Sunday, May 15, 2016

Trump, ja! Sasse, nein!

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Republican Party makes me sick.

If you are a member of the GOP -- particularly the Nebraska Republican Party -- be aware this is what you have signed onto, basically the Full Trump. The Full Trump is what used to be known as fascist nativism . . . or nativist fascism . . . or your basic collection of nuts, cranks, xenophobes and bigots.


And here's the thing: I'm sure the picture painted today in the Omaha World-Herald probably would be even uglier elsewhere. Let me caution you; if Christianity for you is more than a mere identity, and if Americanism encompasses real philosophical propositions, this is going to make your blood boil. It did mine.
U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse has carved out a name for himself on the national stage as a leader in the “Never Trump” Republican faction. 
On the home front, however, the Nebraska freshman found himself rebuked Saturday by party loyalists upset at his call for a third candidate to arise and give conservatives such as himself an alternative to Donald Trump in the fall election.
Delegates at the State Republican Convention overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing Sasse’s call for a third candidate. They argued it would only help Democrats win the White House in November.
“If you support a third-party candidate, you are going to elect Hillary Clinton, and she is going to nominate the next three or four members of the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Pat McPherson, an Omaha Republican. 
The delegates also went one step further in making clear they were lining up behind Trump. They roundly rejected a counterresolution that sought to condemn the presumptive GOP presidential nominee for making “degrading” comments toward women and minorities. (The resolution was submitted by people who opposed the earlier resolution.) 
One Republican said it was not their place to be the “thought police” in this presidential election.

(snip)
 
They adopted one resolution calling for a state law that would require a transgender person to use a bathroom that corresponds with the gender on his or her birth certificate. They passed another to oppose the relocation of refugees into America. “I’m a foreigner in my own country,” one man said in support of the resolution.
WHAT IS the difference between, say, the National Front in France -- the old, undiluted National Front and not Marine Le Pen's prettied-up version -- and the Republican Party in Nebraska? Precious little. That has been made clear.

Actually, "Omaha Republican" Pat McPherson made that pretty clear last year, pre-Trump.

Once, the Republican Party was the Party of Lincoln. What's incomprehensible is that it jettisoned that noble pedigree, just to become the party of Donald Trump and Officer Mancuso.

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