VIEWPOINT / WE’RE CAUGHT IN A TRAP. I CAN’T WALK OUT…BECAUSE I LOVE YOU TOO MUCH, BABY

By Timothy Weaver, Ph.D.

Remember that Elvis song? It’s the new GOP theme song. Here is the trap. Beginning with Nixon, the GOP has developed a voting block full of grievances, bigotry, gun love, and very angry downwardly mobile Americans. The core of the support keeps a minority party in contention in elections they should lose. The core voters are drawn from the white working class with typically lower levels of education. These voters tend to be far-right on social issues. Yet, the party leaders and the voters who truly benefit are the upper 10% Americans. They are indifferent to issues other than the bottom line. They also have to be pleased.

Now comes Trump, a charismatic charlatan who has captured the GOP core voter class–and the rich folks he and his family have cultivated over three generations. He has taken over the Nixon constituency. He owns them. They love him and would easily give their lives for him. The GOP is now caught in a trap. They can’t get out. They are forced to love him too much, baby.

This helps to explain why normally rational, if deeply flawed, leaders like Speaker Johnson can stand up and make statements that would embarrass the Mad Hatter. Collins of Maine can attack the judiciary for daring to try Trump. Graham, who has two mouths, one forward and the other backward, can castigate the Justice Department, Biden, and the entire State of NY for putting on a kangaroo court. Lindsay Graham was a former officer of the military justice system. OF COURSE, HE KNOWS BETTER. These people are not stupid. They have taken stupid pills–of their own making. They created a monster, watched Trump take it over, and now they must act like Trump, love Trump, and follow his every dictum to stay in power. Like Peron, they know who keeps them in the rich manner they have become accustomed to. Like Eva, the GOP is stuck with keeping Trump alive at all costs. If he should depart this life, the GOP will have to keep alive his memory or suffer the same fate Peron suffere

As this mishegoss evolves, it is ejecting more and more politicians who have a sense of decency and refuse to pledge allegiance to the unholy alliance the GOP has now created. The party is becoming, with each election cycle more “pure” in its love and devotion to Trumpism. The denouement, when it comes, will be cataclysmic and painful. We will witness this event if my work at Syracuse University is any guide. It may play out over several election cycles or come all at once, like Barry Goldwater’s defeat in 1964. Then, the party, flirting too far to the right, crashed and burned.

Care to guess when and how this ends?

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