For nearly 22 minutes John Oliver, host of HBO “Last Week Tonight,” roasted GOP presidential front runner, Donald “The Vulgar Talking Yam” Trump, whose real family name is Drumpf, in a searing litany of his lies, fraudulent business deals and bigotry.
Part of what was so good about it was that Oliver’s wiry amped-up style contrasts so well with Trump’s passive-aggressive smugness (the stance Trump employs when he is not being aggressive in a more conventional way). But part of what makes it great is that Oliver shows footage of Trump fans talking about what they like about the mogul. Oliver then contrasts the claims made for Trump – by the man and his admirers – and shows that the candidate is mostly a fraud. Too often, liberals and lefties just demonize their opponents. Oliver cuts up Trump pretty thoroughly, but he does it by first listening to his fans.
The GOP leadership and inside the beltway talking heads created this monster after the defeat in 2012 presidential election by trying to limit debates, changing the rules for primaries and moving the date of the convention from September to July. It allowed the angry Tea Party to take control of the process.
Former Ronald Reagan aide Bruce Bartlett believes that the only way for reasonable Republicans to take back control of the RNC is to let Trump win the nomination, get soundly defeated in November and let the GOP implode. Bartlett explained to Lawrence O’Donnell on “The Last Word” that he has made it his goal to destroy the GOP.
“My goal is to try to destroy the Republican Party,” Bartlett explained of his vote for Trump in the Virginia primary. “I think only when it has reached rock bottom can responsible Republicans once again come back and make it a reasonable governing party.”
“Right now,” Bartlett said his party is “just a coalition of cranks, and racists and bigots and religious kooks.” The Tea Party, Bartlett said, “have to be run out of the Party completely.”
“And I think Trump is the vehicle that will allow that to happen,” Bartlett explained:
I think if he gets the nomination, and I hope he does, he will go down to a historic defeat. I think the Republican establishment will have no choice but to disown him. I think there will be a very substantial “Republicans for Hillary” effort and I think he will lose disastrously and hopefully bring down a lot of Republican senators and congressmen with him.
Bartlett went on to explain that his hope is that after suffering resounding electoral defeat, enough Republicans will finally come to their senses and — at least for the sake of winning the White House again — return to governing.
At this point, there seems to be no stopping Drumpf Trump and Bartlett’s strategy may be the only option to the possibility of rebuilding a reasonable political party.