Our parties are primed for implosion
By:
LeRoy Goldman
Columnist
Times-News Online
June 17, 2018
I suppose a prudent person would conclude that it’s way too premature to say Donald Trump’s presidency may be chronicled by presidential scholars as one of the most consequential in the nation’s history. After all, he’s not yet completed his second year in office, and his re-election, if he survives the efforts of those who would drive him from office prematurely, is no done deal.
That said, it’s possible that Trump may well leave office having successfully destroyed both the Republican and Democratic parties. That’s no small accomplishment. It’s long overdue, and he’s already about halfway there. It’s not particularly relevant whether or not Trump’s intention is the destruction of the Democratic and Republican parties. What is relevant is whether or not it happens.
Each fall for the past four years, Chapman University in Orange, Calif., has published a list of what the American people fear the most. There are 80 items on the list. The top of the list last fall was “Corruption of Government Officials.”
I suspect some of you are thinking this fear is but a thinly disguised stalking horse for those who oppose Trump. Not so. The top fear in the Chapman listings for both 2015 and 2016 also was “Corruption of Government Officials.”
We can take heart that the American people have figured out that the government is corrupt and should be feared. However, we cannot take heart that the American people haven’t yet figured out that the root of this problem is not this growing bipartisan collection of corrupt government officials in Washington. No, the root of the problem is us.
The distinction is crucial. Because what counts is not whether the two political parties survive. What counts is whether America’s unique form of government survives.
Getting a handle on that is made vastly more difficult by the growing polarization of the American people. You can be sure that imbedded in those Chapman University polling data that show such fear of corrupt government officials are two cohorts of Americans who have almost nothing in common, a cohort of Republicans who believe Democrats are inherently corrupt and a cohort of Democrats who believe Republicans are inherently corrupt.
Our self-destructive tribal instincts have dominated American politics for the past quarter-century. It’s easy to identify those who have succumbed to this destructive behavior rather than having had the courage to risk their incumbency by opposing it. The list includes, but is not limited to, Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump. The list also includes Hillary Clinton, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi and most of the rest of the current and former members of Congress who have sold their souls, their votes and their offices to corporate PACs and billionaire donors, while pandering to their constituents.
Earlier this month, former House Speaker John Boehner said, “There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump Party.”
Nobody, especially the 16 Republicans who sought the GOP nomination in 2016, took Trump seriously when he announced that he was running. But Trump demolished them all because he knew what they didn’t — that Republican voters were done with the same old, same old.
Regardless of what you think of Trump, his decapitation of the GOP establishment is one of the necessary steps to a new order. The Republicans who will survive this November will largely be Trump sycophants. Those who are not running or will lose will mainly be moderate Republicans. Trump’s purge will inevitably set the stage for the implosion of the GOP as a governing party. That’s a fate they will have earned and deserved.
Although it’s not yet as obvious, the same fate awaits the Democrats. The old order is corrupt and unconnected to much of the party’s rank and file. Bernie Sanders’ insurgency and Trump’s victory in 2016 proved that.
If in 2020 the Democrats fail to face reality and turn to another nominee who is beholden to Democrats’ addiction to identity politics and reverse racism, they, too, will find themselves on the trash heap of history. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they will turn to a candidate like John Delaney who thinks the question that counts is how to bring the country back together.
Whether the inevitable firestorm occurs in 2020 or 2024 is unclear. But come it will.
Maybe Trump is accomplishing something urgently necessary, whether intended or not. The American political system is dangerously constipated. Trump’s legacy may be that he is the laxative at our time of national need.
To that end, I’m accumulating shares of Kimberly-Clark stock in anticipation of the spike in sales of Scott and Kleenex toilet tissue. America needs a clean sweep.
LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident. Reach him at tks12no12@gmail.com.
