TODAY'S BIG NUGGET: The GOP's New Love for Authoritarianism Explained

Conservatives and the Cult of Trump (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"The idea that Trump’s anti-democratic qualities per se would alienate him from his party is a fantasy that rests upon a deep misunderstanding of conservatism. The Republican Party is attracted to anti-democratic means, so long as they’re used for the correct ends.  ...  Indeed, Trump’s routine authoritarian bluster nestles comfortably into a party where panic about unfriendly demographic changes has curdled into deep suspicion of the principle of majority rule. Trump as an individual is surely a grotesque outlier. But the overall direction of his presidency is an outgrowth of the party’s long-standing direction."
The analysis here is absolutely SPOT ON! A must read! 

The Right Wing Media v. The MORE Right Wing Media

Donald Trump broke the conservative media from the Huffington Post
"... throughout the election season, it has appeared that Republicans have fielded more attacks from their supposed friends on the right than their political opponents on the left. It's an incidental twist, considering how Republicans helped foster the growth of the conservative news media in order to avoid the skewering of mainstream journalists.  Instead, it appears their plan of using friendly pundits to tap directly into the vein of red-blooded Americans sympathetic to their political views has backfired."

GOP Base Voters: Not Your Father's Republicans

GOP elites think stealing the nomination from Trump will be a cakewalk. They're wrong. (Ryan Cooper) from The Week
"The Donald Trump insurgency has demonstrated several things. First, there is a large constituency among Republican primary voters for outright bigotry and xenophobia; second, the commitment to traditional conservative economics among many Republican base voters is totally ephemeral. It turns out that hardscrabble racist white people aren't actually interested in gutting Medicare, privatizing Social Security, or Olympus Mons-sized tax cuts for the rich. ... Now Trump has blown the scam wide open."

And at the other end of the radio quality spectrum...

Rush Limbaugh's contract is up, his benefactors are broke, and his audience 'toxic.' Next? from Daily Kos
"Let us all take a moment to celebrate the fall of Rush Limbaugh, previous Republican kingmaker who is still filthy rich, thank you very much, but whose contract is up this year and whose previous radio benefactor is now teetering on the edge of penny-stock status."

Trump grasps the embarrassing reality that most Republican voters are not driven by real ideas

Donald Trump Versus the Republican Brain (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
" The conservative movement has succeeded for decades by channeling racial resentment, nationalism, and authoritarianism into traditional policy proposals that can be justified in white papers on foreign policy, welfare, crime, taxes, and so on. Trump has made a mockery of this whole process, substituting boundless faith in his personality for a policy architecture constructed over generations. Conservative intellectuals understand and care about these ideas. They have articulated serious reasons for, say, restricting immigration levels, but Trump grasps the embarrassing reality that most Republican voters are driven by base animus toward immigrants. The rupture he’s opened does not divide one set of ideas from another. Trump has simply pitted the Republican brain against the Republican brain stem."

The GOP is the party of stupid, but its voters are the deluded ones

Republicans really fall for this nonsense from Salon
"In assessing the candidates in both parties, Politifact finds that Hillary Clinton edges out Sanders as the least dishonest (let us frame it this way rather than say “most honest”). While she underplays her opposition to Wall Street, her falsehoods are, for the most part, on the order of “We have more jobs in solar than we do in oil.” She favors the phrase “empirical evidence,” which Mr. Addison would no doubt approve. Yet in televised punditry, the most often heard critique of Hillary is that she lacks the fundamental honesty of Sanders. The real difference in honesty is that which separates the opposing parties."

The Mythic Past for "Family Values" Voters

Decades On, Advocates Of ‘Family Values’ Still Miss The Point (Mary Sanchez) from National Memo
"You can’t make America great “again,” a la Donald Trump, if you are clueless to what work life really looked like for most of the 20th century. You can’t restore traditional family values, a la Ted Cruz, if you start with an interpretation of family that never existed in America."

Rush Limbaugh’s primary from hell

Even conservatives are finally turning on the famous blowhard from Salon
"Trump has exposed him for the fraud he's always been. Critics and listeners alike won't let him hear the end of it" ... The current primary battle is the most bitter in recent memory. It’s also threatening to implode the Republican Party — and to a degree, the entire conservative movement as we know it — as Trump angles to secure the party’s nomination while breaking free from core beliefs that have been considered sacrosanct for generations by Limbaugh’s listeners. The host, meanwhile, has become a piñata, as conservatives line up to take whacks at him in a way we’ve never really seen before.

GOP Elites gather to plot third-party run against Trump

Top conservatives gather to plot third-party run against Trump from Politico
"The meeting is scheduled for two days after tonight's primaries in what many Republican operatives believe will determine whether Trump is on an unstoppable march to the nomination."

