Capitol Report
By State Representative, Leon D. Young
Leon D. Young
Republicans now find themselves in a very unenviable position.
After having spent months hoping and praying that Donald Trump would eventually self-implode, the GOP has finally come to the realization that this Frankenstein monster just won’t go away.
In response to this new reality, the GOP is trying desperately to devise a strategy to thwart the nomination of its own party’s front runner, Donald Trump.
To illustrate the point, Senator Marco Rubio, who faces a must-win situation in his home state of Florida, has taken the extraordinary step of suggesting that his supporters in Ohio vote for his opponent John Kasich, the state’s native son governor.
And, in doing so, to deny Trump from capturing the 66 Ohio delegates at stake in a winner take all primary.
It’s no secret that many Republicans in the establishment ranks have been railing about Donald Trump. They assert that he’s not a true Conservative; while others insist that he’s a con man — at best.
There is a growing lament among GOP loyalists that the Party of Lincoln and Reagan is being commandeered by Trump.
Former Reagan speechwriter and now Wall Street Journal/CBS pundit Peggy Noonan expressed the general sentiment that “we’re seeing a great political party shatter before our eyes.” This begs the question: Is Noonan’s reflection an accurate assessment of her own political party? Let’s not get this thing twisted.
The Republican Party is not some mythological party that exudes decency and openness. Do you remember these headlines: “Republicans Oppose Civil Rights”; “Republicans Work to Defeat Expansion of Health Insurance”; “Republicans Torpedo Extension of Unemployment Benefits”; “Republicans Demonize Homosexuals and Deny Them Rights”; “Republicans Call Climate Change a Hoax and Refuse to Stop Greenhouse Gases”?
But here is what no one in the GOP establishment wants you to know, and much less wants to admit: Donald Trump isn’t the destruction of the Republican Party; he is the fulfillment of everything the party has been saying and doing for decades.
He is just saying it louder and more plainly than his predecessors and intra-party rivals.
With that being said, Donald Trump is no outlier of the Republican Party. He’s merely its personification.