The very public rift between Donald Trump and Paul Ryan was up for discussion Sunday, on This Week With George Stephanopolous. So tumultuous, this rift has opened the door to Paul Ryan stepping down as convention chair, if Trump asks. Either this is a ploy to free up Ryan for the nomination without looking like a master manipulator, or they are terrified of the stain of Trump on the Budget Munster's future. It's anyone's guess.
Stephanopolous knows that this Ryan/Trump feud is far from over and wanted to discuss the impact on the entire Republican Party.
.@realDonaldTrump has a message for Paul Ryan: "Look, this is what the people want." https://t.co/KymheVJQwi https://t.co/v2tUIyhtV8
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) May 8, 2016
Matthew Dowd asserts that the breach is not between the leaders of the GOP and Donald Trump, it is between various members of the GOP Elite and the voters. Trump is the GOP, and no one can deny that.
Thankfully, The Nation's Katrina Vanden Heuvel clearly explains the WHY behind Trump's ascension in the Republican Party. They have been fanning the flames of racist fascism for decades and this is just their chickens coming home to roost.
VANDEN HEUVEL: Paul Ryan is a member of 'the elites' which Matt spoke of. I think we're seeing a crack up of a party, because the elites didn't deliver for the base; they've been shafted over the years. And we're also seeing, let's be honest, Donald Trump is like the Republican's Frankenstein with orange hair. I mean, the Republican Party is reaping what it has sowed.
There's all this nostalgia about Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the site of where three civil rights leaders were killed by White Supremacists. This is a party which has exploited what Trump is now exploiting, dog-whistle racism, grievances, resentments. We need an inclusive populism, not the scapegoating populism to speak to the real anxieties and fears and frustrations but with hope, not demonization which Donald Trump is doing.
In partial agreement, Matthew Dowd makes another good point.
DOWD: there's this fundamental existential question that the Republican elites have to ask themselves. What party is Paul Ryan the future of? Because the party right now says, we want to ban Muslims, they voted for Donald Trump, we want to build a wall. THAT is who the party is. So to me, yes Paul Ryan is the future, but it is a future of a dinosaur party that is GONE.
After Rich Lowry and Alex Castellanos try to explain away the rise of Trump without taking responsibility for decades of their party's resistance to New Deal populism every step of the way, Vanden Heuvel renders another fatal blow to the conservative apologists on the panel.
Castellanos tried to convince the audience that both sides are guilty of the same atrocities that define Donald Trump. Nice try. Katrina defends President Obama's claim that Sanders is the face of the Democratic Party after Castellanos tries to pawn off his both-siderist load of horsesh*t as fact. Vanden Heuvel corrected his moronic claim that Bernie Sanders is not 'more of the same (of the Democratic Party) on steroids.'
VANDEN HEUVEL: He has not only moved the Democratic Party to the Progressive Left, he has moved a whole generation to the Progressive Left and THAT is the future.
Let's face it, GOP. You've built this Trump Monster, and the Trump Monster defines the very essence of your grossly offensive political party. You deserve every bit of the Hell he hath wrought.
