? I'm tending towards, yes.

[tailfins]

another article that is addressing the split that may come. Again though, the focus is on Trump, I don't think that's correct or fair. He's a symptom, not the cause.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...-trumo/402074/



In the main, this article is a hit piece on Trump, I've bolded the parts that to me represent some of the schisms that have been taped together for a long time. Whether or not they'll blow? I'm tending towards, yes.

I prefer to call him a data point. Some candidate will figure out what Trump supporters want, deliver it without the bluster, have a track record and take his voters.

[Kathianne]

I prefer to call him a data point. Some candidate will figure out what Trump supporters want, deliver it without the bluster, have a track record and take his voters.

I disagree. Populism is rife with Trump, it's also showing up with Sanders. The difference though are the personalities. Sanders supporters will migrate to another democrat. I don't think most 'strong Trump' folks will. If he's out, they'll vote for some 3rd party or stay home. On the other side, if Trump should win the GOP nomination, many will not vote GOP or just not vote.

[Perianne]

From the above link:

A Politico survery of Republican insiders in Iowa and New Hampshire, published Friday, found 70 percent saying Trump’s immigration plan was harmful to the party’s image.

Wow! 70 perfect of Republican insiders. I am surprised it is that low. Republican elites against Trump? Who could imagine that!

Trump’s rise has highlighted the distance between the Republican establishment that favors cutting Social Security, increasing immigration, and expanding free trade, and the party base that, like Trump, wants the opposite.

Exactly. The Republican leaders are NOT listening to their base. Look at how McConnell and Boehner have caved to Obama.

Party elites can already envision the attack ads of sad-eyed children being torn from their parents.

If the parents are deported, let them take their children with them. Then they won't be torn. I am sooo sick of our politicians kissing the butts of Latinos. Whose country is this anyway?

[Kathianne]

From the above link:



Wow! 70 perfect of Republican insiders. I am surprised it is that low. Republican elites against Trump? Who could imagine that!



Exactly. The Republican leaders are NOT listening to their base. Look at how McConnell and Boehner have caved to Obama.



If the parents are deported, let them take their children with them. Then they won't be torn. I am sooo sick of our politicians kissing the butts of Latinos. Whose country is this anyway?

You are heard and are representative of many.

[LongTermGuy]

From the above link:



Wow! 70 perfect of Republican insiders. I am surprised it is that low. Republican elites against Trump? Who could imagine that!



Exactly. The Republican leaders are NOT listening to their base. Look at how McConnell and Boehner have caved to Obama.



If the parents are deported, let them take their children with them. Then they won't be torn. I am sooo sick of our politicians kissing the butts of Latinos. Whose country is this anyway?

Your not alone dear...breeders ( Illegal Parasites) have eggs .....these eggs hatch and one day will be big Parasites...and will vote Democrat....Feeding off of American tax-payers...


Only thing the (Democrats) LIBERALS have left is...."oh poor little babies" ..."its for the children"....Americans are tired of that old song and dance...bull shit talking point...

Ladies and Gentlemen...*Who are these people that want these Illegals here....?

*They think they are sneaky.....

[gabosaurus]

I was surprised to find out how many Republicans are starting to doubt their own party.

http://www.people-press.org/2015/07/...negative-turn/

[fj1200]

I disagree. Populism is rife with Trump, it's also showing up with Sanders. The difference though are the personalities. Sanders supporters will migrate to another democrat. I don't think most 'strong Trump' folks will. If he's out, they'll vote for some 3rd party or stay home. On the other side, if Trump should win the GOP nomination, many will not vote GOP or just not vote.

I just don't see it. The only real 3rd party option now is Trump IMO and if he isn't the candidate then he's not polling at 20+%. It's easy to entertain such thoughts when you're riding high and are all the chatter on TV but not so easy when poll numbers are in the tank.

