The Republican Party- Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

The Republican Party- Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

suicidal GOP elephant

The Presidential Election of 2016 should have been a slam dunk. America’s electorate, weary of the fecklessness, divisiveness and overall incompetence of the current administration is demanding a wholesale change in the country’s leadership. The Democrat Party, proffering a choice between a geriatric socialist, Bernie Sanders, whose economic ideas border on lunacy, and an insufferable reprobate, Hillary Clinton, whose overall character lies somewhere between that of a swindler and that of an embezzler, should easily be deemed a guaranteed loser either way, and yet…

The Republican Party, unable to extricate itself from the combined corruption of condescension and contempt for its own electorate, once again portrays itself as the political party which outright refuses any victory, handed to them on a silver platter, not of their own particular liking. It’s not enough that the G.O.P. despises both of its front-runners, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. The party for whom both candidates seek its nomination is setting both of these front-runners against each other, hoping that both of them cancel out each other’s candidacy, in a vain attempt to replace them with someone from within the controlling grasp of the party’s elite. Never mind the fact that while Democrat participation in caucuses and primaries is substantially down from the last two national elections, it is the Republican participation in caucuses and primaries that is at an all-time high.  What of it? The Republican Party would sooner spit in the eyes of its own voters, than to abide in their choices of candidates who refuse to play the same old equivocal games mastered by the likes of Mitt Romney, John McCain and Bob Dole- losers all, who couldn’t manage to win a national election if they were the only ones on the ballot.

What a shame.

On the one hand, Republicans have a candidate who has assembled an organization engineered to win an election at all levels, and one who has conservative bona fides on practically every issue. He is even Hispanic- whose block of voters has proved to be elusive to Republicans, going back to the days of Ronald Reagan. Ted Cruz is that candidate.

On the other hand, Republicans have a candidate who has captured the imagination of disaffected voters spanning both parties, and independents, as well. Thus far, he is winning votes by the score, even from those who have never voted before. His name recognition transcends the world politic, and he has the rare ability to communicate with the common man, as no other- tapping into the palpable frustration of an electorate that is very real, indeed. Donald Trump is that candidate.

Either one of these two would make a much better president than either of their Democrat rivals. Either candidate would usher in the real changes needed to reconnect, in a positive way, the federal government with the people it is supposed to be serving. Both candidates would save the country from an abyss that looms on the horizon, should either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders be elected, who would finish the undoing of American pre-eminence that Obama has gone out of his way to initiate.

And yet…

The Republican Party whose nomination both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz seek would sooner see the election of a Democrat than rally around either of its two front-runners, which just goes to show that one can lead an elephant to water, but cannot make him drink.

How sad, indeed.

-Drew Nickell, 13 April 2016

© 2016 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.