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Column: Trump signals GOP sunset

 
Published May 17, 2016

When Republicans convene in Cleveland this summer and bestow upon Donald Trump the nomination to be the party's standard-bearer, they will complete their slow and steady descent into irrelevance. The party of Lincoln, once governed by ideals and principles that reflected prudent financial governance and social conscience, is no more.

Though aging, I can still recall a Republican Party that was truly national in scope represented by the likes of Nelson Rockefeller, Barry Goldwater, John Sherman Cooper, Howard Baker, Clifford Case, John Chaffee, Ed Brooke, Jacob Javits, Charles Percy, John Heinz, Alan Simpson — and, yes, yours truly. There were Republicans who represented big-city constituencies as well as rural populations, and there was respect within the caucus for the problems facing both.

Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Republican Party shifted focus from issues that affected people's well-being to issues of philosophical purity. In so doing, it alienated women, blacks, Hispanics, the disabled, and on and on. Ronald Reagan threatened so many programs for the disadvantaged, from health care to education to social services, that whole swaths of Americans felt threatened. The moderate Eastern Republican fell victim to Republican extremists from within, such as William F. Buckley, and the party started to disintegrate.

Nothing more clearly demonstrates the result of this self-inflicted isolation than the Republican Congress we have today. Gone is the party of fiscal conscience. The Bush Middle East wars put the lie to fiscal responsibility. Faced with a new president in 2008 and an economic crisis, the Republicans in Congress chose to "do nothing" and be "the party of no."

And so, we have had unproductive gridlock. Republicans have squandered every opportunity to put forward positive solutions to the nation's ills. For example, rather than urge yet another repeal of Obamacare, they could have fashioned repairs. Controlling majorities in both houses, they could have crafted their own immigration reform package, proposed realistic tax reform with middle-class relief and fashioned their own infrastructure legislation. Yet, they just continued to say "no" and do nothing.

And now, embracing a presidential candidate who has insulted and offended nearly every American, the GOP is reaping its just deserts. Congressional Republicans are faced with a Hobson's choice: run with Trump or run on a record of "no." It's difficult to imagine how the party will come together to "make America the greatest" when it has wasted these past few years in a self-made wilderness.

The question in November is not whether Republicans will lose, but how badly will they lose. Right now it looks like everything: House, Senate, presidency.

Lowell Weicker Jr. was governor of Connecticut from 1991 to 1995 and a U.S. senator from 1971 to 1988.

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