RandomGuy
12-07-2017, 03:41 PM
Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, and Roy Moore are making it increasingly difficult for a moral person to be a loyal Republican.
On Tuesday, Republican Senator Jeff Flake wrote a $100 check to the campaign of Doug Jones, the Democrat contesting the Alabama Senate race against Republican Roy Moore. The latter stands accused by several women of predatory sexual behavior committed while they were teens.
“Country over party,” Flake tweeted.
His critics reject that formulation. They insist that Flake is motivated by a desire to seem virtuous, or to win support from the mainstream media, not by patriotism. But I am less interested in whether Flake is acting for country, or some other motive, than in what he is acting against and why that angers his detractors.
If his critics were staunch partisan loyalists the matter would be simple.
But I suspect that, in many cases, they follow the logic of an article entitled, “BREAKING: Traitor Jeff Flake Just BRAGGED About Donating to Doug Jones,” on the website Truth Feed News:
The Establishment GOP traitor and anti-Trump shill, Jeff Flake, has drawn the ire of Americans everywhere yet again, with a new and inflammatory tweet. The disgraceful “Republican” Senator tweeted a photo of a donation he made to Democratic candidate Doug Jones, the opponent of Judge Roy Moore, merely due to the fact that Moore is favored by the Trump administration. “Country over party,” said Flake’s odious tweet, but real conservatives know that the RINO Senator is anything but a Republican, and has more in common with the Democrats.
This is but one illustration of a pervasive dissonance in Republican politics. On the one hand, all manner of pejoratives are applied to party leaders Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell; on the other hand, Republicans who defect from voting with them are traitors. The coalition’s insult of choice remains RINO, or Republican in Name Only. Yet they rally around a president who repeatedly changed parties in recent decades, and Stephen Bannon, a self-described Leninist eager to “bitch-slap the Republican Party.”
Tea-party senators recently elected in an anti-establishment wave are now RINO cucks. Populists purport to dislike nothing more than disloyal politicians, yet their champion is arguably the most disloyal man in the United States.
Donald Trump was disloyal to two wives. He invited Bill and Hillary Clinton to his third wedding; repeatedly went on TV to lavish praise on Hillary Clinton; and then, when she got in the way of his ambitions, he began standing in crowds of thousands of people encouraging chants of,“Lock her up.”
He withheld health care from his ailing infant nephew during a family dispute over an inheritance. He fleeced Trump fans credulous enough to patronize Trump University. He stiffed subcontractors and strategically used bankruptcies to screw creditors. For ratings, he gave a shock jock permission to call his daughter “a piece of ass.” He has betrayed almost everything to which normal people feel sacred loyalty. Most recently, he even opposed Roy Moore’s Senate candidacy before supporting it!
....
Hillary Clinton called them deplorable; they are fighting back by embodying that stereotype. Now, traitors aren’t those who fail to ally with or actively break from the Republican Party; traitors are those unwilling to embrace depravity with them. It’s a test of loyalty. Republicans must join Bannon in championing Roy Moore and savaging Mitt Romney, knowing the latter is the better man, for the same reason gang initiates might be ordered to slug an old lady as she leaves church.
Such is the fate of all who join in enterprises with Trump or Bannon at the top: A moment comes when one must either become complicit in depravity or exhibit disloyalty. The Republican Party chose depravity—and now, so must all non-traitorous members.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/loyalty-depravity
GOP is reaping what it sows.
On Tuesday, Republican Senator Jeff Flake wrote a $100 check to the campaign of Doug Jones, the Democrat contesting the Alabama Senate race against Republican Roy Moore. The latter stands accused by several women of predatory sexual behavior committed while they were teens.
“Country over party,” Flake tweeted.
His critics reject that formulation. They insist that Flake is motivated by a desire to seem virtuous, or to win support from the mainstream media, not by patriotism. But I am less interested in whether Flake is acting for country, or some other motive, than in what he is acting against and why that angers his detractors.
If his critics were staunch partisan loyalists the matter would be simple.
But I suspect that, in many cases, they follow the logic of an article entitled, “BREAKING: Traitor Jeff Flake Just BRAGGED About Donating to Doug Jones,” on the website Truth Feed News:
The Establishment GOP traitor and anti-Trump shill, Jeff Flake, has drawn the ire of Americans everywhere yet again, with a new and inflammatory tweet. The disgraceful “Republican” Senator tweeted a photo of a donation he made to Democratic candidate Doug Jones, the opponent of Judge Roy Moore, merely due to the fact that Moore is favored by the Trump administration. “Country over party,” said Flake’s odious tweet, but real conservatives know that the RINO Senator is anything but a Republican, and has more in common with the Democrats.
This is but one illustration of a pervasive dissonance in Republican politics. On the one hand, all manner of pejoratives are applied to party leaders Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell; on the other hand, Republicans who defect from voting with them are traitors. The coalition’s insult of choice remains RINO, or Republican in Name Only. Yet they rally around a president who repeatedly changed parties in recent decades, and Stephen Bannon, a self-described Leninist eager to “bitch-slap the Republican Party.”
Tea-party senators recently elected in an anti-establishment wave are now RINO cucks. Populists purport to dislike nothing more than disloyal politicians, yet their champion is arguably the most disloyal man in the United States.
Donald Trump was disloyal to two wives. He invited Bill and Hillary Clinton to his third wedding; repeatedly went on TV to lavish praise on Hillary Clinton; and then, when she got in the way of his ambitions, he began standing in crowds of thousands of people encouraging chants of,“Lock her up.”
He withheld health care from his ailing infant nephew during a family dispute over an inheritance. He fleeced Trump fans credulous enough to patronize Trump University. He stiffed subcontractors and strategically used bankruptcies to screw creditors. For ratings, he gave a shock jock permission to call his daughter “a piece of ass.” He has betrayed almost everything to which normal people feel sacred loyalty. Most recently, he even opposed Roy Moore’s Senate candidacy before supporting it!
....
Hillary Clinton called them deplorable; they are fighting back by embodying that stereotype. Now, traitors aren’t those who fail to ally with or actively break from the Republican Party; traitors are those unwilling to embrace depravity with them. It’s a test of loyalty. Republicans must join Bannon in championing Roy Moore and savaging Mitt Romney, knowing the latter is the better man, for the same reason gang initiates might be ordered to slug an old lady as she leaves church.
Such is the fate of all who join in enterprises with Trump or Bannon at the top: A moment comes when one must either become complicit in depravity or exhibit disloyalty. The Republican Party chose depravity—and now, so must all non-traitorous members.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/loyalty-depravity
GOP is reaping what it sows.