The Black Heart of Republicanism

I loathe Donald Trump. Despite being seventy-two years-old, he is best described as our middle-schooler in charge.

Trump's towering immaturity reveals itself in the issuing of puerile nicknames to the delight of his equally-puerile supporters. Or claiming he was misquoted by the fake news media as he walks back another incendiary statement. Or denies saying it altogether.

Emotionally and intellectually, Donald Trump is a little boy.

So it goes when you're born into wealth and know nothing but privilege. So it goes when you get a pass from the expectations and demands of adulthood. So it goes when those around you consider that wealth an adequate substitute for maturity.

Not surprisingly, the qualities that inform his White House have trickled down to the rank and file, like the fifth-grader who sees a classmate pick his nose and wipe the result on the shirt in front of him and is helpless to try it himself.

But as the estimable Eric Zorn pointed out in Friday's Chicago Tribune, there are Republican office-holders who act remarkably grown-up. Who comprehend the scope and purpose of their position and seek to fulfill it. 

Holding up Illinois' own petulant billionaire (governor Bruce Rauner) in a highly-effective compare and contrast piece, Zorn illustrates the divergent paths he and another Republican governor, Massachusetts' Charlie Baker, took after their respective elections.

To quote Zorn “Rauner chose to go down...a confrontational path. His strategy was to browbeat and insult “corrupt” Democratic legislative leaders into passing items on his highly ideological 44-point pro-business agenda, and, when that failed, to wait until they blinked during a 736-day budget stalemate.”

Baker chose consensus-building. Give and take. Choosing his battles, instead of reflexively fighting all of them. A recent endorsement in the Lowell, MA. Sun said of Baker “Differences of opinion crop up all the time. (But) there is an attitude of respect and collegiality among lawmakers that says adults are at work and we'll get this done.”

You know, just like in Washington DC.

While Rauner's re-election campaign is on the verge of becoming a blood bath (he trails Democratic challenger J.D. Prtizker by sixteen points), Baker enjoys an astounding forty-point advantage over his Democratic challenger.

So everything's great, right? Bipartisan leadership is leading the way and setting an example. Effective and necessary legislation is getting passed. Aisles are being crossed. Partisan gridlock is a memory.

What could go wrong?

In a word—Republicans.

While only ten percent of Democrats hold a negative opinion of Baker, twenty-percent of Republicans do. Right-wing nut jobs (er, organizations) are upset with Baker because he has criticized Donald Trump—and worse. Like supporting the Affordable Care Act and stronger gun control legislation.

And what kind of asshole does that?

A Republican-In-Name-Only. That's who.

So despite the fact that the Republican Baker is successfully leading a historically Democratic state and has consolidated bipartisan support behind him (shining a very positive light on Republicans in the process), party taste-makers consider him a failure. They are furious, to the point where they're urging voters to um, intercourse him on Tuesday.

Yeah.

This is the odorous black heart of Republicanism. The one that doesn't play well with others. The one that doesn't want to cooperate. The one whose core belief seems to be it's my way or the highway. Like their string-pullers at the NRA, Republicans will brook no compromise. Tolerate no free thought. The party line is all.

Or else.

Never mind that Rauner's force-fed electorate is resoundingly rejecting him, or that Baker's newly-unified one is embracing him. It's a mirage. A glitch. Kindly move on.

Three-hundred thirty-two years ago, Sir Isaac Newton formulated his Third Law of Motion, which posited that for every motion there was an equal and opposite one.

Two-thousand years before that, Greek storyteller Aesop told of a struggle between the sun and the wind. Each wanted to prove it was the greater force.

To settle their dispute, they selected a man walking along a road in a coat. Whomever could remove the man's coat would be judged the more-powerful entity.

The wind went first. It summoned its fury and tore at the man and his coat. It howled and it railed and it tried to pry the coat from the man with everything it could muster.

But the harder it tried, the tighter the man drew his coat around him.

Exhausted, the wind stopped and allowed the sun its turn.

The sun gently warmed the air, eventually coaxing the man to remove his coat.

Thus it was proven the sun was the stronger force.

Translated, this means we need grown-ups in Washington DC—not middle-school bullies who feel Lord of the Flies is a how-to manual of governance.

If you give the tiniest fuck about democracy, vote Democratic November 6.