Donald Trump got a standing ovation today at the Iowa Freedom Summit when he promised that if he won the presidency he would defeat the Islamic State, build a fence along the nation's southern border to stop illegal immigration, repeal Obama's Affordable Care Act, and stand up to Democrats. He said Republican politicians had let Obama “get away with absolute murder," that Mitt Romney "choked" in the 2012 campaign and shouldn't be nominated again, and Jeb Bush is unsuitable be...cause he’s "very, very weak" on immigration and supports Common Core educational standards.
The news here isn’t that Trump is a pompous ignorant right-wing megalomaniac. That’s well established. The news is that the Republican Party hasn’t learned a thing since the last presidential election when a Star Wars barroom of neo-isolationists, fundamentalists, and racists split the GOP into warring factions that, financed by a handful of wealthy reactionaries, flamed on for a year or more and fueled the fanaticism that’s become the lifeblood of the party. (Sarah Palin is signaling this weekend she may be in the running, too.) That one of the two major parties of America is incapable of seriously governing poses a clear and present danger to the Republic
