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Letters

The Republican Party in the Age of Trump

Paul Ryan, left, and other congressional Republicans released the framework on their tax plan in September.Credit...Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “The G.O.P. Is Rotting,” by David Brooks (column, Dec. 8):

Mr. Brooks’s excellent column doesn’t just indict the current Republican leadership. It also eulogizes traditions of honor, patriotism and compromise that both parties once held in common. Democrats can pick up the flag that the current crop of opportunists and careerists have trampled in the mud. To carry that flag effectively, though, they need to identify a leader, and an idea, that can help us recover from our current national sickness. And they need to do it soon.

PETER MULLER
WILMINGTON, DEL.

To the Editor:

David Brooks says Republicans are realizing that they are “politically homeless.” Nonsense. As a proud former Republican, I can say I have a political home. I am now a Democrat. It is that simple.

LAWRENCE A. HUSICK
SOUTHEASTERN, PA.

To the Editor:

David Brooks’s column represents a sea change from his usual intellectual discourse about needed changes for our country. Instead he has devolved into parroting the hate monologues spewed by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer that make the president ineffective in his attempts to rescue our nation from the ravages of the prior administration.

President Trump is attempting to bring our nation out of the trend toward fostering dependence on government that ultimately destroys attitudes of individual responsibility. This movement requires a radical change from what has transpired over the last eight years, similar to the transition under Ronald Reagan that brought us out of the Jimmy Carter years of a declining nation.

I do not like some of President Trump’s rhetoric, but his agenda is worthy of our support.

DAVID A. STALLMAN
WILMINGTON, N.C.

To the Editor:

Scathing as David Brooks is in his appraisal of the present-day Republican Party — and I applaud him for it — he doesn’t go far enough. Because if he’s right in his prediction that the G.O.P. will ultimately accept President Trump’s firing of Robert Mueller along with everything else it has thus far seen fit to accept, then it won’t be just the G.O.P. that’s “rotting.” It will be American democracy itself.

NANCY STARK, NEW YORK

To the Editor:

David Brooks’s column serves as a devastating account of the collapse of the Republican Party under a president who has shown disdain for the Constitution, incompetence and lack of a moral compass.

The G.O.P.’s broad acceptance of President Trump reminds me of the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s. The Know-Nothings, a secretive third party, ignited riots and torched churches yet captured about 50 seats in Congress and a few governorships with their virulent opposition to immigrants from Ireland and Germany.

So many Republicans today, with their blindness to Russian intervention, sexual misconduct and a cruel tax bill, are invoking the same ignorance and acceptance of bigotry and fraudulent activity of that earlier remnant of the G.O.P.

FRED HILL, BALTIMORE

To the Editor:

Re “How the Republicans Broke Congress” (Sunday Review, Dec. 2):

Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein are right when they argue that the Republican Party “has done unique, extensive, and possibly irreparable damage to the American political system.” A party over which the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Fox News hold considerable sway is seriously ill.

“The Republican Party must reclaim its purpose,” Mr. Mann and Mr. Ornstein conclude. It is a noble sentiment, but appeals to responsibility and genuine patriotism are inadequate. After all, relatively few prominent Republicans have found the courage to stand against President Trump and Trumpism. And yet our democratic system requires two healthy parties.

What to do? The only apparent solution is to ask millions of Democrats and independents to vote in Republican primaries (which in many states would requiring registering as Republican). Putting aside ideology for this limited purpose, they should vote for candidates who honor truth, denounce bigotry, defend the rule of law, and refrain from demonizing those with whom they have honest policy disagreements.

These Democrats and independents may, of course, vote for Democrats in the general election, but by lending a hand to responsible candidates in Republican primaries, they may help restore that party — and our nation — to health.

CARL T. BOGUS, BRISTOL, R.I.

The writer is a professor at Roger Williams University School of Law.

To the Editor:

As Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein point out in their excellent article, President Trump is not an outlier but rather a direct descendant of the modern Republican Party.

However, this demonization of government did not start, as the authors suggest, in the 1990s; the current devolution of the Republican Party stems directly from Ronald Reagan, who at his very first Inaugural Address stated, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” This sentiment has only been amplified through subsequent Republican administrations as they encouraged the extreme wing of their party until it actually took over the party and eradicated the moderate voices.

Donald Trump is the political offspring of Ronald Reagan.

VICTOR OWEN SCHWARTZ
NEW YORK

To the Editor:

Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein are certainly correct that the Republican Party “has done unique, extensive and possible irreparable damage to the American political system,” and they are right to point to the pernicious impact of right-wing media since the 1980s. The factors leading to this dangerous situation began a half century ago.

In the mid-1960s, the G.O.P. could still claim to be the party of Lincoln, its congressional members having voted in larger percentages than their Democratic counterparts for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. That changed when Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy brought the Dixiecrats into the Republican Party, thus setting the stage for a party marinating in toxic racism.

When Ronald Reagan subsequently courted the Christian right, he added to this mix a strain of authoritarian thinking by religious bigots unwilling to find common ground with people who differ from them. And given that the party’s donor class has condoned such a shift, the prospects of its becoming once again a principled center-right party appear dim.

PETER KIVISTO
ROCK ISLAND, ILL.

The writer is the author of “The Trump Phenomenon.”

To the Editor:

Re “Liberals Need to Take Their Fingers Out of Their Ears,” by Thomas B. Edsall (Op-Ed, nytimes.com, Dec. 7):

One political extreme begets another extreme.

When will it dawn on liberals that their extremes — globalization, an immigration “open door,” regulations that suffocate and an economy that leaves millions of displaced workers angry — are the result of decades of elitism?

When will it dawn on conservatives that their extremes — an economy that rewards greed at the top and abandons rural America, bans on immigration from specific nations (without concern for the individuals), endless blaming of the other side for their own faults — are contributing to the advancement of President Trump, who, at least for the time being, has eclipsed them?

Where is the common-sense centrist thought among either Democrats or Republicans? When will the Democrats find a voice that is something other than the party of “no”? When will the Republicans escape Trumpism and find a spokesperson who will look toward building a future, not just tearing down the past? When will we independents, who are more than a third of the electorate, find a replacement for dissatisfaction? Where is there real leadership?

DIXON ARNETT, CORNING, N.Y.

The writer is a former state assemblyman in California and deputy under secretary of Health and Human Services.

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A version of this article appears in print on  , Section SR, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: The G.O.P. in the Age of Trump. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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