Why are so many Trump supporters afraid to own the bigotry issue that threatening to split the GOP apart?
I'm not going to generalize that all Trump supporters are bigots but there is no arguing that a large percentage are and that Trump has used racism and xenophobia to mainstream bigotry into our current election cycle with a disturbing degree of success. The problem for Trump supporters who do not believe they are bigoted is one of guilt by association and cognitive dissonance with the core American value of pluralism.
A large percentage of the GOP are doing the right thing, which I think is courageous, by distancing themselves from the Trump movement and declaring by doing so that the Trump movement does not represent their values. I give high marks to Cawacko for taking such a stand.
To be fair, Trump has championed issues that concern many working class Americans but he has done so in a highly irresponsible manner. He has used the racial resentments of white working class to divide and conquer a major political party while pronouncing a populist message he can't back up and probably wouldn't try to if elected while mainstreaming the fringe elements of the GOP who hold beliefs that are decidedly un-American.
What are those un-American values? Obviously they are racism, nativism, anti-pluralism and religious intolerance.
In the long run maybe Trump has done the GOP a favor. He has given the GOP an opportunity to do the right thing. For years the GOP has tolerated and exploited these resentments to build a winning coalition but now, under Trump those sentiments have gone from the fringe of the party to front and center. The GOP has made a catastrophic strategic blunder and have been co-opted by a fringe they thought they could control but would tolerate with a wink and a nod. Now that fringe controls the national party.
So now the GOP has the opportunity to take a courageous stand by doing what they have challenged mainstream Muslims to do. To stand up and denounce the extremist in their midst and to do something about them. To not do so places the heart and soul of their political movement at risk because the GOP cannot long exist as a divided party. As Lincoln observed they will become one thing or the other.
The GOP will either be the party that champions traditional American values of family, faith, community, entrepreneurship and personal liberty or they will become the party of bigotry, nativism, intolerance and anti-pluralism.
It will not be party leaders who make this choice nor the timid souls who stand by the sidelines and hope for favorable outcomes but by those who are willing to go out and publicly engage and struggle for their vision of our nation. So the time is now for those members in the GOP who wish to preserve the good they have accomplished to stand up and fight against the forces Trump has unleashed or face irrelevancy and being consigned to the dustbin of history.
If ever the GOP has needed people like Cawacko who understand the traditional American conservative movement to stand up and denounce the regressive and reactionary forces unleashed by Trump the time is now for the fate of the GOP is in your hands.
