Here come the GOP excuses -
By Jennifer Rubin November 7 at 2:30 PM
If, as appears increasingly likely, Hillary Clinton wins tomorrow, the Republicans most responsible for the calamity will stand ready to spout a load of excuses they’ve been accumulating since the Republican National Convention, when it became reasonably apparent Donald Trump was going to run his general-election campaign just the way he did his primary race. Let’s save them the trouble:
It’s the media’s fault. How long are inept and out-of-touch Republicans going to blame the media? They’ve got Fox News, Breitbart, talk radio, etc. — advantages some Republicans never had before. They had multiple debates to get their message out. Oh, yes, and the media handed Trump a couple of billion dollars’ worth of ad time in the primaries, making his nomination possible. If they cannot win with all that, they never will.
It’s the FBI’s fault. We thought James B. Comey was a hero. Oh, I know, that’s so pre-Nov. 6 (the day of his last letter)! Seriously, if Republicans need a criminal prosecution to beat a flawed opponent running for a third Democratic presidential term, they have real problems. Saying that Clinton never should have been allowed to run assumes that she was a really good candidate, not a weak one.
It’s the #NeverTrumpers’ fault. C’mon, guys. The people who warned that Trump was a disaster are not to be blamed. The people who ignored the #NeverTrumpers are. To our chagrin, the large majority of Republicans will vote for Trump. It’s everyone else — that means Democrats and independents, in addition to a small but determined batch of Republicans — who would be responsible for his defeat, if Clinton wins. The argument blaming #NeverTrumpers ignores why they voted against Trump and presupposes that the highest obligation Republicans have is not to country, but to party. Many Republicans emphatically reject the argument.
It’s a one-off problem unique to the Trump candidacy. Nonsense. The GOP has not won the presidency since 2004 because it insists on relying on a diminishing segment of the electorate and infuriating everyone else. The chickens are coming home to roost as millions of women, African Americans, Hispanics and millennials turn against the GOP in ever greater numbers.
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It’s the way the system works; there was nothing to be done.
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It’s the fault of white voters who didn’t turn out.
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It was closer than the (Goldwater/McCain/Romney) race
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No, my dear Republicans, if Trump loses tomorrow, they have themselves to blame — for adopting a white-grievance mentality, for burrowing in a right-wing media cave, for pretending that the country is supposed to be what it was in 1950 when white Christian America was supreme, for listening to anti-immigrant advocates spout untruths to justify xenophobia, for getting cowed by the irrational mob, for becoming anti-government ideologues, for forgetting the essence of modern conservatism (humility, caution, respect for fellow Americans, dedication to equality of opportunity), for losing interest in good governance, for following religious charlatans who laughably claim the moral high ground, for giving way to all-or-nothing purists who make money from obstructionist tactics and for refusing to denounce hucksters and con men who plowed the way for Trump. If the party doesn’t attend to those very real, serious problems, it will keep on losing presidential races — and maybe fade away altogether.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/11/07/here-come-the-gop-excuses/?wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1
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