Tom on the GOP History

 While Mr. Trump's MAGA shock troops carry with them the air of inevitability, Mr. Trump appears increasingly unhinged, to use Nikki Haley's apt characterization.  A conventional candidate for high office would honor the sacrifices of veterans and their families, especially those who have been injured and killed in the service of their country, but Mr. Trump calls them 'suckers' and 'losers'.  Rather than championing the ideals that America has always stood for, he embraces authoritarian thugs like Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin , Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping, whie constantly criticizing Joe Biden, but if you look at these respective economies, the US is the only one doing well.  And when the do-nothing House were offered most of the concessions that they sought to alleviate the situation along the southern border, they said NO, because their lord and master wanted to use it as a campaign issue.  These are not serious people.

Today's Republicans remind me of the pre-WWII GOP, who were isolationists who were willing to tolerate the depredations of Germany and Japan, contending that such matters were none of our business.  In order to give aid and comfort to Great Britain, which was facing daily bombardment by the Luftwaffen, President Roosevelt and certain of his aides, notably came up with the "Lend-Lease" program, which allowed the US to give material aid to allied nations under threat from Germany, Italy, and Japan.  We actually provided significant assistance to Britain, France, China and other allied nations, and most of it was repaid or written off.  The 'America Firsters', (as they were known, then as now), Included such luminaries as Michigan Sen. Arthur Vandenburg, (who later saw the error of his ways and was instrumental in developing the postwar order, including the founding of the NATO alliance), Joe Kennedy, (Father of Jack and Bobby and a fan of Adolf Hitler), pioneering aviator Charles Lindberg, ("Lucky Lindy", who also has a soft spot for Chancellor Hitler), and Ohio Sen. Robert Taft, the scion of a prominent Ohio political dynasty who was known as Mr. Republican".  These folk allied themselves with America's enemies of the day, just as today's GOP prefers to bury their heads into the sand and pretend that we live in some panglossian. fairyland where the wolves lie down with the lambs, insead of the real world where the wolves eat the lambs...