Senator Collins's article linked here or below.
Good for Senator Collins. She is, I know, a decent empathetic Republican -- a rarity among that species. What I cannot understand about her is her perception that Trump is not of the Republican Party she knows. Senator Collins, with all due respect, Trump IS a reflection of the Republican Party that has morphed over time. I place the date of its Frankenstein-like morph to 1964, when it ran the right wing "extremism in the face of liberty is no vice" Barry Goldwater. Curiously, he looks moderate in comparison to the present day Republican Party.
The Republican Party, to be sure, is far from the Party of Lincoln. It bears no resemblance to our 19th century and 16th president. In fact, it is its opposite. No, the Republican Party is unhappily the Party which has immersed the nation into torturous economic circumstances first with the Great Depression courtesy of Harding, Coolidge and Hoover wondering what government could possibly do to ameliorate a nation of breadlines and then the Republican Party that led the nation more recently into the Great Recession of 2008 courtesy of fantasy trickle down economics beginning with Ronald Reagan and ending with George W. Bush. Trickle down sounded oh so good but failed to trickle. It never created jobs but rather deregulated Wall Street sending jobs overseas while ending the amelioration of the Great Depression Glass Steagall Act.
It then went Wall Street wild with its fraudulent subprime loans, worthless mortgage backed securities bundled in Standard and Poors ratings lies and sold to innocent millions who did not know what those in the know knew. Accompanying it were credit default swaps insurance for those who knew the stocks they were selling were junk, bank failures, home repossessions, unemployment and homelessness. It created the economic weakness and psychological malaise of insecurity we still feel in present time but Republicans are still Wall Street's opiate drug pusher promising trickle down will do right this time. Fool me once ...
In truth when economic implosions happen it takes Democrats to pull the nation out. Franklin Roosevelt did in the Great Depression New Deal and Barack Obama over a period of 8 years during the 2008 Great Recession and near economic collapse despite Republican extreme opposition. Time and again Republicans in good standing like Susan Collins refer to a Republican Party with mournful nostalgia. I aver it was never that Party in contemporary time. Rather the Republican Party has been a Party against the poor, for the wealthy, against the civil rights of minorities, for voter suppression and mired the nation in perpetual war begun by a Republican that continues in our time. From the springboard of the Republican Party a George Bush it created made a Middle East mess, killed thousands, and sent millions into exile all based on a lie. A Republican Bush lit the spark that exploded the Middle East bestowing the gift of Al Qaeda in Iraq and its ugly spawn enemy ISIS costing unpaid-for trillions. All of the above were Republican created with some Democratic complicity but in truth most of it is the Republican baby.
Susan Collins, you and a few other Republicans may mean well but your Party is populated by laissez fare cruelty and a sink-or-swim you're on your own economic mentality. If it were up to Republicans the poor could starve and those who had no medical insurance would be left to die. Let's hope Hillary Clinton can work her magic and truly craft a Middle East calm and a more equitable economic security. If anyone will I think it is she.
The link to Susan Collins's article is below.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gop-senator-why-i-cannot-support-trump/2016/08/08/821095be-5d7e-11e6-9d2f-b1a3564181a1_story.html
