THE WORDS “CHAOS” & “TURMOIL” ARE VERY APPROPRIATE FOR TODAY’S GOP

…This man is preaching for this nation to become a dictatorship.  He proposes total anarchy.

 

The word anarchy is an appropriate term for what’s going on inside the GOP.

 

The word Anarchy is a very important noun.  The definition of anarchy is “A state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority.”  Synonyms for anarchy are: lawlessness, mob-ocracy, revolution, disorder, chaos, mayhem, & of course: turmoil.  Webster’s Dictionary says that this is their example of anarchy: “A situation of confusion and wild behavior in which the people in a country, group, or organization are not controlled by rules or laws.”

 

Wow, that sounds pretty bad and pretty serious doesn’t it?

 

Well, according to a leading article in the Washington Post, “The Republican Party tumbled toward anarchy Monday over its presidential nominee, as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) cut Donald Trump loose in an emergency maneuver to preserve the party’s endangered congressional majorities.”

 

So, if I take The Post seriously, and compare it to what the definition of “anarchy” is, the GOP is currently on its way to “lawlessness, mob-ocracy, revolution, disorder, chaos, mayhem, & turmoil”.  Pretty serious and awful isn’t it?

 

In fact, this may be much closer to the truth than most people understand.

 

In a town hall in the mid-west that Mike Pence attended after the 2^nd presidential debate, a woman stood up and told Governor Pence that, “If Hillary Clinton gets to the White House, I am ready to start a revolution!”  And she seriously meant it.  Governor Pence immediately understood the level of this woman’s comments as the whole room started to grumble in agreement.  The governor then immediately said to the woman, “No, no, we don’t want that.”  But the cat was out of the bag.

 

The point is that since Donald Trump has yet to win the election, and since Trump’s campaign continues to implode on a regular basis, the most important, respected and influential elected Republican in the United States is the current Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.

 

Now that Ryan has announced that he would no longer defend or campaign with Trump, that has prompted condemnations from within his own GOP caucus.  But especially from Trump himself, who publicly lashed out directly at Ryan in one of Trump's “Twitter-Tirades”.

 

During a political talk show on MSNBC, they even referred to what is going on in the Republican Party as “Apocalypse Now”.  This was shown on the screen with a photo-shopped caricature of Donald Trump as the Martin Sheen character from the classic movie of the same name about the Vietnam War.

 

But the reality is that Ryan is telling his fellow Republicans in the House that they just needed to do whatever is required for keeping the control of the House in the hands of the Republicans.  If that meant the candidates needed to go against the current GOP presidential nominee for survival, Ryan says, then so be it….go for it! 

 

But Trump went directly after Speaker Ryan saying, “I wouldn’t want to be in a foxhole with Ryan or a lot of these people.”

 

Even The Post wrote, “It was an extraordinary display of personal animus just four weeks before the election, destroying any semblance of party unity behind a nominee who many GOP leaders said they could no longer stomach because of his character traits and tawdry campaign tactics.”

 

Trump and his surrogates also keep trying to say that “All the polls said that Trump won the debate hands down.”   But that is totally false.

 

The polls that they are referring to are not the scientific polls that are run by the legitimate polling organizations.  The polls they are referring to are the immediate on-line polls where people can vote over, and over, and over, and over again.  They almost never confirm the winner that the legitimate scientific polls say has won.

 

 Multiple real polls that were taken after the debate said that Clinton had won the 2^nd debate by ~54% to 32%.

 

Since Friday’s publication of a 2005 video of Trump bragging about sexual assaults on women, this put Hillary in position for a possible electoral landslide. Clinton then surged to an 11 point lead nationally in an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll conducted over the weekend.  But since the debate, Hillary’s numbers have settled down a bit, but she is still carrying a major lead.

 

This was a major event to occur just four weeks before the election, and the lewd video was not provided by the Clinton campaign.  It was offered up by the producers of the Access Hollywood program from their video archives.  It has since destroyed any semblance of party unity behind a nominee who many GOP leaders had already said they could no longer put up with in their party.

 

So yes, as for the GOP, the term anarchy is probably an accurate term, at least for now.  But in politics, anything can happen with only 4 weeks to go before the election.

 

Basically, what Ryan has told his people is: “It’s every person for himself or herself right now,” per the former senator Judd Gregg (R-N.H.).  And Paul Ryan won’t defend or campaign for Trump ahead of next month’s election.

 

Hillary’s campaign is not taking any of this for granted.  As the Republicans fight amongst themselves, Hillary has moved quickly in trying to pry away any moderate Republican-leaning voters who are turned off by Trump’s former actions toward women. The Clinton campaign launched an advertising blitz featuring testimonials from ordinary Republicans explaining why they were voting for Clinton, or weren’t voting for Trump.

 

Ryan’s move against Trump, which was announced on a conference call with House GOP members, was seen as an agreement that Trump could no longer win the presidency.  It was saying that the party must devote itself to retaining its majorities in the House and Senate.

 

However, as to the Senate, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is doing things a bit different.  McConnell told a business group in Kentucky that if they wanted to hear his thoughts on Trump, they “might as well go ahead and leave.” As to Trump, McConnell is just keeping his mouth shut.

 

One important conservative who was enthused by Trump’s 2nd debate performance was Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, the vice-presidential nominee.  Pence made it clear that he would be loyal soldier even as their campaign took a dark turn.  Trump, he added, “showed the American people what’s in his heart. He showed humility to the American people and then he fought back and turned the focus to the choice that we face, and I’m proud to stand with Donald Trump.”  But Pence is only one of a shrinking number.

 

There were many defections from Trump after the release of the lewd Access Hollywood video.  But there was no major wave of defections since the 2nd debate.  Trump, in an aggressive move in Sunday night’s debate, reassured the conservative base that he would be a relentless aggressor against the party’s shared enemies.  That being, against Hillary and her husband, the former president Bill Clinton.

 

Trump had gone directly after Hillary during the Sunday event, claiming she attacked women who accused her husband of sexual abuse and promising to send the former Secretary of State to jail if he is president.  (An unlawful act that cannot be performed by a US President.)

 

And Trump is really reaching for straws as he is now bringing up the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s 1969 car crash that killed a 28-year-old woman on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass.  Yes, it was bad enough that he has sunk to going after Bill Clinton in the 1990’s, but he’s now gone all the way back to 1969?  What does this have to do with a 2016 presidential election?

 

The Millennials and the educated women that Trump needs to win are not going to change their vote because Trump brings up something that happened decades before most of these voters were even born.

 

Yes, when we look seriously at today’s behavior by Trump, and by what is going on in the Republican Party, I believe the word anarchy is an appropriate term for the goings on inside the GOP.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016