GOP driven to brawler Trump
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get Trump.
When picking a Supreme Court nominee devolves into investigating his high school yearbook; determining when he lost his virginity; and a porn star’s attorney with last-second accusations of a gang-rape club 34 years ago — when you turn politics into the WWE, can you be surprised when voters want the “Manhattan Mauler” on their side?
Now do you understand why people like my evangelical parents and longtime “principled conservatives” tossed their principles and backed a rude, foul-mouthed fighter like Donald Trump? They knew how ugly the fight was going to get.
And don’t you dare blame the Brett Kavanaugh fiasco on Trump, my Democratic friends. Both of Trump’s Supreme Court picks have been solid, middle-of-the-conservative-road, respected jurists. A President Rubio or President Romney would have likely picked them — or people very much like them — too.
No, this firescarred, post-riot wasteland that is our politics was brought to us by the left. President Trump didn’t nominate a Bill Clinton and try to push the alleged assaulter through the confirmation process. No, Trump picked a guy with a literally unblemished reputation, and then watched as Democrats and their media allies turned him into a Clinton.
OK, maybe not that bad ... How is this Trump’s fault? Are we to believe that the vicious, vile, insane display of hair-pulling hate we’ve seen the past month wouldn’t have happened if, say, a President Jeff Flake had picked Kavanaugh?
Please.
I mention Sen. Flake — who’s coming to New Hampshire on Monday, perhaps to test the waters for a primary challenge to President Trump — because his performance on the floor of the U.S. Senate yesterday was just so perfect. The perfect display of the self-righteousness, naivete and desperation for approval from the left that has marked the GOP establishment for so long. Trump was elected as a rebuttal from his own party to that sort of desperate, political toadying.
Sen. Flake still apparently believes that he’ll get some sort of credit for extending a hand of bipartisanship to the left.
Pal, you’ll be lucky to get back all your fingers.
Listening to Sen. Flake blaming “both parties” for the “toxic atmosphere” around this nomination, complaining that “winning at all costs is too high a cost,” was infuriating. Yes, Trump’s a jerk. Yes, the GOP played hardball on the Merrick Garland nomination.
But nobody smeared Garland as a drunken creep. Trump may call people Pocahontas and Little Marco, but he doesn’t accuse them of participating in gang rape.
I’m sorry, Sen. Flake, but the problem is not partisanship. I’m a dedicated partisan, but I would never support treating anyone the way Judge Kavanaugh has been treated. Or Clarence Thomas, or Robert Bork. I wouldn’t accuse a nice guy like Mitt Romney of being responsible for a woman’s death, or call him a sexist for collecting resumes of qualified female candidates for future cabinet posts. I wouldn’t call John McCain or George W. Bush racists, either.
And neither would nice Republicans like my parents. But what these nice Republicans did instead was go out and get someone who would. Democrats turned politics into a bareknuckle, blood-letting cage match — so the GOP went out and got themselves a fighter.
Knowing what we do today, can anyone seriously say that they were wrong? How can anyone watching the treatment of Brett Kavanaugh by respected Democrats and the mainstream media ever wonder again, “Why did they vote for Trump?”
This week. This fight.
This is why.