GOP elite created its Trump troubles
Before we explore the populist fever consuming U.S. politics this summer, we need to consider some morally instructive stories as a way to find the path to greater understanding.
Once upon a time, a little boy liked tigers. He liked them so much that for his birthday his parents bought him a tiger for a pet.
One day, when they returned home from shopping, they called out to their son: “Bobby, have you fed your tiger his dinner?”
No response came. You can guess what happened. The tiger got indigestion. The parents were very surprised.
Another set of parents did not see any harm in their daughter playing with matches. Some conventional little girls play with dolls, but this little girl liked to collect lighters and matches and make small fires.
Her parents, glad that they had a special child and not just an ordinary one, encouraged her in this hobby, hoping that it would one day be the basis of a fine college essay.
Why, it might win her admission into Harvard or any other school producing highly educated graduates without a lick of common sense but with large feelings of entitlement.
Instead, she burned down the family home. Her parents were so surprised you could have knocked them over with a feather.
Parents are not actually the clueless culprits of the political phenomenon that has had the nation confounded and amazed in the summer of 2015, but they make for a handy metaphor. And you know what we writers say — a metaphor in the hand is worth two similes in the bush.
The authority figures implicated here are party establishment figures and various elites, principally among Republicans. They are responsible for the mother and father of all political embarrassments.
Of course, I speak of Donald Trump, whose sour buffoonery has made him hugely popular to the shock of everybody, but apparently to the Republican Party establishment most of all. So surprised and dismayed are its members that you could knock them over with a hanging chad, if any are still left over from the 2000 election.
The odd thing about these elitist figures is that their identities remain somewhat vague. All we know is that politicians regularly denounce them in order to seem like regular folks, itself an exercise in stretching credulity to the limit. When it comes to elitists, thy name is politician.
In the popular mind, elitist members of the establishment — an equally undefined entity — are mostly caricatures, possibly wearing monocles and top hats and smoking big cigars, although it is possible they have updated their disguises and are now simply sporting bow ties.
Such a one is Washington Post columnist George F. Will, a man who appears to have been born in a bow tie — and how it must have tickled his mother. He recently wrote an essay bemoaning the rise of Mr. Trump, whose “every sulfurous belch” hurts the chance of a Republican presidency.
Well, yes. What a surprise! He also made the argument that Mr. Trump is not a real conservative and that his appeal must come from his views on immigration. Well, yes and no.
As far as issues, he is not a conservative. As far as attitudes, including the barely concealed racism of his immigration views, he is the very embodiment of what the Republican Party has sadly become. No surprise for anybody except those who ought to know.
Trump supporters don’t much care for distinctions. Nobody can blame them (well, a little bit). They are doing what they were encouraged to do. They have picked up on all of the uncompromising anger, negativity and cynicism that the party’s supposed adults have promoted for years.
As you sow, so shall you reap. The Tea Party movement was fine in the eyes of party elders as long as it was convenient and useful. But having encouraged a revolutionary spirit, to the extent of trying to shut down the government, would-be leaders can’t now plead for maturity without sounding like this: “I say, you peasants need to put down your pitchforks and support a more widely appealing candidate so we can win.”
The Democratic Party has its own problems with populism, heaven knows, but the damage done to the Republican Party is now bordering on the fatal. If there be an establishment, maybe it could at least be more comprehending about events.
The tiger has eaten its own, the matches have started a fire and somewhere Dr. Frankenstein is being paged to call the head office because his monster has escaped. What a shocker!