Paul Waldmann: Republicans told their voters that politics is inherently evil. That stuck them with Trump: "Republicans are assembling an explanation... (Live from the Republicans Self-Made Trump Hell)
...lots of voter fraud... the media first elevated Trump to the nomination then destroyed him... if only they hadn’t been tricked and manipulated into nominating Trump, they would have won the White House.... This is the real lesson of their lament: Though they’d never put it this way, the Republicans’ biggest mistake was that they failed to nominate, guess what, a politician.
But this didn’t happen by accident. Instead, it was the logical end point of everything they’ve been telling their constituents for years... convincing their constituents that... only someone untainted by [politics] could lead their party. And then they’re amazed when the political neophyte they nominated turns out to have no idea what he’s doing.... Set aside the question of whether Republicans would really be winning with a different nominee.... Notice that no Republicans are saying this election would be a lock if only Ben Carson or Carly Fiorina had been their nominee.
Yet for years, Republicans have been running against “Washington,” an irredeemable Sodom of corruption and malfeasance. Anyone who wants to actually make government work is immediately suspect, an “insider” whose motives can only be nefarious.... If you hired a carpenter to build you a deck and you didn’t like the way it turned out, you wouldn’t say, “What we need to fix this deck is someone who’ll think outside the box. Like a computer programmer, or a librarian. Just as long as it’s not another carpenter.” No, if you were a rational person, you’d decide to get yourself a better carpenter.
There’s an old saying that Republicans claim government doesn’t work, and then when they actually get power, they set out to prove it.... If you want to know why Washington doesn’t work, it’s not the insiders... [who are] refusing to move legislation, or shutting down the government, or threatening to default on the national debt. It’s the outsiders, the Republicans elected in 2010... who came to Washington hoping to burn the place down.... Make ridiculous promises of revolutionary change that can be accomplished just by listening to your gut and doing some Founding Father cosplay, you set yourself up for failure. And... you nominate Donald Trump for president....
The key force constraining the GOP... is its own constituents who have bought what Republican leaders sold them.... It’s going to take a long and difficult effort to persuade them otherwise. But Republicans had better try...
