Republicans Don't Just Want to Win--They Want to Rig the Game

[DonViejo]

This is the party they have been becoming since the Brooks Brothers riot, and in Trump they have found their leader.

MICHAEL TOMASKY
08.16.18 5:10 AM ET

Some friends and I were musing in this post-Omarosa moment about what Republicans would do if a tape in fact emerged of Donald Trump saying the n-word. They’d denounce him, of course. And I’m sure that on some level, most of them would find it genuinely offensive.

But what would they, you know, do? One assumes that Tim Scott and Mia Love, the two African American Republicans on Capitol Hill, would be awfully worked up. Among the remaining 285 white ones, a couple would give thundering floor speeches, probably the same old suspects, Flake and Corker, who are retiring. Ben Sasse would hit social media, as is his ineffectual custom. Then, if recent history is any guide, they’d do… nothing. Another controversy would erupt, the n-word story would move out of the cable-news cycle, and the Republicans would skate away.

The question is why. The conventional wisdom answer, one I’ve believed myself, is “they’re afraid of Trump’s base.” That’s kind of true, but I have come to believe that isn’t the reason.

In my most recent piece for The New York Review of Books, I hit on a new theory, one that just came to me while I was writing the piece. D.C. Republicans don’t fail to object to Trump because they’re afraid of his base. They refuse to stand up to Trump because they like what Trump is doing.

They’re embarrassed by him here and there (tweets), and they disagree with him here and there (tariffs).

But for the most part, they don’t complain too much out loud or carefully limit the scope of their complaints when they do because they’re with him on the most fundamental commodity in politics: power, and its use. Trump’s anti-democratic instincts, which are so dangerous to so many of us, do not trouble Republicans in the least.

more
https://www.thedailybeast.com/republicans-dont-just-want-to-winthey-want-to-rig-the-game?ref=home

[Sherman A1]

1. Sums it all up very well

Thanks for posting.

[2naSalit]

2. Last week or the week prior, Bill Maher put his finger on it

in his New Rules segment. It was the show with Nancy McLean and Malcolm Nance. That was a show to see more than once. I can't imagine what this week's show will be like.

[Hugin]

3. Getting into office in a fair election is hard work and increasingly unlikely for the GOP.

So, they'll break the system and permanently install their rule by cheating and theft.

Exploitation is the only game they know and i disagree with the author, this has been going on for far longer than the Brooks Riot. It goes back to Nixon resigning.

[zipplewrath]

4. Minorities can't win

When you are in the minority, you can't win elections. The GOP has figured out how to win while being a minority. It involves some voter suppression. It entails some gerrymandering. And of course it involves no small amount of lying. But they have no intent of trying to rule as a majority.