Michael Loftin pictured in his days as the editorial page editor of the Chattanooga Times.American humorist Will Rogers reportedly coined the wry claim that “I don’t belong to an organized party. I’m a Democrat.” That was a joke and, given the cyclical nature of politics, a bipartisan one. Case in point: the political hurricane that has engulfed the Republican Party a month before the election. It ain’t my parents’ GOP, and the same can be said of thousands of dismayed Republicans nationwide.
Naturally, Democrats see the civil war within the GOP as an opportunity to strengthen its own position before the Nov. 8 vote – just as Republicans have done when Democrats were roiled by events that led to their party’s defeats. To paraphrase Michael Corleone’s line from “The Godfather”: “It’s not personal. It’s strictly politics.”
Compared to intra-party contentiousness in the past, however, the one in which the GOP finds itself is an outlier: an insurrection led, of all people, by its presidential nominee.
Like a modern-day Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, Donald Trump has launched a “scorched earth” campaign, his own brand of political “hell,” targeting GOP officeholders and fellow Republicans judged guilty of wavering loyalty. Their “crime”: abandoning their previous support for Himself following the release of an “open mic” tape in which he bragged about how he could sexually assault women.
Faced with the possibility of becoming collateral damage in the widespread condemnation of Trump, some of the braver ones rescinded their support. Speaker Paul Ryan himself basically conceded the presidential election to Hillary Clinton by vowing to save the House from being flipped to the Democrats.