GOP 2016: Even if Trump doesn’t win the nomination, the horses have already bolted the barn
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Don.
In early 2013, former Saturday Night Live cast member Victoria Jackson, the ditzy blonde who took up space on the show in the late 1980s before fading into obscurity, posted an essay on her website titled “Why Isn’t There a White History Month?” I’m quite certain that as she was feverishly typing away, her mind must have raced with thoughts of how she’d be lauded for being a fearless, balls-out Hollywood Republican who’s totally willing to “tell it like it is”:
Just for the record, white men invented rockets, space travel, airplanes, the automobile, the English language, the U.S.A., most medical advances, electricity, television, telescope, microscope, Ivy League Universities, the computer, the Internet, and on and on. I think white men should be praised and respected. White Christian Conservative Men especially, should be loved and adored. They were the backbone and originators of the greatest nation on earth. We need more of them now.
In November, 2012 The Blaze reported that Alec Baldwin tweeted, “…Obama’s re-election signaled the end of white, middle-aged Christian male dominance”. Maybe that’s why our country is going to pot; our huge deficit, foreign attacks, crashing economy, racial and class warfare, immigration problems, bigger government, disappearing freedom, growing poverty, sky-rocketing unemployment, rancid immorality, more pregnant teens, etc. etc.—“the end of white, middle-aged Christian male dominance.” I’m just saying.
At the time, I was at the top of my game as an organizer and activist with the Hollywood conservative group Friends of Abe (of which Jackson was a member) and my own organization, the Republican Party Animals. Most important, I was the admin of the secret Facebook group that united the members of both organizations. In that role, I unwittingly became part of a select group of Republicans I like to call the “GOP propriety police.” These folks see themselves as the enforcers of an ideological code of conduct among conservatives, and the guardians of the Republican brand.
The Victoria Jackson essay, which I was asked to remove from the FB group after a rank-and-file member posted it, represented exactly the type of thing the propriety police feel compelled to squelch. There’s an unspoken understanding among Republican insiders that there exists a segment of the GOP base that, if given the chance, would be willing to cross certain lines regarding race. So the “brand guardians” are obsessed with controlling and regulating any and all mentions of race. From their point of view, if Republicans and conservatives in general don’t observe respectable boundaries regarding anything relating to race and ethnicity, “we” (Republicans) will come to resemble the racists and bigots that “they” (the left) claim we are. Essentially, the propriety cops allow the left to control the conversation. Leftists say we’re a bunch of racists, so we have to bend over backwards to prove we’re not.
This approach is, of course, inherently flawed. Leftists will always call conservatives racist; it’s part of their standard operational playbook. But the members of the propriety police believe that if conservatives watch their words and stop appealing to “angry white males,” the left will back off and play fair. This is a ridiculous worldview, and the party has suffered as a result. Just Google “Republicans,” “affirmative action,” and “cautious,” and you’ll see how many times over the past twenty years GOP propriety enforcers have demanded that the party “go easy” on attacking racial quotas in hiring and education. Affirmative action used to be a winning issue for the GOP (witness Helms versus Gantt in 1990), and it still could be. According to a 2013 Gallup poll, 67% of U.S. adults in total, and 75% of white adults, reject using race as a factor in college admissions even if it means fewer minorities are admitted.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Fisher v. University of Texas was expected by many legal scholars to be the final nail in the coffin of affirmative action in college admissions nationwide. It’s unknown at present how Justice Scalia’s death has affected the case’s outcome. However, if the presidential election does indeed become a referendum on Scalia’s replacement, this would be the year for Republicans to put affirmative action squarely on the table and hammer it hard. But no, we have been ordered to be “cautious,” even as the left is allowed unlimited zeal in pushing racial quotas and preferential treatment.
To the propriety police, winning elections is not as important as muting and discouraging the GOPs who would have cheered Victoria Jackson’s essay had she not been forced to delete it within 24 hours after posting.
Sadly for the brand enforcers, this election cycle has seen the unleashing of a force of nature many, many times more powerful than a Web post from a bimbo has-been comedienne. Through Donald Trump, the GOPs who might have been receptive to Jackson’s essay are emboldened now. In Trump, they think they have a leader and a voice, and the propriety cops don’t stand a chance. Trump people don’t fold. I don’t mean they don’t fold easily…I mean they don’t fold at all. The GOP enforcers have never been more impotent, and they’re not pleased.
Of course, the belief on the part of pro- and anti-Trumpers that the man is in some way an advocate for white nationalism, fascism, or racial holy war is wrong and foolish. The two sides in the Battle of the Trump have created their own avatars—Trump the hero of the white race vs. Trump the dastardly Hitler Klansman. It’s all delusional. Trump is neither the great white hope nor the great Nazi menace. However, with enough people viewing the Trump presidential run as a referendum on race, it has effectively become one. A proxy war between imaginary Trumps.
A similar thing nearly happened in 2003, when the left tried its damnedest to convince California voters that Arnold Schwarzenegger was Hitler incarnate. The mainstream press portrayed Ah-nuld as a Nazi-loving rapist whose election would lead to Mexicans being sent to death camps as Einsatzgruppen squads turned Home Depot parking lots into killing fields of machine-gunned drywallers. But the right didn’t bite, and neither did Schwarzenegger, who watched his words, made few if any campaign missteps, and generally ran a clean, G-rated, inoffensive campaign, in which he pledged to be one of those jolly, likable, fiscally frugal Eisenhower Republicans that everyone can feel comfortable with.
And California ended up with one of its worst governors ever—a weak, deceitful, corrupt man of no principles who buckled at the first sign of defeat, freed Latino murderers in exchange for political favors, and left the state in economic shambles. A big-borrowing big spender who, after leaving office, straight-out admitted that his candidacy was a “joke” intended to “freak people out,” and that he ran for office with no idea what he would do if he actually won.
Make no mistake, that would most likely be Trump’s trajectory, too. Like the Austrian bodybuilder, Trump is a wealthy, high-profile loudmouth with no plan to govern and no principles to guide him. The major difference between the campaigns of the two egotistical publicity whores is that in 2003, leftist cries of “he’s a racist Nazi fascist” were met with a resounding “no he isn’t” from Schwarzenegger supporters. Today, those same charges are met by Trump fans with “so what if he is?” I’m not defending that response, but I’ll freely admit I find it fascinating. I chalk it up to fatigue. Too many people on the right are sick and tired of being policed on the issue of race, by the mainstream media, by SJWs in every corner of society, and by the brand protectors in their own party.
Even if Trump doesn’t win the nomination, the horses have already bolted the barn. Three years ago, when Victoria Jackson decided to go clogging in a minefield, the “let’s take the gloves off on race” wing of the GOP base could easily be cowed and quieted. That couldn’t happen today. For better or worse, the unapologetic racial boundary-testers are a vocal faction now, and the party will have to begin regularly throwing them a bone or two. By and large, that’s not a bad thing. No electoral or legislative successes have come from playing Caspar Milquetoast on issues involving race. If Trump (or, at the very least, the Trump avatar) has encouraged Republicans to fight back against the party’s propriety police, then the farce will end up having value beyond mere entertainment. Republicans may just be able to go back to the days of Lee Atwater, Willie Horton, and Helms vs. Gantt. In other words, matching the left blow for blow on the court of racial hardball.
Maybe I’m just looking for a silver lining in the Trump cumulonimbus, but I think I’ve finally found a reason to feel okay about the great Trumprising of 2016.
