Election campaign players to watch in Donald Trump’s America
Donald Trump will be the nominee of the Republican party, a prospect that leaves Americans unhinged.
We are through the looking glass now. The Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan has fallen into the hands of a vulgarian. It’s a hostile takeover by a carnival barker with a large mouth and bad hair.
For the next six months, it will be all Trump all the time. The world’s biggest ego will have the world’s biggest stage. Across all platforms, he will hawk his toxic mix of anger, hyperbole, falsehood and braggadocio.
Watching this unfold — and retaining a sense of balance — will demand clarity, calm and confidence. It will also require skepticism amid Trump’s cascade of allegations and declarations.
As we embark on our political Via Dolorosa, here are the players to watch in Trump’s America:
The Trumpites. The shrewdest of the sycophants and opportunists is Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. Others who will make nice with Trump include Ben Carson and John Kasich, who, like Christie, want to be vicepresident.
George Will, the bow-tied conservative commentator, calls them “quislings.” He urges partisans of conscience to repudiate Trump, lose the election and save the party.
The Trumpites, for their part, have a ready rationale: “He’s the nominee. He represents millions of voters. It’s democracy.”
What they may have said in the past about Trump doesn’t matter, just as what he has said — on debt, taxes, women — doesn’t matter, either. It’s now about “unifying” and “healing” the party.
The Renegades. These are the party’s high priests who refuse to endorse Trump. They include Mitt Romney and the Bush presidents; Mary Matalin, who has left the party; Lindsey Graham and other senators. Also Speaker Paul Ryan, who is uncommitted, strangely.
As Dante said in other circumstances, the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of crisis, which would describe Ryan. Watch Republicans turn on each other in fratricidal fervour.
The biggest Renegades will be Republicans seeking re-election to the Senate in blue states Obama won last time. See how they run — from Trump.
The Talking Heads. They will brandish polls showing Trump leading. Or they will say he will win by taking 20 per cent of the black vote. Their hysteria will increase ratings and anxiety.
Against the odds, they will swear that Trump can win Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, attracting angry white males. They will tell you, when Trump moderates his tone, how he has become “presidential.” Or how he how he has “grown,” like the ingenue who became a woman when she joined Hadassah.
The serious ones will show how Trump supported the Iraq War, which he denies. Investigative journalists such as Bob Woodward illuminate his shady enterprises. Cheerleaders and contrarians such as Conrad Black will soil themselves trumpeting Trump — in Black’s case, it seems, because Trump was nice to him when he was in jail.
The Historians. They will remind us that the Democrats split in 1860 and the GOP will, too. They will warn of campaign violence, as there was in Chicago in 1968, and note how Democratic ads depicting Trump and the bomb recall the devastating “daisy” commercial against Barry Goldwater in 1964.
They will talk of the descent of American politics, which began with Sarah Palin in 2008, and how the Republicans created Trump by courting the Tea Party and denying Barack Obama’s legitimacy.
The Realists. They will note the mobilization of millions of new Hispanic and Muslim voters in key states and Hillary Clinton’s appeal to independent suburban women, the biggest gender gap in polling history. They will remark on the “Obama factor” on the hustings. They will expect the largest voter turnout since 1960.
They will find that in this campaign, reason will defeat rage. And they will have faith that in the end Americans will do the right thing, as they always do.