For months, Republicans have wondered about the long-term damage done to their party by Trump, even as many Republicans running this year have walked a narrow line, trying to accept Trump-as-an-expression-of-the-will-of-the-voters but not embrace Trump-as-Trump. So we’ve seen arguments from Republicans who promise only to vote for Trump but not endorse him; we’ve seen others who have questioned Trump’s mental stability and insist in the next breath that he must be president.
Jim Treacher at The Daily Caller captured the phenomenon nicely in a short piece Thursday.
It is with a heavy heart that I condemn the actions of GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, and I encourage you to vote for him on November 8. As the allegations of sexual assault pile up, my conscience will not allow me to support the man I plan to vote for. No woman should ever live in fear of someone like Donald Trump, who is going to Make America Great Again. Four more years with a Democrat in the White House could mean the destruction of our great nation, and it can only be prevented by electing the man I repudiate in the strongest possible terms. Donald Trump is a disgrace to the Republican Party and to the United States of America, and I hope you’ll join me in supporting him on Election Day!
The reasons we’re seeing this are not complicated. Republicans in tight races, like Marco Rubio in Florida or Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, reason that if they were to forcefully condemn Trump and announce that they will not support him, some undetermined slice of Trump backers would abandon them. And given the increasingly anti-Republican mood in the country, that slice wouldn’t have to be very large to doom their candidacies.
Until this week, Hillary Clinton’s efforts to “otherize” Trump have led her to refrain from attacking other Republicans. The argument, which she has made on the stump and in her ads, is that Trump is so awful that “even Republicans,” who presumably are far more accepting of awfulness, can’t abide him.
This week, however, Clinton shifted. After Paul Ryan’s conference call with House members on Monday, in which Ryan said he wouldn’t be campaigning for or with Trump but wouldn’t be withdrawing his endorsement, Clinton pounced. “Ryan is still endorsing Trump,” she tweeted, linking to an article about the call. Clinton surrogates amplified her attacks.
On Thursday, Barack Obama broadened and intensified this argument, blaming Republicans for creating a political environment that allowed Trump to succeed and blasting them for their unwillingness to distance themselves from his candidacy. Obama’s case, a call for civility and a harsh political attacks, was punctuated with hyperbole and misrepresentation of the kind Republicans have come to expect from the president. (At one point, Obama said the Republicans are primarily devoted to keeping other people from voting. “We’re the only advanced democracy that has one party’s central principle being let’s make it harder to vote.”)
In his speech at a fundraiser for the Ohio Democratic Party and Ted Strickland, the former governor now running to unseat Senator Rob Portman, Obama briefly acknowledged that not all Republicans are like Trump before binding them together in a tight package of moral cowardice.
I want to make a serious point here — because I’m really not exaggerating. Everything I’m saying are actual things that have been said and that people — a fairly sizable number of people in the Republican primaries believe. And the people who knew better didn’t say anything. They didn’t say, well, you know what, I disagree with his economic policies, but that goes too far. They didn’t say, well, I’m not sure if his foreign policy is the right one for America, but we can’t allow our politics to descend into the gutter. People like Ted’s opponent — they stood by while this happened. And Donald Trump, as he’s prone to do, he didn’t build the building himself, but he just slapped his name on it and took credit for it. (Applause.) And that’s what’s happened in their party. All that bile, all the exaggeration, all the stuff that was not grounded in fact just kind of bubbled up, started surfacing. They know better, a lot of these folks who ran, and they didn’t say anything. And so they don’t get credit for, at the very last minute, when finally the guy that they nominated and they endorsed and they supported is caught on tape saying things that no decent person would even think, much less say, much less brag about, much less laugh about or joke about, much less act on — (applause) — you can’t wait until that finally happens and then say, oh, that’s too much, that’s enough. (Applause.) And think that somehow you are showing any kind of leadership and deserve to be elected to the United States Senate. (Applause.) You don’t get points for that. (Applause.) In fact, I’m more forgiving of the people who actually believe it than the people who know better and stood silently by, out of political expediency, because it was politically convenient. (Applause.) And if your only organizing principle has been to block progress and block what we’ve tried to do to help the American people every step of the way, so you’re not even consistent anymore — you claim the mantle of the party of family values, and this is the guy you nominate? (Applause.) And stand by, and endorse, and campaign with until, finally, at the 11th hour you withdraw your nomination? You don’t get credit for that. (Applause.) You’re the party that is tough on foreign policy and opposes Russia — and then you nominate this guy, whose role model is Vladimir Putin, the former head of the KGB? (Applause.) I’m sorry, what happened? (Laughter.) It’s disappointing. It really is. Because, yes, I’m a Democrat, but I’m an American first. (Applause.) And I actually believe in a strong two-party system. And I think that the marketplace of ideas should have a reasonable, common-sense Republican Party debating a reasonable, common-sense Democratic Party. But that is not what we have right now. And the reason is because people like Ted’s opponent who know better have stood silently by. They’ve been trying to block everything we’ve tried to do to help working folks for years now. Even here in the state of Ohio, they opposed us trying to save the auto industry upon which hundreds of thousands of jobs depend. And then when it works out pretty good you’re taking credit for it. Man, look at this economy, it’s gone great. (Laughter.) Yeah. (Laughter.) But you sure didn’t help. (Laughter.) It wasn’t because of your policies. That’s not why Ohio grew. That’s not why folks got back to work. (Applause.) So the point is, if your only agenda is either negative — negative is a euphemism — crazy — (laughter) — based on lies, based on hoaxes, this is the nominee you get. You make him possible. Now they’re shocked. It’s like remember that movie, Casablanca — the guy walks in, shocked that there’s gambling in this establishment. (Laughter.) Young people may not understand that reference. Go back, watch Casablanca. Great movie. Humphrey Bogart. (Laughter.) So Donald Trump may make most Republican politicians look a little bit better by comparison — I mean, it’s like the bar has gotten so low. But these are the same Republicans who tried to block us from rescuing the economy; did not offer a single vote when it came to the recovery package that made sure that we started growing again, long before any other advanced economy did. Same folks who didn’t vote for the auto industry assistance that resulted now in record-breaking auto sales. The same folks who tried to take away folks’ health insurance every chance they get; who refuse to allow votes on giving minimum wage workers a raise; refuse to support making sure women earn equal pay for equal work. How hard a concept is that? (Applause.) Why would you want your daughter to get paid 80 cents for doing the same job that somebody else’s son is getting a buck to do? That doesn’t make any sense. (Applause.) So don’t act like this started with Donald Trump. He did take it to a whole new level. I got to give him credit. But he didn’t come out of nowhere.
Trump may not win on November 8, but his candidacy will be with Republicans for a long, long time.
