Trump Controls the Republican Party Because He Has the Power To Destroy It
Mitt Romney, Trump, and what Dune can teach the GOP.
Two notes:
(1) TNB tonight at 8 p.m. in the East with A.B. Stoddard! Mona Charen! Joe Perticone! We’ll talk about impeachment and Romney and classic ’60s sci-fi. We’ll be here.
(2) I was deeply gratified by the conversation you guys had in the comments yesterday. At this point I shouldn’t be surprised by the level of discussion. But somehow, I always am. This thing of ours is special. Thank you for making it so.
1. Dune
Mitt Romney’s announcement yesterday, coupled with the insights and reportage he has shared with his biographer, make for sickening reading. Sickening not because it uncovers some hidden truth—but because it confirms, from the inside, everything we have observed from the outside. Sickening because while Romney’s words shock, they do not surprise. The institutional Republican party knows exactly how unfit Donald Trump is and how dangerous are the forces he has unleashed. They simply refuse to say so publicly, due to a combination of vanity, avarice, and cowardice.
But there’s one big question the Romney story raises but does not answer.
For seven years Republicans tried to liberate their party from Donald Trump. They failed. Why is that?
There’s a simple explanation for Trump’s strength and their weakness. It’s about the power of destruction and it’s something that even Mitt Romney—as honorable and courageous as he has been—doesn’t seem to have grasped.
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