Matt Taibbi Sizes Up the GOP, or ‘The Party of White Paranoia’

If you haven’t taken a look at Matt Taibbi’s latest column for Rolling Stone, it’s got our vote for one of this holiday weekend’s best reads.

Taibbi provides a crucially needed panoramic snapshot of the American right in this moment of bluster and absurdity. Yes, it’s about the Trump factor, but the buck doesn’t stop there — in fact, Taibbi nimbly traces where the bucks are going in this campaign cycle, which is famously the path to follow in these matters.

And here’s the money shot (via Rolling Stone):

Whether or not it’s true that a Republican candidate can win the White House with a minus-51 percent net unfavorable rating among Hispanic voters (Trump’s well-earned current number) is sort of beside the point. The point is that Trump clearly feels he can afford to flip off the Hispanic community and win with a whites-only strategy. And his supporters are loving the idea that he’s trying.

The decision by huge masses of Republican voters to defy D.C.-thinkfluencer types like George Will and throw in with a carnival act like Trump is no small thing. For the first time in a generation, Republican voters are taking their destiny into their own hands.

In the elaborate con that is American electoral politics, the Republican voter has long been the easiest mark in the game, the biggest dope in the room. Everyone inside the Beltway knows this. The Republican voters themselves are the only ones who never saw it.

But will they see it now?

–Posted by Kasia Anderson