Establishment doom and gloom over Donald Trump becoming the presumptive Republican Party candidate for president — the hair apparent, we can now say — has gone too far for my tastes. It is time for some good old-fashioned optimism.
Yes, it is shocking that someone so gross can seize control of a party that was just minding its own business, trying to shut down the government every now and again but otherwise happily avoiding reality and being mostly uncooperative about anything suggestive of good sense.
Who could have guessed that inflaming the party’s base by promoting universal cynicism and discord would lead to a political revolution with such a revolting outcome? What is the world coming to when you form an unruly mob and the pitchfork carriers won’t be ruled like they were supposed to be?
This turn of events brings to mind the immortal words of a candidate for political office named Dick Tuck, who in 1966 admitted defeat for the California state Senate by saying, “The people have spoken — the bastards.” Now there is talk among less gracious losers that Trump’s unimagined rise to the heights of absurdity means a civil war in the Republican Party with grave consequences for its future.
Well, I think perhaps not as much as advertised. A two-party system will always exist in this country because otherwise the extremists of both right and left wouldn’t know what to do. Every troll has to have his own bridge to live under on the right bank or the left bank.
Unsportsmanlike conduct
The truth is that politics in America has become professional football, with all the hits and unsportsmanlike conduct that two teams can inflict on each other. Indeed, some people have become so concussed in watching this spectacle they actually think Donald Trump would make a good president.
Eventually, the political players will return to their senses, meager as they may be, and go back to the old understanding of the game. The Republican Party has little in common with Charles Dickens, secretly thinking that Bob Cratchit was overpaid by Scrooge, but the reports of the party’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
The GOP is not going away, nor will conservatives suddenly disappear — because their character dictates that they stick around and irritate liberals. This is Nature’s plan.
From this we can conclude that the populist and unconservative Trump may have the keys to the party’s pickup truck, formerly the establishment limousine, but he will end up parking it in the same old place, right there on Reactionary Lane.
Still, while Trump makes his grand detour, the Establishment — now to be understood as anyone left with a brain — can look for silver linings in the clouds forming a big T in the sky. Let me help in this. Here are some good things revealed by the rise of Trump:
1) Most Republicans don’t believe in much of what they said they believed in. This revelation is very liberating; hitherto, we all thought that conservative ideology was set in stone — cold, hard and immovable. They supposedly believe in small government yet Trump says he will build a wall to fence off Mexico, perhaps the biggest public works project since the pyramids. Thank goodness the Mexicans would never think of tunneling under it.
As for family values, now that we have Trump, we don’t have to concern ourselves with that anymore. What a relief.
2) The personal insult has been made acceptable. This too is a boon to the legions of people who are tired of having to argue their point by referencing facts in a civil fashion. For years, parents told their children to be respectful of others and not to boast and bully. How quaint that seems now. As Trump has demonstrated, better to tell your fellow man and especially woman what losers they are and why.
3) Public commentators know nothing about anything. Nobody predicted Trump’s rise and nobody knows where it will end, except badly. Speaking as a nobody myself, I offer in defense my belief in the ultimate good sense and wisdom of the American people. So much for that, OK?
Looking back on these silver linings, I concede they do seem a bit chintzy, but maybe in our gloom we will be spared the doom. After all, not all the people have spoken.
Reg Henry is a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist. Email: rhenry@post-gazette.com
