Joe Walsh announced that he’s running for president as a Republican, and Twitter panicked. Twitter does that. Even when the news is good.
Preet Bharara tweeted this:
I don’t understand the confusion.
If you want Trump to go, support the Democratic candidate for president. Joe Walsh is running as a Republican.
A Republican challenger means that Trump will be fighting a two-front war. This can only help the Democratic nominee.
In other words, let them fight it out.
Trump enjoys 80% favorability within the GOP, and the GOP is fully on board for Trump. Thus Walsh is unlikely to actually be the nominee unless Trump does something that causes his base to turn from him—and this is extremely unlikely. Trump owns the GOP.
You can watch the sporting event without rooting for either side.
The GOP situation in a nutshell: authoritarians have taken over the GOP, which once claimed to be a conservative party.
Hofstadter, in describing the history of authoritarianism in America, talked about the “paranoid style in American politics.” Those embracing the paranoid style of politics believe that unseen satanic forces are trying to destroy something larger in which they belong.
For example, like this.
According to Hofstadter, the “something larger” to which they belong is generally phrased as “the American way of life.” They “feel dispossessed” and that “America has been largely taken away from them and their kind.”
They are “determined to repossess it and prevent the final act of subversion.” They therefore adopt extreme measures. They will stop at nothing to prevent what they see as an impending calamity.
Hofstadter says authoritarian uprisings are enabled by complicit conservatives, who basically bargain with the devil because they think they’ll benefit. One of those was Joe Walsh, who says he apologized for false claims about Obama being a Muslim.
After Trump was elected, some GOP members had a rude awakening. Like this, from Max Boot’s book, the Corrosion of Conservatism:
They understand they contributed. As Trump continues his destructiveness, more members of the GOP are waking up. Hence, Joe Walsh for president.
It’s no surprise to me that Walsh’s run for president follows Trump ordering companies to look for alternatives to doing business with China to help him win his silly and destructive trade war.
And issuing orders like these:
What kind of head of state orders companies to cease doing business with China? The obvious answer is an autocrat / Stalinist. That doesn’t happen in a country where people have any real freedom.
Nor does it happen in a country with a free market economy. Trump’s “orders” are a clear signal that he’s no longer even pretending to abide by the values of the former GOP.
Walsh’s run for president signals the fact that at least some former GOP members understand that Trump is steering the GOP directly into a brick wall.
Is Joe Walsh also acting from self-interest? No doubt.
He and others later want to be able to say later that they stood up to Trump.
The right wing tends to fall in line. Max Boot talked about how members of the GOP overlooked bad behavior in the name of “unity on the right.”
We are about to see something unusual in politics: The right wing fighting among themselves.
Usually the left does that. I’m old enough to remember when Democratic primaries were circular firing squads, while the Republicans fell in line. “Democrats fall in love; Republicans fall in line.” (Not sure where this originated, but I’m pretty sure Bill Clinton said it.)
That’s why I say Walsh’s run for president will help the Dems in 2020. Circular firings squads never help a party, and the right usually avoids them. It appears the GOP is heading for a brick wall, and some want to say they aren’t responsible.
What’s causing the Twitter panic? Tweets like this:
Joe Walsh is running as a Republican. Giving money to a Republican helps Republicans. Duh, right?
This is the year to support Democratic candidates. The only way to get past this nonsense is for the GOP to get a drubbing in 2020.
