It's not Trump, it's Republicans

Trump is no longer the story - he is what he is, we all know what he is and he’s not going to change. Sure, what he does still deserves attention and has very important repercussions on the world, but the deep-seated problem we need to discuss is not about one man. It’s about many. Republicans have embraced Trump, they voted him into power, they support his policies and actions, they deny or decry any reality that doesn’t agree with their fantasy world-view. The entire party apparatus has built the Trump phenomenon through decades of attacks on political institutions, public norms, and the rights and liberties of those who disagree with them. Trump is the result, not the cause.

A majority of Republicans would support postponing elections to keep Trump in power, a majority would like to ban immigrants based on religion, a majority believe Obama is a Kenyan-born Muslim. They believe Trump won the popular vote, that climate change isn’t happening and certainly isn’t caused by human activity. They don’t believe Trump Jr. met with Russians even after he admitted it and released the emails confirming the meeting. They believe trickle down economics works, that crime is at an all-time high, that colleges have a negative effect on our country. They don’t believe discrimination based on race/gender/religion is real or significant, that Russia hacking our elections is a problem, or that humans evolved from monkeys. They really don’t like Obamacare but they’re okay with the Affordable Care Act.

I’ve talked before about the false equivalency that’s so often drawn between our two political parties, and some of that is policy ideas and honest debates over data analysis and historical records, but most of it comes down to the crazy. Republicans - party leaders, conservative think-tanks, right-wing media - have gone out of their way to destroy a fact-based, reasoning electorate in order to tribalize their side into a win-at-all-costs political machine. In many ways it has worked: Republicans dominate government both nationally and locally in spite of being a minority in overall numbers and on the polling for most important issues. And now we’re stuck with ‘the base’, the twenty-five percent or so of Americans who are die-hard Republicans, who will vote for anyone with an R after their name, will believe anything their dear leader tells them, who will ignore/deny/attack any facts or information that threaten their world-view, and have become so detached from the shared reality rational people use as a base for communication that they cannot even hear us.

It’s a scary time. Trump will burn out but the problem will remain. They’ll jump behind the next demagogue who suggest the ‘others’ are to blame and willingly toss away the foundation of our democracy through a constitutional convention in the name of safety. Safety from a threat that doesn’t exist. The only hope I see is to pull back those who are standing at the edge but have not jumped, those Republicans who have misgivings about our current state of affairs even if they’re willing to go along for a chance at a tax cut or two. But in looking at the beliefs held by a majority of the party, it’s hard to see where these reasonable, rational Republicans might be hiding out. Wherever you are, please come out into the light before we all end up in a darkness too deep to escape.