Trump Was Never The Problem. It's Republican Voters.

This is all Trump did: He gave the Republican base permission.

by Justin Rosario

There is a fairy tale the press likes to tell itself (and the public) about the Republican Party. Ready? Here it goes:

Once upon a time in America, there were two political parties. One was liberal and one was conservative. The parties were mirror images of each other, practically identical in every way. If Republicans had a scandal, Democrats were corrupt, too. If Republicans brought Washington to a standstill, Democrats were also to blame. Everything was perfectly balanced and the GOP was a perfectly normal political party.

This mirror was a one-way mirror, though and the “balance” was noticeably tilted in favor of the GOP. Whereas everything Republicans did was magically reflected in the Democratic Party, the reverse was not true. This was especially the case when it came to the more militant factions of the parties.

You see, only Democrats had “radicals” and “extremists.” This probably had something to do with the fact that Democratic radicals wanted universal healthcare and Republican radicals, which did not exist according to the press, wanted to make every known form of contraception illegal and kill all the Jews. It’s a little difficult to compare these two extremes and insist they are the same so the press simply pretended the Republican Party didn’t really have an extremist wing.

Then came Donald Trump. The fairy tale ended forever and a new one began.

Donald Trump and the Terrible Escalator of Doom

The new fairy tale goes something like this:

One day, Donald J. Trump came down an escalator and ruined everything. The Republican Party, which had been perfectly normal right up until that very second, was taken over by mean ol’ Trump and the extremist wing of the party. He turned the party into a nightmare and everything is his fault. Someday, when he’s gone, everything will be fine. The real Republican Party will return and we’ll all live happily ever after.

This new fairy tale is very important for the press and Republicans to sell to the public. It absolves Republicans of all responsibility for what they are doing right now. The violence, the fascism, the theocratic assault on women’s rights and democracy itself: All of it is Trump’s fault. He corrupted the hearts and minds of the Republican base and when he goes away, things will be back to normal. The extremists will disappear again and this will be a fever dream we will all happily forget.

There are two fundamental flaws with this delusion.