What is worse, the Japanese surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 or the attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, or October 11, 2016 when Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump cut his ties to Republican Party leadership and proclaimed that he no longer was “shackled” by them?
If one is a lifelong Republican with philosophical roots deep into those who formed the Republican Party to oppose slavery and a social status quo that denied the humanity of Africans, choosing which of these three events is worse is easy politically. The attacks of 1941 and 2001 on the U.S. were national, not political.
October 11, 2016, however is very important politically to every single American.
Donald Trump simply cut himself adrift from the political structure that has produced the finest political system in the world. Did he cut himself off because he envisions a one-man race, a one-man government filled with Trump-yes men and businessmen?
Trump attacks Speaker of the House Paul Ryan because the Speaker does his job and tells his constituents, the GOP’s commanding majority in the House of Representatives, to do what they need to do to win re-election. This Trump attack appears to be orchestrated- it is alleged by witnesses – by his Campaign Director Steve Bannon who ordered his Internet Breitbart staff to destroy Speaker Ryan, third in line to be President.
Trump attacks Ryan because Ryan refuses to fall lockstep into enthusiastic support for the man who set a record for most Republican votes ever cast against a primary candidate. Why should Ryan be enthusiastic for Trump? Are there any reasons other than party “loyalty?” We know from current polls (and USA Today article) that 26 percent of all state and federal elected Republican officials do not support Trump. That is a portrait of an abyss that is indescribable in any other wording but as full-fledged political “civil war.”
The situation is so bad that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has his sights on a Trump-appointment, is trying to change the subject by demanding every Republican dump his personal and political dignity and coalesce behind the man with record votes against him in the GOP Primary to set sights on Hillary Clinton. She must be stopped, Gingrich claims, at all costs including a viable Republican Party.
This political abyss centered on Donald Trump and Paul Ryan is serious and what happens the day after the election is even more serious.
The two party system that feeds the three branch constitutional government we enjoy is so important its importance cannot be measured. Many complain about gridlock despite partisan excesses like Obamacare and a wasted trillion dollars voted by exclusively Democrat votes in the Democrat controlled congress of 2009.
Gridlock is better than excess.
The necessary basics of government are handled by Congress and signed into law by the President in spite of partisan differences as long as both parties understand what the basics are. Compromises are forced on all in split governments.
The conflict we see between Donald Trump and the GOP is more about Trump’s self-assessed-worth than a 162 years of political collective genius that did more for a democratic United States, equality and social worth than any political party in the history of the world.
Examples: “Natural born citizenship,” “due process of law”, and “equal protection.” These are the three basic elements of the Republican created and passed 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Democrats fought the 14th, as well as the 13th and 15th amendments outlawing slavery and racial restrictions on voting
From freedom for all, women’s equality in the voting booth and for elective office, industrialization, improvement of the population by immigration, ascendance to world power, defeat of the Soviet Union, economic unification within North America, civil rights enforced at bayonet point and political power driven from rural and suburban areas, the Republican Party has given us all much. Donald Trump attacks the Party and its leadership. He says he is the answer to all problems, problems that are problems in his mind. Donald Trump owns the 2016 Civil War.
The real Civil War (1861-1865) cost over 600,000 American lives. Open warfare between President Lincoln and the Supreme Court handcuffed President Lincoln. Victory by Lincoln was erased by assassination but the Government survived as did the Republican Party. The Party went on to win all but four presidential terms between 1860 and 1932.
The Party has survived Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, et al. It also survived Republican Warren G. Harding and his cash for play and Richard Nixon and his CREEP, Committee to Re-Elect the President and its Watergate “third-rate burglary.”
The Republican Party will survive Donald J. Trump.