Robert Reich: The Republican Party Died in 2016.

Thursday February 18, 2016

Writing for Salon, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich points out a painfully obvious fact deliberately ignored thus far by a clueless Washington media establishment—that the Elephant in the room is, well, dead:

The Republican Party is down there.

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I’m writing to you today to announce the death of the Republican Party. It is no longer a living, vital, animate organization.

It died in 2016. RIP.

It has been replaced by warring tribes...

Lest anyone accuse him of spreading premature rumors, Reich lays out the sad facts supporting his case that the rotting corpse once known as the Republican Party is now something akin to the failed nation of Somalia, with rival warlords brutally vying for power, plotting from their tents in an endlessly vituperative anarchist stew.
In one such camp, egomaniacal Billionaires gleefully rub their hands together with thoughts of deregulating so they can pollute, drill and mine to their hearts’ content.

In another camp, Evangelical Christians imagine the end times are nigh with every utterance of the Kenyan Muslim President, praying for the Rapture so all the Jews and Gays are converted or else tossed into the Lake of Fire.

In another tent, cynical Wall Street Hedge Fundamentalists hope to profit by short-selling the World Economy into yet another spectacular crash while they watch from their yachts docked in the Cayman Islands.

In still another camp are those poor souls who think a loudmouthed Reality TV clown will somehow jump-start their stagnated incomes and bring back an imaginary world with no brown or black people. As Reich says:
Each of these tribes has its own separate political organization, its own distinct sources of campaign funding, its own unique ideology – and its own candidate.

What’s left is a lifeless shell called the Republican Party. But the Grand Old Party inside the shell is no more.

The one commonality of these groups is that they have nothing in common, except, perhaps, their shared belief that only President Obama stands in the way of each of them getting whatever it is they want.

They have no leader, no binding principles of what they are for, rather they define themselves simply by broad-brushing what they’re against. This makes them impossible to negotiate policy with, because no single body speaks for their interests. They are all, indeed, like a pack of hyenas feeding on the carcass of the dead elephant.

This is why their “debates” have devolved into incendiary, juvenile battles of schoolyard insults and taunts, not fit for public consumption.

There is no longer any adult, unifying presence of an actual political party capable of providing a coherent framework for stopping the feeding frenzy. If you vote Republican, beyond this hatred of Obama you really have no idea what you’re voting for, or what you’re going to get.

Even as recently as 2012, Reich notes, there was always enough of a party there to form a platform which would allow Americans to understand exactly what they were offering the rest of us:

But there was always enough of a Republican Party to do these important tasks – to span the divides, give force and expression to a set of core beliefs, and come up with a candidate around whom Party regulars could enthusiastically rally.

No longer. Without the modulating influence of a Party structure to exercise control, there is nothing between the public and "a veritable Star Wars barroom of self-proclaimed wanna-be’s,” funded by a gaggle of narcissistic Billionaires. Anyone who can raise enough money, or fund himself such as Trump, can consider himself the leader of the “Party," even though his “fellow” Republicans may detest him, and even if he’s never done a day's work of public service in his life.

Reich says this isn’t a good thing:

Our nation needs political parties to connect up different groups of Americans, sift through prospective candidates, deliberate over priorities, identify common principles, and forge a platform.

If these people weren’t all competing to lead the rest of us, the tragedy of the Republican Party might almost be comical. But considering that millions of Americans’ lives and livelihoods are at stake in this election, it turns out that there’s really nothing very funny about a dead elephant.

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