THE REPUBLICAN ESTABLISHMENT'S PREDICAMENT
Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are in a bind trying to derail the Trump Express. They can’t castigate Trump for his core policies – cut tax rates and regulations and spend tons on defense for perpetual war– because those are their policies too. That’s why there’s hardly any debate over substantive issues. Consequently, the only thing left is to attack Trump personally. To be sure, there’s plenty of material – failed marriages, bankruptcies, hiring illegals, rough treatment of business associates, selling sham university degrees and a belligerent, bullying authoritarian personality.
What the Republican establishment fails to realize, is that the more they attack Trump, the stronger he gets – just like America’s opponents in the Middle East. The problem with ad hominem attacks is that Trumpistas dismiss them as the corrupt establishment circling the wagons against their boy, which makes them rally to his banner, angrier and more committed than ever.
Another problem for the “Not-Trump” movement: what the establishment regards as uncouth, ungentlemanly, belligerence and bullying authoritarianism are precisely the qualities attracting Trumpistas to Trump.
Many in the working classes screwed over by the Republican establishment for decades, crave the firm, confident hand of a strong authoritarian leader. It’s the same phenomenon witnessed in Weimar Germany. Masses of people pressed financially, barely scraping by, beaten down and humiliated by defeat in war, needing a scapegoat (preferably racially and religiously different), xenophobic, disillusioned with their current leaders who seem incapable of doing anything to alleviate their plight. Convinced the country is in the wrong hands heading in the wrong direction, many Americans, like Germans in the 1930s seek an end to uncertainty by entrusting their fate to an authoritarian leader who promises to restore their pride and prosperity.
“History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” (Attributed to Mark Twain)