The Gawd Awful GOP

It is not easy being a member of the party of the Greedy Old Plutocrats, particularly now that the stupid attack dogs have embraced a new leader and are out of control! Just ask Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Graham has been known to tell the truth when he is not hauling the tainted water of the reactionaries (often mistakenly called conservatives). Needless to say that the militant “conservatives” of his party usually react to any disfavored truth telling with a demand to “Take That Back!” And the grave threat those fact deniers pose to any Republican politician's career is great enough to make Mr. Graham comply with the demand.

Going on talk shows can be dangerous for a man who is prone to stating unpalatable facts, and Mr. Graham has done just that. As the Huffington Post reported Mr. Graham told Trevor Noah of the Daily show that Ted Cruz should be the nominee because he is not Trump.

“If Donald Trump carries the banner of my party,” Graham said, “I think it taints conservatism for generations to come. I think his campaign is opportunistic, race-baiting, religious bigotry, xenophobia...”

Senator Graham is correct about Trump, but Ted Cruz? News flash: Conservatism has already been tainted by Joseph McCarthy, the John Birch Society, and Ted Cruz, the heir apparent to what Richard Hofstadter dubbed “The Paranoid Style In American Politics.” It is not exactly a well kept secret that Ted Cruse was disliked by most of his Harvard classmates and is considered odious by most of his colleagues in the Senate. As Lindsey Graham said: “[i]f you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.”

The bottom line is that Ted Cruz is an unprincipled demagogue who plays to the prejudices and fears of the extreme right wing, and he has no loyalty to anyone or anything other than himself and maybe his wife. Party loyalty? Forget it! Cruz is the egotistical idiot who called the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, a liar. I do not think any objective observer would dispute that characterization of Senator McConnell, but it is not the sort of thing competent Republican politicians say in public. Cruz is also the unpatriotic demagogue who pandered to the nihilistic (no compromise) reactionaries by fighting to shut down the government and make it default on its debts even after the donors to the Republican Party told the party leaders that doing so was not a good idea!

As a Republican Mr. Graham obviously thinks he has to choose between Trump and Cruz. Trevor Noah demonstrated the folly of that by pointing out that Lindsey Graham had once likened the choice between Trump and Cruz to having to choose between being shot in the head or poisoned. “I’m saying my party is completely screwed up …,” Mr. Graham finally admitted.

Fortunately, the voters do not have to haul any of the tainted water Mr. Graham feels compelled to haul. There are two parties. There will be a general election, and the real choice will be between the destructive lunacy of the Republicans and the sound policies proposed by the eventual nominee of the Democratic Party!