The Dirty Dozen of the G.O.P.
Take a good look at the men in this photo.
They are the “Dirty Dozen” of the G.O.P., so-called and self-described Republicans who, to a man, oppose Republican President Donald Trump at every opportunity, and would much have preferred Hillary Clinton to have been elected in 2016.
Their names- former President George Bush, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), National Review’s Senior Editor Jonah Goldberg, Weekly Standard’s Editor-in-Chief Steven Hayes, Ohio Governor John Kasich, Weekly Standard’s Founder and Editor-at-Large Bill Kristol, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) read like a Rogues Gallery of Republican rattlesnakes, coiled and ready to inject their politically-deadly venom into Donald Trump and his presidency.
Besides the fact that they all claim to be Republicans, and claim to be conservatives, they share but two things in common- their hatred of the current President and their opposition to all he does for the simple sake of opposition, itself.
Let’s face it. These guys seldom, if ever, voiced any real opposition to former Democrat Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and yet try to outdo one another in criticizing President Donald Trump.
Why?
Well, that’s the tough question, but odds are that it is largely because their bitter egos and their lofty senses of self-esteem could not and would not support a Republican nominee who basically failed to kiss their asses and seek their support of his candidacy. Sure, they object to the President’s style, the fact that he tweets and a myriad of other petty complaints they have about this, that and the other. Yet, despite the fact that Donald Trump is pursuing a solidly-conservative agenda and, in doing so, is keeping the promises he made during the 2016 campaign, these twelve- and a host of others- would sooner see the current President hang from the gallows than to see Hillary Clinton imprisoned for the very real crimes she committed before and during her own runs for the White House…
…and therein lies the problem.
When Donald Trump faces opposition from Democrats, such opposition is, on one level, to be expected. After all, partisan opposition is the hallmark of any self-respecting two-party system, be it Tory vs Labour or Democrat vs Republican. The fact that Democrats have crossed the line of sanity in their opposition of Trump is besides the point. They are the opposition. Enough said.
Yet, when a sitting Republican U.S. President faces such vehement opposition from the politicos and pundits within his own party, it bespeaks of their hypocrisy and treachery to a level not seen in the political history of either party. How can a Republican President succeed when influential members of his own party seek to destroy him and his presidency at every turn?
Ask Tim Pawlenty.
Last night, the former Governor of Minnesota lost in his bid to gain that state’s Republican nomination to a man backed by President Trump, one Jeff Johnson, a relatively unknown county commissioner and former state assemblyman who had the sense to embrace the Trump presidency and garner Trump’s endorsement. Pawlenty’s disdain for the President is well-known, having once called Trump “unsound, uninformed, unhinged and unfit (to be president).” Such posturing rendered the one-time popular Pawlenty unelectable in a state where Republicans have a reasonable chance of taking back a governorship once held by the G.O.P.
The lesson is simple- oppose the Republican president and you oppose the Republican electorate, thus finding yourself minimized and teetering on the precipice of political extinction. The fact that Senators Corker, Flake and McCain are not going to seek re-election, and the fact that Sasse’s re-election in 2020 is in peril in a year where the President will be seeking his own re-election, speaks loud and clear with regards to who holds the trust and support of the Republican electorate- and it isn’t them. Rapidly declining subscriptions to the Weekly Standard and National Review, once mainstays of conservative political thought, shows what the reading public thinks of Messrs. Goldberg, Hayes and Kristol, and it isn’t much.
Oddly enough, Mitt Romney has received the endorsement of President Trump for his run for the Senate, but that is only because he is the Republican nominee for Utah, and for no other reason. Trump would have rather endorsed any other Republican, but it was Romney who got his party’s nomination in that state. Suffice to say that the political careers of the Bush brothers have come to a close, and their influence on Republican voters, if they ever really had such, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. The same holds true for Ohio Governor John Kasich, whose endorsement of state Senator Troy Balderson to the Ohio 12th Congressional seat wasn’t enough to push him over the top- Balderson needed the President’s endorsement to win a narrow victory last week over an up-and-coming Democrat, Danny O’Connor.
A look into the Kansas Governor’s race, one in which Kris Kobach narrowly defeated incumbent Governor Jeff Colyer for the Republican nomination, shows the power of a Presidential endorsement in the age of Trump, and other recent elections reveal a Republican electorate migrating away from the aging relics of mainstream/milquetoast Republicans who stand for nothing except their own precious power and influence. Kobach embraced the President, gained his endorsement and won in a tight race against a Republican incumbent governor who sought to distance himself from the President. So much for seeking to be all things to all people, right Governor Colyer?
While there are others, like Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) who might well have been included in the G.O.P. “Dirty Dozen,” it also seems that these longtime Republican stalwarts are beginning to see the light that is the Trump presidency. Their well-known pro-abortion bona fides won’t keep them from voting to support Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, just as they voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. These women are just smart enough to know where their bread is buttered, even if they remain “un-plussed” with the current President.
Republicans who fail to support their President imperil the power that their party holds in both houses of Congress. If the House (and much less likely the Senate) flips to the Democrats, the big lie will be proffered by the media that it is Donald Trump’s fault, and no one else’s.
Truth be told, though, it will be the fault of the G.O.P. “Dirty Dozen” and other so-called Republicans who, like their Democrat counterparts, cannot and will not accept the reality of the Trump presidency. With such “Republicans,” who in the hell needs Democrats, anyway?
-Drew Nickell, 15 August 2018
© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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