I have a problem with Peter Wehner's take that Trump is to blame for all this ugliness and racism and anti-intellectualism.
"Donald Trump has made the Republican Party cruel, xenophobic, exclusionary, and bigoted."
There is a part of the Republican party that has always been cruel, xenophobic and bigoted.
We saw it when Reagan began his campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi. We saw it in the rise of Rush Limbaugh and right wing radio. We saw it in the Tea Party in the "blacklash" to a black man being elected president.
Trump just scratched an itch that's always been there.
The sooner people like Wehner recognize that, the sooner we can stop trying to save a party that is as dead as Ron DeSantis' campaign.
I have a problem with Peter Wehner's take that Trump is to blame for all this ugliness and racism and anti-intellectualism.
"Donald Trump has made the Republican Party cruel, xenophobic, exclusionary, and bigoted."
There is a part of the Republican party that has always been cruel, xenophobic and bigoted.
We saw it when Reagan began his campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi. We saw it in the rise of Rush Limbaugh and right wing radio. We saw it in the Tea Party in the "blacklash" to a black man being elected president.
Trump just scratched an itch that's always been there.
The sooner people like Wehner recognize that, the sooner we can stop trying to save a party that is as dead as Ron DeSantis' campaign.
You make valid points. Trump is clearly an accelerant, but only an accelerant, of trends that have been many years in the making.