[Kathianne]

I just don't see it. The only real 3rd party option now is Trump IMO and if he isn't the candidate then he's not polling at 20+%. It's easy to entertain such thoughts when you're riding high and are all the chatter on TV but not so easy when poll numbers are in the tank.

As I've written more than a few times, it's early days. Not sure what will be happening 6 months, a year out. There is some truth in 'time healing all wounds,' unless they turn septic, then sometimes one dies.

Again, these schisms aren't new, indeed they've been a problem for GOP for over 40 years. As I said in the OP on other thread, this little board is a microcosm of the GOP, from far right to a few moderates. While usually there is something of a meeting of the minds to a degree on issues, there are some that create huge differences that fall right along those schisms. i.e., there is no one I'm aware of here that is for 'open borders.' No one arguing for amnesty. No one that thinks that anchor baby should continue to be a 'way in.'

However, there is no tolerance from some if questions are brought up about how to deal with the practicalities of the proclamations of Mr. Trump. Those folks are 'sneakily trying to continue their open borders policies.' On the other side, terms like xenophobic are returned. While the 'attacks' all might represent some here or elsewhere, rarely are they the right accusations to toss at most that are trying to address some tough issues. I just don't see though where the breaches underlying are going to continue to be taped over.

Not all moderates are 'liberals', nor all those on the far right 'unthinking'-quite the contrary on both charges. The 'insults' though are symptomatic of the real differences that have been the causes of the internal strife within the GOP for decades. Unlike the Democrats which have basically rid their party of all but the 'far left'-mostly to the 'independents,' the GOP has hobbled along trying to work with the commonalities between their members.

Truth is, those that are less than 'far right' find themselves more and more being pushed out. The philosophical commonalities are being overshadowed by hope that somehow silencing will bring about the changes that are deemed not only overdue, but essential for 'survival.'

I think Obama's 2nd election has exacerbated these divisions. I think within the conservatives there was universal horror that it occurred-near all saw the dangers of the second term and indeed what was feared has mostly come to pass. Some hope was found with gaining control of Congress, but all have been disappointed at how that has turned out. The form of disappointment has devolved into something that has again revealed the schisms; perhaps well played by Obama and his true base.

All here were appalled by Ferguson and Baltimore, who wouldn't be? What divides though are what we perceive to be the 'roots of the problem.' Some feel that the problems illustrated the problems of 'government'-local and beyond. Others see the problem in the people that rioted, they are the cause. Indeed, they would argue the people are the reason for the corruption of the governments.

It's complicated, again by the commonalities. I don't think there was any dissension that the government reaction to 'stand down' was insane. Destruction of property and attacks on police needed to be addressed immediately. It's the aftermath of dealing with the causes that reveal the schisms or differences in how to address. We see this too now with discussions of illegals.

Oh well, for me writing this is part of a process of clarifying my own thinking. Time will tell if somehow we bridge the differences and can 'rally around' some candidate. If not for the Democrats having basically no good candidates, I do think we wouldn't have the luxury of time.

[Kathianne]

IMO, she's trying to prevent an ideological split. I don't think it works, though I do understand what's she's saying. Several people I 'know' and respect have argued that illegal immigration is the biggest issue facing the US today.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/422937/whats-stake-trump-mona-charen

What’s at Stake with Trump by MONA CHAREN August 22, 2015 3:01 PM

I’ve responded to a lively set of comments over at Ricochet.com on the whole subject of immigration (legal and illegal), but want to share it here too since some of the same points have been made by NRO readers. For the record, I am not in the employ of any “open borders” group. I am not in favor of open borders. No one, darn it, has ever even tried to pay me to say anything in my columns, though the left has frequently lobbed accusations that I was in the pay of (take your pick) the Koch brothers, the Israelis, oil and gas interests, the NRA, and the Catholic Church. No such luck I’m afraid.

