Two Roads Diverged

Recently, conservative journalist Charlie Sykes wrote about the Republican Party and stated -- "It's incredibly naive to think that there's actually a chance to salvage the party."​

I think what Sykes says is spot-on correct. The conservative GOP that once existed is gone, and the road the Republican Party is on today is full-blown fascist and lunatic, believing non-existent conspiracy theories not only promoted by party leaders but also by totally anonymous fantasists.

But Sykes overlooks something. What is also important to keep in mind is that Trumpism didn't begin with Trump, he just brought it to fullness. The Republican Party had been built and primed for years to accept a Trump as its leader.  So, when Charlie Sykes says it's naive to think there's a chance to salvage the party, that party has been on a downward spiral to oblivion for years, probably decades.  There was "a chance" to salvage the party in the early years of this precipitous decline, but even that was built into the party for years before -- dating back to at least the McCarthy Era when liberals were demonized for being socialist and commies, and literal blacklists were created and people went to jail for their beliefs..  And then came the Nixon Years with his literal Enemies List and racist "Southern Strategy" to divide the country.

I don't know if I can pinpoint where the decay began in full openness, since there was a quiet slide to the break, but it seems to be around the time of Ronald Reagan.  Many conservatives who've left the party have said that the "cult of personality" built around Trump, rather than around ideas is dangerous for the party.  But Reagan himself was a cult-like figure, considered almost a god to the party faithful.  Indeed, when he died, Republicans held a state funeral of extended grieving far out of the ordinary for a president who had passed away.  The airport in Washington, D.C. was renamed for him.  Indeed, it was Reagan too who created the phrase "the L word" to demonize liberals.  And who brought up the "11th Commandment" for Republicans -- thou shall not criticize another Republican, leading the way to lock-step unanimity among elected officials where today "compromise" has become a dirty word in the party.

The subsequent Bush presidencies helped build on that inflexible division.  Particularly after 9/11, when if you didn't support The Patriot Act and weren't on board with giving up so many personal rights, you were virtually a traitor to the country.  And it seemed as if all people from the Middle East were vilified with very little pushback from the Republican White House.

And then when Barack Obama was elected president, Mitch McConnel infamously said that "Job 1" was to ensure that he didn't get a second term.  Not that "Job 1" was good laws or strong ideas, but that first and foremost Republicans had to block everything from the Obama Administration purely because it was from the Obama Administration.  And birtherism came into being, demonizing the president as supposedly not even being an American citizen.  Worse, it must be a Muslim.  Trump didn't create birtherism -- the Republican Party created it all on its own, and he just surfed it into taking over the party.  And President Obama wasn't just criticized for his politics, but was seen pretty much as Satan (quite literally) by many Republicans.  And the GOP cries of "socialist!!" for anything that even hinted at liberal rose again.

All of this was in place for 35 years in the Republican Party before Trump ran to become leader of the party.  And that's why, as Charlie Sykes says, it is indeed It's incredibly naive to think there's a chance to salvage the GOP.​ But it's not because of who Trump is when he took over the party.  It's because that's the direction downward that the Republican Party had long been headed, and Trump just opened the door that the party had long been building.

This is not about Trump, we know who he is.  This is about the elected members of the Republican Party who built the pathway for him, enabled him when he walked on it and are complicit.

Sometimes, the road to hell is paved with bad intentions.