Republicans Kobach, Kennedy Take ‘Bizarre’ To Next Level In Surreal TV Cameos
At this point, it's become abundantly clear that the GOP has devolved into something akin to a personality cult, where the leader has seemingly figured out that conquering an entire political party is as simple as playing to its members' ingrained prejudices and fears, which just happen to align nicely with those of disaffected middle- and lower-income white voters.
Over the past couple of years, Republicans have abandoned even the pretense that they care about things which should matter to GOP
I think there are major (and worrying) implications for the Republican Party in the long term that need to be considered as well. Eventually, Trump will leave office — either due to a defeat at the ballot box or simply because he’s old and clearly unhealthy. However, by embracing Trump’s now overt racism (which looks likely to be at the core of his 2020 campaign), the Republican Party will almost certainly be unable to obtain any meaningful percentage of minority votes for the foreseeable future.
Unless the party is content to relegate itself to irrelevancy, which seems unlikely, then given the long-term demographic trends of the country, they’ll need to employ a broad, racially based policy of voter disenfranchisement in order to remain politically viable. This is the sort of environment where insane policies like the deportation of the DREAMers or the mass deportation of 13 million undocumented/illegal immigrants become “rational” and necessary in order to maintain political relevance. It will lead to acts of voter suppression and gerrymandering that make today’s shenanigans look like child’s play.
The rise of a political party that condones overt racism and depends on the mass disenfranchisement of minorities in order to maintain its proximity to power would be a dangerous development in our democracy. That’s the sort of thing that can take any country to some very dark places.
Or, you know, the Republican Party could just implode when Trump leaves office, but I wouldn’t count on that.