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The Choices I've Made By Marc Elias [View all]
The Choices I’ve Made
By Marc Elias
November 22, 2024
In Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, one of the characters is asked how he went bankrupt. “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” Nearly 100 years later these lines still ring true. Bankruptcy — whether financial, moral or political — tends to happen gradually until it happens suddenly.
The moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party did not happen overnight. It happened gradually — starting with Newt Gingrich’s attack on the government in the early 1990s. It continued with the Tea Party movement, the birther conspiracy and the nomination of Donald Trump in 2016.
It gained momentum when Trump won the 2016 election despite losing the popular vote. Once in office, it grew worse when his attacks on democratic institutions were met with acquiescence by most of his party.
The mistake many of us made was believing that the aftermath of the 2020 election marked an end to the GOP’s descent into moral collapse. We were wrong. Jan. 6 marked a further descent into the moral abyss.
By 2024, the few principled Republicans had already abandoned their party for the “Never Trump” movement. What was left were Trump dead-enders and those without any core principles at all. A party once built on the promise of Lincoln had become the morally bankrupt party of Trump.
/snip
By Marc Elias
November 22, 2024
In Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, one of the characters is asked how he went bankrupt. “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” Nearly 100 years later these lines still ring true. Bankruptcy — whether financial, moral or political — tends to happen gradually until it happens suddenly.
The moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party did not happen overnight. It happened gradually — starting with Newt Gingrich’s attack on the government in the early 1990s. It continued with the Tea Party movement, the birther conspiracy and the nomination of Donald Trump in 2016.
It gained momentum when Trump won the 2016 election despite losing the popular vote. Once in office, it grew worse when his attacks on democratic institutions were met with acquiescence by most of his party.
The mistake many of us made was believing that the aftermath of the 2020 election marked an end to the GOP’s descent into moral collapse. We were wrong. Jan. 6 marked a further descent into the moral abyss.
By 2024, the few principled Republicans had already abandoned their party for the “Never Trump” movement. What was left were Trump dead-enders and those without any core principles at all. A party once built on the promise of Lincoln had become the morally bankrupt party of Trump.
/snip
Marc Elias
@marcelias.bsky.social
Like others, I fear the threat of government retribution, political vengeance and an angry right-wing mob. But I know that giving into it will only strengthen Trump and undermine the future of our democracy. Trump wants us to be scared. He wants us to give up — gradually and then suddenly.
November 23, 2024 at 9:43 AM
@marcelias.bsky.social
Like others, I fear the threat of government retribution, political vengeance and an angry right-wing mob. But I know that giving into it will only strengthen Trump and undermine the future of our democracy. Trump wants us to be scared. He wants us to give up — gradually and then suddenly.
November 23, 2024 at 9:43 AM
https://bsky.app/profile/marcelias.bsky.social/post/3lbmq53y44s2m
14 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read