Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Republican Civil War

  • At Long Last, Republicans Abandon Their Nominee

    Some people in my Twitter feed are incredulous that it took particularly lewd comments from Donald Trump about women, made in 2005, for conservatives to abandon him.

    On a tape that was published by The Washington Post, the Republican nominee can be heard bragging about groping women. “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” he said, in what weren’t even the worst of his comments.

    Trump apologized, but not before Democrats and Republicans had pointed out what he described was sexual assault.

    Even his vice presidential candidate, Mike Pence, said he could not defend Trump.

    Other Republicans have been less forgiving. Check out FiveThirtyEight, which counts dozens of high-level officials withdrawing their endorsements. (more…)

  • Papers, Appalled by Trump, Abandon Republicans En Masse

    The Detroit News broke with 143 years of support for the Republican Party this week to endorse Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, arguing that Donald Trump is “unprincipled, unstable and quite possibly dangerous. He can not be president.”

    The Arizona Republic went further. It has supported Republicans since 1890 but this year backs Hillary Clinton, writing that her flaws “pale in comparison” to Trump’s, whose “inability to control himself or be controlled by others represents a real threat to our national security.”

    The Cincinnati Enquirer, Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle have also broken with longstanding traditions to support the Democrat this year. The latter calls Trump “a danger to the republic.”

    The conservative New Hampshire Union Leader and Richmond Times-Dispatch have thrown their support behind Johnson.

    The prospect of a Trump Administration even convinced USA Today, which has never endorsed a presidential candidate, to implore its readers to “resist the siren song of a dangerous demagogue. By all means vote,” the paper writes — “just not for Donald Trump.” (more…)

  • Conservatives Come to Terms with What They’ve Done

    The one good thing that may come of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy is an awareness on the American right that it has done real damage to the Republican Party and indeed the country.

    Not all conservatives are ready to admit that Trump is the end of the line for a movement that has for decades fed off people’s anxieties and undermined their faith in institutions. But for some, Trump is making clear what the politics of grievance and anti-government can lead to.

    A spat between two right-wing commentators — Sean Hannity of Fox News and Bret Stephens of the The Wall Street Journal — is a preview of the blood feud we can expect on the right post-November if indeed Trump loses the election.

    Hannity has preemptively blamed center-right Republicans, arguing that the likes of House speaker Paul Ryan and Senate leader Mitch McConnell have been harsher on Trump “than they’ve ever been in standing up to Barack Obama and his radical agenda.”

    He said on his radio show, “You created Donald Trump, all of you. Because of your ineffectiveness, because of your weakness, your spinelessness, your lack of vision, your inability to fight Obama.” (more…)