The Future of a Delusion

In the summer of 2016, when it looked like Hillary Clinton was going to annihilate Donald Trump, there were a lot of think-pieces about the bleak future of the Republican Party. Many of them asked if November would be the end of the GOP altogether, how it could possibly reinvent itself for an America whose demographics were evolving against it, or even asserted that it might never be able to put up a credible presidential contender again.

Also, that Hillbilly Elegy was going to be a great movie.

As we know, reports of the elephant’s death proved Mark Twain-esque in their exaggeration. Instead of getting obliterated, the Republican Party took the White House, both houses of Congress, and tightened its stranglehold on the federal judiciary (the Supreme Court above all), not to mention governorships and statehouses nationwide. It was the Democrats who were cast into the wilderness, left to wring their hands and gnash their teeth over what went wrong.

But as it turns out, that election may have destroyed the Republican Party after all….not because of Trump’s defeat, but because of his victory.

The Very Silly Party

The damage Donald Trump has done to the GOP over the last four years — with its eager cooperation, I hasten to note — has been far worse than what would have been wrought by a…