Frum: Conservatives Face an Impossible Choice

Conservatives Face an Impossible Choice (David Frum) from the Atlantic
"They can back Trump, or run a candidate of their own—but either way, they’ll bring this era of American politics to a close."

Obama Derangement Syndrome and Its Enablers Now Paying a Price

Republicans have destroyed their party; will they take America with them? (Leonard Pitts Jr.) from the Baltimore Sun
"Republicans and their media accomplices buttressed that strategy with a campaign of insult and disrespect designed to delegitimize Mr. Obama. With their endless birther stupidity, their death panels idiocy, their constant budget brinksmanship and their cries of, "I want my country back!" they stoked in the public nothing less than hatred for the interloper in the White House who'd had the nerve to be elected president."

At CPAC: Fears that the GOP is "Breaking Apart"

Rank and File Republicans Tell Party Elites: We’re Sticking With Donald Trump from the New York Times
"As polls showed Mr. Trump likely to capture the Louisiana primary on Saturday, the biggest prize among states holding contests this weekend, the party establishment in Washington seemed seized by anxiety and despair. At the Conservative Political Action Conference, a long-running gathering of traditional conservatives, attendees feared that they were witnessing an event that has not occurred in more than a century: the breaking apart of a major American political party."

Conservatives: Not Eager to "Make America Great Again"?

Conservative Millennials Are Terrified Of Donald Trump from the Huffington Post
"Youth support for Donald Trump has been mixed, and the general lack of enthusiasm for The Donald at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference among millennials illustrates the extent to which CPAC -- and the tea party, as well -- no longer represents the Republican Party's insurgent wing. Instead, it's just one-third of a Republican Party composed of establishment, conservative and populist camps. If the mood at CPAC is any indication, the conservative camp, including its young activists, is not eager to Make America Great Again."

Trumpism and the Death Knell of "Principled Conservatism"

What Trumpism Means for Democracy (Andrew Bacevich) from the American Conservative
"If Trump secures the Republican nomination, now an increasingly imaginable prospect, the party is likely to implode. Whatever rump organization survives will have forfeited any remaining claim to represent principled conservatism."

Trump the Unconverted

I Will Not Vote For Donald Trump. Ever. (Erick Erickson) from The Resurgent
“Donald Trump has had no ‘road to Damascus’ conversion. He only wants to date the preacher’s daughter. Once he’s gotten in her ballot box, he’ll be back to his pro-abortion New York values self.”

Another Right-Wing Talk Titan in Trouble

Why Glenn Beck’s Media Empire Is Burning Down (Lloyd Grove) from the Daily Beast
"Glenn Beck was thanked by Ted Cruz in his Iowa victory speech, but for all his ‘mad genius,’ the right-wing media firebrand’s media company has become an abyss of backbiting and paranoia."

Trump: Ignorant of what it means to be "conservative"

5 Reasons Donald Trump Makes America So Anxious from The Week
"He’s revealing the true nature of conservatism..  When Trump suggests that he’d propose “some kind of government program” to make college more affordable, it doesn’t just betray a ridiculous lack of knowledge about government and, for that matter, reality  It shows he doesn’t know what real conservatives are supposed to say. ... Because conservatism isn’t really about ideology, it’s about preserving unjust power and denying it to “them,” as Corey Robin explains in The Reactionary Mind. That makes him the truest example of the conservative movement ever to seek his party’s nomination."

Conservative Pundit: President Trump? Never

Why I Will Never Vote for Donald Trump (Peter Wehner) from the New York Times
"Mr. Trump’s virulent combination of ignorance, emotional instability, demagogy, solipsism and vindictiveness would do more than result in a failed presidency; it could very well lead to national catastrophe. The prospect of Donald Trump as commander in chief should send a chill down the spine of every American."

Limbaugh's Open Break with the GOP Establishment

Rush Limbaugh Is Cheating on Conservatism With Donald Trump (Conor Friedersdorf) from the Atlantic
"Without admitting it to himself, more fully than ever before in his long political-talk career, Limbaugh has abandoned conservatism as his lodestar. All else being equal, he still prefers the ideology. But it’s now negotiable. He’d rather have a non-conservative nominee who attacks and is loathed by the Republican  establishment than a conservative who is conciliatory and appealing to moderates."

Nominating Trump -- What's the Impact on the GOP for 2020?

If Trump wins the nomination, prepare for the end of the conservative party (George Will) from the Washington Post
"... this avatar of unfettered government and executive authoritarianism has mesmerized a large portion of Republicans for six months. The larger portion should understand this: One hundred and four years of history is in the balance. If Trump is the Republican nominee in 2016, there might not be a conservative party in 2020 either."