Twenty-Six|Haunt
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KilljoyKlown said:
Has anybody considered after it's all said and done, we may need to thank Trump for the biggest Democratic landslide in the history of presidential elections ever?
Oh, well, Republicans have. There has been, pretty much from the outset, a
"phantom candidate"↑ conspiracy theory that I just can't figure out. The basic idea was that Trump was running specifically to help Hillary Clinton win, or so said a Florida backbencher, Congressman Carlos Curbelo (R-FL26). At the time I pointed to a number of Republicans who had tacked to line up behind Donald Trump, and even the editor of
National Review: A Clintonian conspiracy including Cruz, Walker, Carson, Fiorina, and Lowry, among others, as participants? I actually had to repeat that question
less than a month later↑ because, well, duh, of course Donald Trump and Bill Clinton have had conversations before, and while that's not quite the whole of it, the idea that the former president once gave the game show host political advice would also make Mitt Romney a "phantom candidate". Significantly for me, since, you know, I'm human and have an ego, my favorite mainstream political blogger got around to making the point about how it's hard to blame Bill Clinton if Republican voters like Donald Trump.
Skip forward, what, like
three weeks↑, and things were so (
ahem!) out of hand―why does assailing birthright citizenship seem so relatively mild an offense, this year later?―as to compel me to recall Curbelo's nonsense and suggest "it does actually remind the question of just
why Mr. Trump is eviscerating the Republican Party like this". But that's the thing, we had seen the stupid derby from Republicans before in a weird episode having to do with GDP growth projections. Jeb Bush said four percent throughout, for no particular reason, and quickly the other candidates lined up to all say four percent, of course four percent, and then Scott Walker said four and a half, and we all laughed. In this case, Trump had the candidates lining up to parrot him on ending birthright citizenship; Governor Four and a Half offered three answers in less than a week. At that point, it seemed obvious that Trump is a wrecking crew in himself, but come on, damn it,
why?
Honestly, I've been stuck on that question ever since. At the time I speculated at least colloquial "megalomania" and the possibility of "some larger plan to rebuild the GOP". And, really, the
phantom candidate is one of those theses you really just want to leave alone, because conspiracy theories are as conspiracy theories do, and come on, really? I don't get how that would be working,
I wrote in March↑, if it's about Hillary Clinton. Nor could this be about screwing with the GOP, because otherwise this should not be happening. That is to say, at that point it was simply unbelievable that so much of the Republican zeitgeist would be on board with the destruction of the Party:
So it's not really the phantom candidate thesis; but here is a guy rich enough to not care about anyone or anything absolutely thrashing the political party that has been traditionally friendly to the business community. It's like he's punishing them for something.
And I've actually been hung up on
that aspect, too, recalling it again in
June↑, because this time the question was Trump's take on campaign fundraising, which, I suggested at the time, presented a threat of tangible, systemic damage.
And the punishment notion persists. I mean, that's not what it is, but, rather, looks like. I made it all of
ten days↑ before coming back to it, this time returning to the megalomania question in the context of capturing a segment of the Republican Party. "But it's
so goddamn brutal," I wrote, and then pointed outward to my
blog version↱, continuing, "It really
is an atrocity." But what am I supposed to call it when Chris Christie's spokesman has cause to deny that the Governor of New Jersey is Donald Trump's manservant. To spare the click:
Okay, look, the thing I still can't figure out about the phantom candidate conspiracy theory is why. Still, though, it occurs to wonder at the actual reason Donald Trump has every appearance of trying to destroy the Republican Party. The bizarre bits and pieces we hear about Chris Christie seem nearly emblematic. Whatever hell the New Jersey governor's reputation had already discovered one wonders at the penance of such humiliation in Donald Trump's shadow. That the Republican nominee apparent is so vicious is beyond doubt, but what does Mr. Christie think he's doing? Or Republicans, for that matter? The RNC, many congressional Republicans, and various prominent voices in the conservative discourse seemed to shrug and roll, shuffling in line behind their party's primary winner. And then what happened? Look at what Donald Trump is doing to conservatives. This is astounding. This is unimaginable. This is your Republican Party, and if it wasn't for the fact that they were Republicans we probably ought to pity them right about now. I mean, sure, for a lot of the rest of us our diverse grievances against and disputes with Donald Trump are pretty clear, but what the hell did the GOP do to piss him off this badly?
No, seriously, when
Scott Brown is bagging points off you about fetching stuff for Donald Trump ... I mean, you know, right? Sure, Chris Christie. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. But, you know, who the hell actually
deserves being treated like that? Anyone who cozies up to Donald Trump, I guess.
And I reiterated the blog post here,
last month↗, because, well, at some point we have to consider that all this is deliberate. Seriously, it's the time machine joke all over again. Except they didn't know what rickrolling was back in 1988. And they wouldn't understand the joke because they wouldn't understand the internet. Never mind; I digress.
Yet out of all of this it's true; the freshman fringey from Florida Twenty-Six, Mr. Curbelo, still gets some credit. The one thing Donald Trump has accomplished is virtually ensure Hillary Clinton wins this presidential election.
It's the damnedest thing. At the same time, it doesn't seem Trump is doing it
for her.
] win. We will not allow fascism and tyranny to be the law of the land.