Never Take Your Eyes Off Slick Willie

Onyx Contributor:  Tim Druck (@southendtimd)

It’s entirely possible that Bill Clinton destroyed the GOP permanently with one suggestion to Donald Trump.  And it’s fucking brilliant.

I don’t know if it’s a conspiracy, and I don’t think Donald is in on the joke, but I do think Bill Clinton did this, and I think he’s a genius.

Think about it. 

Donald Trump’s increasingly horrific speech is revealing the real base of the Republican party – everything that Rubio and Walker and the adults of the GOP have been trying to run from, Trump is saying out loud.  Donald Trump is not only NOT trying to curry favor with sections of the voting public, sometimes it seems like he’s trying to alienate the voting blocs that Republicans are trying hardest to wrest from the Democrats – women, veterans, Hispanics, African-Americans, hell, even other Republicans aren’t immune to his wrath.

And the GOP Hardcores are eating it up like groceries.

This creates three possible scenarios:

The first is that Trump is unstoppable and wins the Republican nomination.  But what uncommitted woman voter is going to vote for Trump?  What Hispanic voter is going to vote for a man who referred to Mexicans as rapists and criminals?  Are black people going to vote for a guy who refers to them as “the blacks” and says that laziness is a black trait?  If it comes to Trump vs. Democrat, every swing voter and moderate in America will vote for whatever Democrat comes out of the primary.  

Nominating Trump is a sure loss.

The second is that Trump eventually steps on a landmine and loses the nomination.  But he’s still an enormous problem.  Republican leadership has spent the last 35 years trying to convince an increasingly skeptical public that the rank-and-file GOP is not a bunch of racist, sexist plutocrats, only to have an unrepentant, unapologetic racist, sexist plutocrat come out to play, and the rank-and-file base trip all over themselves trying to support the guy.  

Wait – support is one thing.  They’re falling all over themselves to blow this man’s socks like they never did Rush Limbaugh.  Donald Trump has, with one fell swoop, revealed that, not only are the Republicans exactly who we thought they were, but that they will abandon their leaders for trying to prove they’re not.  It really doesn’t matter what the grownups in the GOP say at this point – we now know where the heart of the GOP lies, and it’s ugly.  Not only that, but it’s so ugly that even their own leaders have been trying to hide it for a long time, and they LOST their battle to hide it.

That’s called a schism, folks.  The GOP is now two groups – the rabid Trumpmania base, and the Grownups.  The first calls the the second RINOs and refuses to vote for them.  And the second knows that courting the first is certain death with any reasonable voter.  

Neither can win without the other, and there is no going back.    

Nominating anyone but Trump is a sure loss.

Let’s recap:  If the GOP nominates Trump, it loses the rest of America.  And if it doesn’t, it loses its most ardent supporters for, of all things, not being Conservative enough.  If they’re lucky, the Trumpmaniacs come out and vote for the RINO.  Some of them.  Maybe even most of them.  But half the base and half the moderate swing vote isn’t enough.

They’re screwed coming and going.

But wait.  It gets far, far worse.

The third scenario is that Trump loses the GOP nomination, but decides to run as an independent. 

Good Lord.  You cannot be serious.

This is the nightmare scenario for the GOP.

They’ve nominated a candidate with lukewarm support from their own base, who, in a normal year, would probably still vote for the Republican candidate out of loyalty, or as the lesser of two evils.  

But the base has the option of voting for the guy they wanted in the first place.

Do I really need to explain the result of that?

Now, close your eyes and create this mental picture – a phone call.  The Clintons have been really good friends with the Trumps over the years – they attended the wedding.  Donald calls Bill, as a courtesy, to inform him that he’s thinking of running for President – to get his opinion, and because they’re friends, and Hillary is certainly running.  And that’s what a man does.

Former president Bill Clinton had a private telephone conversation in late spring with Donald Trump at the same time that the billionaire investor and reality-television star was nearing a decision to run for the White House … Four Trump allies and one Clinton associate familiar with the exchange said that Clinton encouraged Trump’s efforts to play a larger role in the Republican Party and offered his own views of the political landscape.

Bill is the greatest political strategist of our time, and it’s not close.

How quickly do you think Bill said “Hell, Donnie, I think it’s a great idea!”?

In one short comment, Bill Clinton figured out how to take the Republican base away from any electable Republican.  And at the same time, show the entire country that the Republican base not only considers any electable Republican a RINO, but that RINO means “Republican that’s not a racist, sexist xenophobe plutocrat.” 

If there were a Political Hall of Fame, they’d tear it down and build a statue of Bill Clinton on the spot.