America the Broken

Donald Trump didn't break America. America was already broken. That's how he was able to get elected in the first place.

How did we get to the point where two uniquely and universally disliked candidates ended up vying for the most powerful elected office in the world? The very thought of the 2016 presidential election conjures the notion that on the morning of November 9, 2016 millions of Americans awoke to the horror or the delight of Donald Trump having been elected president. A man so vile, cruel and inept it still to this day defies logic. But Trump wasn't a magician or a pied piper. He didn't trick anybody into voting for him. There was no illusion to his run. No alchemy. Donald Trump was the product of a generation of right-wing racial resentment, fear-mongering and conspiracy theory rolled into a neatly packaged rage bomb. Trump was the culmination of decades of Republicans programming its members to accept the abnormal and untruthful. But if Trump was the ultimate cypher of Republican sophistry then was Hillary Clinton the ultimate vehicle for Democrats' indolence and equivocation? The answer to that question is, YES.

When Bush's brain, Karl Rove, spoke of creating a "Permanent Republican Majority" he understood that the GOP was a dying party. How could it not be. The very voters Republicans rely on are literally dying out. White people. The Republican party is 90% white. A white political party that resides in a country that is getting more brown every day is doomed unless they do things to ensure they hold power long after their numbers can sway elections. So the Republican strategy has not been to expand the party but to expand the party's power. In order to expand power the GOP needs loyal subjects. Foot soldiers that will go to the polls in significant numbers to keep the party afloat long enough to twist the levers of power in its favor. In 1984 Newt Gingrich did something revolutionary. He started his own conservative talk show on C-SPAN. At the time Newt an uncoothly loud back-bencher from Georgia. He was red-faced angry at everything liberals did. It's didn't matter. Liberals were the enemy of the people. Newt brought the simplicity of Newspeak to politics. Republicans Good! Democrats Bad. His no holds barred vitriol was seen as gauche then but by 1994 his branding worked. Newt and the "Moral Majority" swept into power. Bringing the House of Representatives under Republican control for the first time in almost five decades. Newt begot Rush. Rush begot Fox News. Fox News begot Breitbart. Brietbart begot internet trolls. And here were are.

For over two decades Fox News was not only the Republican party's paramour it was its mouth-piece. The cable channel has become the go to source for GOP's orgasmic rage against all things left. As the Republican Party careened from center-right to completely crazy, Fox was there all the way to stoke racial animus, misogyny and xenophobia. Republican strategists know the GOP is bereft of new ideas. They also knew that keeping people anxious, fearful and angry was the best way to get them to vote. In every election. This is why the Republican party is so unified. A Republican from Arkansas will say the same thing as a Republican from Massachusetts. Trump didn't light a fire under the base's asses. They were already conditioned to attached themselves to an ever angrier, ever whiter idol. The Republican party instilled it's members with sociopathy. That's why they can laugh at a sexual assault survivor and cheer at the death of unarmed Black people at the hands of police or turn a blind eye to immigrant children locked in cages. The Republicans have built a cult army that is ready to destroy America in order to keep their elite in power and there is nothing anybody can say to change their minds.

As the GOP was becoming more militant by weoponizing people's fear, the Democrats were chasing the ghosts of their past constituencies. After the brutal loses of 1980s the left was hungry for a win. Sensing the country had moved to the right, Bill Clinton along with Al From of the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council) decided to run for president not as a liberal but as a conservative pro-capital punishment Democrat. With that slim victory in 1992 the Democrats abandoned women (Geraldine Ferraro) and Black voters (Run Jesse Run) to try to woo back the "Blue Dog" Democrats they'd lost to Reagan in 1984. When Newt ascended the speakership in the Republican Revolution of 1994, Clinton doubled down and signed entire swaths of right-wing legislation. I am still nonplussed at the fact that a Democrat (I'm looking at you Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders) signed the Crime Bill, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the Defense of Marriage Act, the Freedom of Religion Restoration Act and the Welfare to Work Act. Clinton gave the Republicans everything they wanted in return for a few more white votes.

So the two parties were locked in a viscous cycle. Republicans would act more and more outrageously, the Democrats would crack and acquiesce in the name of decorum. When Barack Obama came to power in 2008 he had both houses of congress firmly in control of Democrats but instead of ramming through every piece of liberal legislation his base was clamoring for he wanted conciliation and compromise. However noble those former norms were President Obama fundamentally misread the landscape by thinking the Republicans were willing to work with him. A few did at first but after seeing the seething contempt of their base for a Black president even the most moderate Republicans turned into snarling maniacs. These moderates were further eroded under Trump--see Senator Lindsay Graham epic meltdown during the Kavanaugh confirmation. Unfortunately Hillary Clinton used the same playbook as Clinton and Obama. Though she was much more forthright and called out the racism on the right, she played it too safe when trying to hold onto some white voters. She tried to thread the needle of not scaring off white moderates while still appealing to Black People and Voters of Color.

Donald Trump didn't break America. Unfortunately the only way to fix it is by fire. Liberals have to understand that there is an asymmetric war going on for the soul of the country. If the country is to be repaired liberals are going to have to fight for it. This is why I have hope with a new crop of Democrats like Beto O'Rourke, Andrew Gillum, Kamala Harris and Stacey Abrams. Fiery. Determined. Not backing down. They are fighting for a country where higher wages and healthcare are considered radical but arming teachers is not. Maybe if they can stop the runaway train that Republicanism has become then maybe there is a hope of at least staring to unshatter our country.