Trump has captured the Republican party – and
that's great news for Biden
Robert
Reich
The Trump party is only interested in appealing to its
base. Democrats in Washington have the public square to themselves
Sun 28 Feb
2021 06.00 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/28/trump-republican-party-biden-democrats
Donald
Trump formally anoints himself the head of the Republican party at today’s
Conservative Political Action Conference.
The Grand
Old Party, founded in 1854 in Ripon, Wisconsin, is now dead. What’s left is a
dwindling number of elected officials who have stood up to Trump but are now
being purged. Even Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell’s popularity has
dropped 29 points among Kentucky Republicans since he broke with Trump.
In its
place is the Trump party, whose major goal is to advance Trump’s big lie that
the 2020 election was stolen from him. Its agenda is to exact vengeance on
Republicans who didn’t or won’t support the lie or who voted to impeach or
convict Trump for inciting the violence that the lie generated, and to keep
attention focused on the former president’s grievances.
As the
Trump party takes over the GOP, anti-Trump Republicans are abandoning the party
in droves – thereby weakening it for general elections while simultaneously
strengthening Trump’s hand inside it.
It is great
news for Democrats and Joe Biden.
Democrats
couldn’t hope for a more perfect foil – a defeated one-term president who never
cracked 47% of the popular vote, left office with just 39% approval and is now
hovering at an abysmal 34%, whom most Americans dislike or loathe, and a
majority believe incited an insurrection against the United States.
The gift
will keep giving. Courtesy of the supreme court, Trump’s tax returns will soon
be raked across America like barnyard manure. Expect more of his shady business
dealings to be exposed – more payoffs, cheats and cons – as well as civil and
criminal prosecutions.
The Trump
party isn’t interested in appealing to the nation as a whole, anyway. It’s
interested only in appealing to Trump and the base that worships him.
All this is
making it nearly impossible for congressional Republicans to mount a strong
opposition to Biden’s ambitious plans for Covid relief followed by major
investments in infrastructure and jobs. Lacking unity, leadership, strategy,
clarity or a coherent message on anything other than Trump’s grievances, the
Trump party is irrelevant to the large choices facing the nation. Democrats in
Washington have the public square all to themselves.
Biden is in
the enviable position of getting most of America behind his agenda – and he can
do so without a single Republican vote if Senate Democrats end the filibuster.
Democrats
have proven themselves capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
But if they and Biden use this opportunity as they should, by this time next
year Covid will be a tragic memory, and the nation will be in the midst of an
economic recovery propelling it toward full employment and rising wages. With
the GOP in disarray and rabid Trumpism turning off ever more voters, the 2022
midterm elections could swell Democratic majorities in Congress.
But the
emergence of the Trump party is deeply worrisome for America. It is a
dangerous, deluded, authoritarian and potentially violent faction that has no
responsible role in a democracy.
Its big lie
enables supporters of the former president to believe their efforts to overturn
the 2020 election were necessary to protect American democracy, and that they
must continue to fight a “deep state” conspiracy to thwart Trump. This is an
open invitation to violence.
What’s good for Biden and the Democrats in the short
run is frightening for America over the longer run
The big lie
also justifies Trump Party efforts to suppress votes considered “fraudulent.”
In 33 states, Trump Republican lawmakers are already pushing more than 165
bills intended to stop mail-in voting, increase voter ID requirements, make it
harder to register to vote and expand purges of voter rolls.
Democrats
in Congress are responding with their proposed For the People Act, to expand
voting through automatic voter registration across the country, early voting
and enlarged mail-in voting.
The
incipient civil war pits a national Democratic party representing America’s
majority against a state-based Trump Party representing a defiant and
overwhelmingly white, working-class minority. It’s a recipe for a harsh clash
between democracy and authoritarianism.
Plus,
there’s the small possibility Trump could run again in 2024 and win.
What’s good
for Biden and the Democrats in the short run is potentially disastrous for
America over the longer term. One of its two major parties is centered on a big
lie that threatens to blow up the nation, figuratively if not literally.
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