It’s Trump’s Party - National Logistics Post

Back there in the heyday of 1960s rock ‘n roll, songstress Lesley Gore had a hit song titled “It’s My Party.” Her hit began “It’s My Party / and I’ll cry if I want to.” The song was about a girl brokenheartedly discovering at her birthday party that her boyfriend had waltzed out the door holding hands with her own best friend.

The song comes to mind as one takes in the reaction of the American political establishment, notably including the GOP establishment, to the hard political reality that the American people, led by rank-and-file Republicans, have flocked to the leadership of President Donald J. Trump. Leaving so many Establishment types to grit their teeth and shake their heads.

Most recently, whether it was the re-election race of Louisiana’s longtime GOP Senator Bill Cassidy or, over in Kentucky, the GOP’s Congressman Thomas Massie, both made plain their lack of Trump support. Only to find that, having drawn the ire of the president himself, his followers in their respective races would not hesitate to give them the electoral boot in their own constituencies. Not to mention that over there in Texas, the GOP Establishment’s Senator John Cornyn was given the heave-ho in favor of his Trump-supporting primary opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. (RELATED: Bye, Bill)

In other words? In other words, the Republican Party is now Trump’s party. The Establishment types can cry if they want to, but it’s Trump’s party — and it will remain so for some time to come.

Pull back to the proverbial 30,000 feet, and there is some history to remember. That history begins with the realization that other presidents have emerged to remake their political party in their own image, flooded with their quite devoted supporters.

Once upon a time, the then-new-on-the-scene Republican Party — this would be 1860 — won the presidency on only their second outing as the political party that succeeded the fading Whig Party. And, memorably, the party rallied to their decidedly magnetic leader, a former Illinois congressman named Abraham Lincoln. Equally memorably, abruptly and sadly, the Lincoln era ended with the president’s assassination just as the Civil War ended with the Union victory Lincoln had led. For a while, the “Party of Lincoln” drifted along for a few decades, even as it produced other presidents. The Lincoln Legacy was overpowering. But gradually, other Republican presidents emerged, none as notable and powerful until 1901 and the arrival of President Theodore Roosevelt to replace the assassinated William McKinley. And like clockwork, the Party of Lincoln became the Party of Teddy Roosevelt.

So too did the Democrats transform in the same fashion. Seemingly lost in a GOP wilderness, in 1912, the so-called “Progressive Era” surged to prominence out of the political wilderness as the magic of Teddy Roosevelt faded and was replaced by the Democrats’ Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was decidedly a “progressive,” and the era of Wilson and the progressive Democrats was off and running.

And just as inevitably, after eight years of Wilson’s progressive leadership — which included the considerable drama of World War I — the American people wanted a break from all the emotional progressive turmoil, turning to the “cool” of the GOP’s Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. All of which, as the Great Depression arrived, produced the 4-times elected progressive Democrat Franklin Roosevelt.

And so on. And so on.

All of which is to say, with historical retrospective, President Donald Trump and his legion of Make America Great Again/America Firsters are decidedly not unusual in the history of American politics. Donald Trump, like the long ago Abe Lincoln or Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt or, in more recent times, Ronald Reagan, is the undisputed leader of both his party and the world. He has until Jan. 20, 2029, to lead America and the world, clearly with a considerable following supporting him as he does so. He will undoubtedly leave his own distinct “Trump brand” on the GOP. And the American Establishment can cry if it wants to — but that will get it exactly nowhere.

In short? The Republican Party — and a considerable number of non-Republicans — are not simply Trump followers; they are enthusiastic Trump supporters.

Today’s Republican Party — as just seen in those elections in Texas, Kentucky, and Louisiana — is now the Party of Trump.