Cleveland — The Donald Trump Family Reunion, formerly known as the Republican National Convention, illustrates how a once great political party now sees its main purpose as harnessing the opposition to the devil.
There were chuckles and dismissals when Ben Carson, the brilliant neurosurgeon turned right-wing crank, used his convention speech Tuesday night to tie Hillary Clinton to the left-wing organizer Saul Alinsky, and then Alinsky to Lucifer. Presto: In the apotheosis of guilt by association by association, Carson concluded that Clinton "has, as their role model, somebody who acknowledges Lucifer."
In fact, Carson's turn toward the satanic was entirely in keeping with the one and only argument being advanced here consistently this week: That Clinton is someone who should be locked up. Or worse. A New Hampshire delegate who advises Trump on veterans issues said in a radio interview that "Hillary Clinton should be put in the firing line and shot for treason." Go forth, Republicans, and tell the world that this devout Methodist is actually a worshipper of The Evil One.
In Bill Clinton's case, the legitimacy wars led to impeachment proceedings that a significant majority of the country opposed. In the Obama years, they produced the birtherism that Trump shrewdly promoted as his ticket to the big time.
That the likes of McConnell and Ryan are falling into line disheartens many principled Republican opponents of Trump — and yes, for a contrast, let's pause to praise Ohio Gov. John Kasich for his righteous refusal to play a role in this at-times spine-chilling political meeting.
But the capitulation began long before Trump's rise. The so-called establishment tolerated, and often encouraged, the wildest of conspiracy charges, from allegations that Bill Clinton was responsible for the death of family friend Vince Foster (who tragically committed suicide) to claims that Obama is a secret Muslim.
Trump outdid the party leadership on that front, too, and the absurd logic of this chicken-fried Marxism was reached on Tuesday night when the proletarian Donald Trump Jr. denounced "a special class of crony elites at the top of the heap." The word "chutzpah" will be retired when this campaign ends.
Now Trump will try to play the game in which Ryan and McConnell are the pros and take another stab at looking presidential. It's said that Trump has been studying Richard Nixon's law-and-order rhetoric, and Nixon's 1968 acceptance speech is, indeed, a model of how to translate the gut anger of a large swath of voters into a kind of lyricism.
But while it may seem strange to say it, comparisons between Trump and Nixon do a disservice to the guy Pat Buchanan likes to refer to as "the old man."