Republican party needs to rebuild
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Editor,
I recently tuned into “The Foreign Desk,” a podcast entitled “How did the GOP become the party of Trump” with Tom Nichols, Linda Chavez and Bill Kristol. It was an hour of interesting analyses addressing this question on Trump and the GOP.
The initial agreement by all was this: Trump changed everything.
The rest of the hour was mostly about how, over the years, the GOP has changed policies and platform. They discussed the influence of the conservative media, such as the Tea Party and people like Rush Limbaugh.
There were very informative and well expressed discussions on the numerous Senate and House committee actions or inactions on their legislative agendas. Party differences were discussed and evaluated.
Eventually this question was posed: Why do most of the GOP members of Congress align with Trump? In my view, as they answered this question while discussing all manner of political reasoning, they completely missed the underlying answer to the question. The answer is not found in Trump’s politics. It is found in Trump’s personal character.
Trump rules by fear and attack. Each elected GOP member of our legislative bodies knows that if they speak out in any manner against Trump he will attack them personally and viciously. They fear that his base will also attack them, and they comprise a significant number of Republican votes.
This is unprecedented in our nation’s political history. This fear is presently immobilizing the Republican party. The best thing for the GOP will be to lose this next election and get on with rebuilding the party. This may take some time, but it will happen. The real GOP is not the party of Trump.
Bob McClellan
Missoula
