Mob Rule Is Overtaking America, Driven By The Collapse of the Republican Party
- Daily Kos, Sept. 26, 2021. - Ed.
In a profoundly detached fit of magical thinking, GOP leader Mitch McConnell told journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa that the Trump era was on the wane. In their recently released book Peril, McConnell is quoted as saying there was "a clear trend moving" away from Trump and he was "a fading brand." McConnell, who is hailed by many Beltway journalists as a master strategist, had obviously created his own alternative reality because he prefers it to the one in which Trumpism is crushing his fanciful delusions about the present state of the Republican Party—and his place in it.
In fact, Trump and, more specifically, Trumpism, are reshaping everything from the policies Republicans champion to the candidates who will prevail in GOP primaries to the lawmakers who will fill GOP seats.
The Republican Party is enduring a full Trump makeover inside and out, and anyone who doesn't see it is living in fantasy land. Far from “fading,” Trump's influence is metastasizing. When it comes to party leadership, Trump's list of endorsees has grown to roughly 40, giving everyone he blesses a leg up in their primary. At the same time, he continues to force GOP lawmakers into retirement—particularly those with any sense of integrity, dignity, or independent thinking skills.
Trump's personal derangement is also transferring to the masses. The delusion that the 2020 election was stolen from him—one dismissed internally by his own campaign—continues to get traction. On the same week that Arizona's 2020 sham audit managed to find exactly zero fraud, the number of fraudits being entertained nationwide grew to four as Texas added its name to the list of ignominy. These fraudits have no authority to overturn results and no credibility among anyone outside of 2020 truther circles. But among a sizable portion of the GOP electorate, they keep some dim hope alive that the election could be overturned, Trump could be reinstated, and perhaps most importantly, that they as voters were egregiously wronged.
Because it's not really about Trump anymore—it's about the rage and the permission structure that Trumpism has created for it.
.. As Costa told MSNBC this week, in their more candid off-the-record moments, Republican lawmakers will tell you they're not in control any longer. "It's the voters now in the Republican Party that are in control," Costa told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace in a two-hour special on the collapse of the Republican Party. "It's the voters and the crowds that are driving this." The GOP rage machine is off the rails, and it's proving even more harmful at the local level. "We know where you live" has become its favorite refrain...
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/9/25/2054358/-Mob-rule-is-overtaking-America-driven-by-the-collapse-of-the-Republican-Party
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