Here’s my defense of a toned down approach to immigration:

[Kathianne]

http://www.the-american-interest.com...ropean-future/

Saving America from a European FutureBen Domenech, in a powerful Federalist column published Friday, identifies white identity politics as one of the driving forces behind the destructive appeal of Donald Trump’s populism. Trump’s success is a sign of a very great threat to the American right, Domenech says; it could transform the GOP from being a “fusionist ideological coalition with a shared belief in limited government” to a party that caters specifically and exclusively to the grievances and resentments of downtrodden whites. Such a path would be fatal to the cause of limited government, and would instead lead the GOP down the path taken by proto-fascist parties of the European right. One key passage:

“Identity politics for white people” is not the same thing as “racism”, nor are the people who advocate for it necessarily racist, though of course the categories overlap. In fact, white identity politics was at one point the underlying trend for the majoritarian American cultural mainstream. But since the late 1960s, it has been transitioning in fits and starts into something more insular and distinct. Now, half a century later, the Trump moment very much illuminates its function as one interest group among many, as opposed to the background context for everything the nation does. The white American with the high-school education who works at the duck-feed factory in northern Indiana has as much right to advance his interest as anyone else. But that interest is now being redefined in very narrow terms, in opposition to the interests of other ethnic groups, and in a marked departure from the expansive view of the freedoms of a common humanity advanced by the Founders and Abraham Lincoln.

Domenech is right that Trump and his immigration plan raise the specter of a GOP driven by white identity politics in a particularly vivid way. He is also right that the problem goes much deeper than Trump, who is, as he points out, merely benefiting from an anger and resentment that was already there. America is growing more and more diverse. Once the “cultural mainstream”, whites are becoming just one ethnic group among many. As that happens, the danger is that the GOP, which got 88 percent of its votes from whites in 2012, gives up on creating a coalition bound together by ideology and instead resorts to ginning up resentment among aggrieved members of its base.



If that transformation happens, Domenech argues, we would be faced with a European-style future, where the failure of the elites to respect the will of the large swathes of people creates an increasingly illiberal right-wing backlash, which in turn drives moderates to vote for the left, and so on in cycles.

...

On the other thread, I posted about the discussed article: http://www.debatepolicy.com/showthre...ity#post758199

[tailfins]

I disagree. Populism is rife with Trump, it's also showing up with Sanders. The difference though are the personalities. Sanders supporters will migrate to another democrat. I don't think most 'strong Trump' folks will. If he's out, they'll vote for some 3rd party or stay home. On the other side, if Trump should win the GOP nomination, many will not vote GOP or just not vote.

As Sean Hannity says "Let not your heart be troubled". This will work out in a good way. There's a strong chance that a GOP President will be inaugurated in 2017.

[Jeff]

The republican party will get behind Trump if he was to win the candidacy, hell they are a bunch of pussies, if they had enough balls to vote against the republican ( or just not support him ) nominee they would of had enough balls to get rid of Obama. I believe that is the problem with the republican party, they have no back bone, they need to sling sheot when it is being slung and they need to tell the truth, instead that always cave and say they are taking the higher road, yea that sheot doesn't work now a days.

I would rather a guy say he will throw all illegals out of the country and then fail to do so than have a guy do nothing at all.

[fj1200]

Oh well, for me writing this is part of a process of clarifying my own thinking.

I don't disagree with any of what you've said. I just disagree on the eventual outcome... or just think we'll get a good candidate in the end to bring it all together.

[fj1200]

The republican party will get behind Trump if he was to win the candidacy, hell they are a bunch of pussies, if they had enough balls to vote against the republican ( or just not support him ) nominee they would of had enough balls to get rid of Obama. I believe that is the problem with the republican party, they have no back bone, they need to sling sheot when it is being slung and they need to tell the truth, instead that always cave and say they are taking the higher road, yea that sheot doesn't work now a days.

I would rather a guy say he will throw all illegals out of the country and then fail to do so than have a guy do nothing at all.

But it's a xenophobic message; how does that work with a long-term strategy? He can't just be the "illegals" guy with little else to rally around.