Where or where did my party go?
For some of us, struggling to remain Republican presents a Sisyphean challenge. The party I proudly joined 40 years ago, the party of Goldwater and Reagan and Buckley, is scarcely recognizable.
Polling depressingly suggests that three fourths of Republicans falsely believe the media “makes up” stories about the president. In fact, it is hard to recall a significant revelation that proved to be false. Yet they shrug off Trump’s insatiable predilection for manufacturing or repeating falsehoods (averaging around 5 untruths per day).
Republicans should despair that there are few prominent conservative intellectuals who remain inside the tent. Virtually every influential thinker has either left the party or stands in opposition to its degrading Trumpification. Does it bother any other Republicans that the brains of the outfit now reside within the troubled skull of Steve Bannon, or that Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan have morphed into zombie conservatives mesmerized by the siren song of tax cuts to the exclusion of common decency and intellectual honesty?
How many of us bothered to reflect upon last week’s stirring address by John McCain or the patriotic homily of George W. Bush? Anyone? Bueller?