My Sarah Palin Romance

by Ross Douthat

Jan 20, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/opinion/campaign-stops/my-sarah-palin-romance.html?comments&_r=0#permid=17287069

I do not mean to be blasphemous, but the Bible verse occurs to me - "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" - when Ross and Co. do not appreciate their pivotal role in creating the monsters of Trump and Cruz and Palin and Huckabee with books like “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream”, which espouse a populism based on fear, distrust, prejudice, and simplistic solutions.

In general, the GOP today is reaping the dysfunction it has been diligently sowing for the last many decades, ever since they first discovered that spreading fear and distrust as part of their "Southern Strategy" could actually win elections for them. Once you let that genie out of the bottle, it is hard to get her back in...