Donald Trump, GOP destroyer
First it was Donald Trump destroying the Republican Party brand by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists,” denigrating John McCain‘s military service and calling a female professional who had to pump breast milk for her baby “disgusting.” But as Trump has surged in GOP polls and sucked all the air out of the room, other Republican presidential candidates have had to scramble for attention. Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham pulled stunts involving chain saws, fire and baseball bats. But Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie apparently have decided the best way to compete with Trump is to out-Trump Trump in making outrageous statements.
On July 25, Huckabee gained notoriety by saying that the U.S. deal to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons was akin to Israelis being marched “to the door of the oven.” That remark did not go over well with Jewish groups such as the Anti Defamation League, which called Huckabee’s comments “completely out of line and unacceptable,” as well as offending high-ranking Israeli officials. But then Huckabee doubled down on his extremism, suggesting last Thursday that, if elected president, he might use federal troops to prevent women from getting abortions, which are legal in the U.S.
Now comes Chris Christie, who already alienates voters one at a time by shouting them down and insulting them when they ask Christie questions he doesn’t like. On Sunday, Christie said that “the national teachers’ union” (presumably meaning the American Federation of Teachers) deserves “a punch in the face.” Mind you, this comes less than one month after Christie told MSNBC‘s “Morning Joe” hosts that “I’m a better person” now after his “Bridgegate” controversy. Can we count the huge blocs of voters that these Republican candidates are alienating?
Remember that, during the 2012 presidential campaign, Republican nominee Willard Mitt Romney was secretly recorded at a gathering of wealthy white Republican donors, as he dismissed “47 percent of the people … who believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it,” and who, according to Romney, would never vote for the GOP. That kind of subtraction did not work well for Republicans. After the GOP’s 2012 election losses, the Republican Party released an “Autopsy Report” specifically calling for more outreach to women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians and gay Americans, all of whom make up an increasing portion of U.S. voters. However, Donald Trump, now joined by Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie, is destroying any outreach the GOP might have been attempting to build.
A couple of GOP candidates, such as John Ellis Bush and Rand Paul, seem to understand that the Trump/Huckabee/Christie style of bigotry, misogyny and divisiveness is not a prescription for a presidential victory. (They prefer to do their divisiveness more indirectly, for example, Bush by purging blacks from the voter rolls in Florida, and Paul by admitting that he would not have supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act). At least Bush and Paul have criticized Trump’s statements as unhelpful or not serious.
The problem for Republicans, however, is that any presidential candidate who tries to run a general election campaign of inclusiveness during the primaries risks alienating the GOP primary voter base, which is dominated by intolerant extremists. Republican primary voters, you will recall, shouted “let him die!” when it came to a man having trouble affording healthcare coverage, and booed an American soldier who said he was gay. GOP primary voters are rewarding extremism again this year, as evidenced by Trump’s lead in the polls. It may be irresponsible and ultimately destructive to fan such flames of intolerance, as Trump, Huckabee and now Christie have done, but it seems to pay off in the short run. The Republican base wants blood, and they don’t do autopsies.
Photo by Mike Licht, used under Creative Commons license. http://is.gd/KiaQSj
