Resurrecting the Republican Party
In last Friday’s edition of the New York Times David Brooks devoted his column to consoling a college student who had written to him expressing his disenchantment with the Republican Party and with what has become of politics in America. Brooks began his response by saying that ever since 2008, when his party nominated Sarah Palin to be John McCain’s running mate, he too has grown increasingly dismayed by the actions of their party. Brooks went on to admit that the U.S. is currently experiencing a political crisis and that the Republican Party is at the epicenter of that crisis. This is remarkable candor for someone who had held his tongue for eight years after McCain chose Palin as his running mate. Even though Brooks and many other “Never Trump” Republicans began voicing their disapproval when their party nominated Trump for president in 2016, they still retained their party affiliation and supported other Republican political candidates. In a very real sense, they have behaved like the proverbial frogs placed on a stove in a kettle of warm water, not realizing that their situation was about to become more dire. Like those frogs, their current realization of the corrupt nature of their party may have come too late.
The events of the past month seem to have at last convinced Brooks that the Republican Party’s problems run much deeper than a few flawed individuals like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump. The fact that a large majority of Republican legislators are continuing to support Trump in the wake of the January 6th Capitol siege has enabled him to see that his party has become “intellectually and morally bankrupt.” Despite this belated realization, he assured his young correspondent that the Republican Party is still going to hold “a lot of power in the years to come.” Brooks therefore went on to encourage him to join a crusade to reform their party. In doing so, he glossed over the fact that the power currently wielded by the Republican Party is based upon its gerrymandering election districts, its suppression of voting by limiting polling stations and voting hours and its engagement in disinformation campaigns. Reconciling himself to the fact that it will require a new generation of Republicans to salvage what is left of their party, Brooks sets out a series of principles that this young man should follow in rebuilding the party:
His first principle is that the party “should strive to be democratic not authoritarian.” However, this evades the fact that even those individuals who stormed the Capitol on January 6th did not see themselves as seeking to install an authoritarian leader. They were proceeding under the illusion that they were taking action to restore democracy and correct an election that had been wrongfully stolen from the rightful victor – an illusion that had been carefully constructed and propagated by Donald Trump and scores of other Republican Party office holders. Thus, a more appropriate first step might have been that the Party adopt truth as its guiding principle and not rely upon misinformation and deception to win supporters.
But where have David Brooks and other Republican political pundits been over the past 40 years while their party has striven to create a Russian-style plutocracy. The Republican party has been systematically disenfranchising minority voters while steering the government to benefit corporate moguls who will finance the election campaigns of Republican politicians. Over the past decade only those Americans in the top 10% of the income scale have actually been able to increase their wealth and those individuals now possess more wealth that the remaining 90% of the nation’s population put together. Nor is it an accident that we now have a Supreme Court that has gutted both political campaign financing restrictions and restrictions on changes to election laws as well as upholding electoral district gerrymandering. These Republican efforts, which are the building blocks of that plutocratic state, long predate both Sarah Palin and Donald Trump.
Brooks’ second principle for reforming the Republican Party is that it should “be patriotic and not nationalistic.” It’s certainly true that Trump resurrected the nationalistic “America First” slogan that was discredited over 100 years ago -- but in the absence of such unmistakable signals how do you distinguish between patriotism and nationalism? Trump would certainly argue that by placing the health and welfare of Americans over those living in other countries, he is being patriotic. Surely, patriotism must means more than simply throwing money at military equipment manufacturers who will help finance the political campaigns of Republican politicians. Nor is patriotism evidenced by wrapping oneself in the American flag. In my view it requires taking actions that support the nation’s citizens and further its goals. It could consist of serving in the military, teaching in the nation’s schools, working to improve the health and welfare of the nation’s citizens.
If the Republican Party stood for patriotism, it would insist upon adequately funding the nation’s school and reinstituting the GI Bill. It would also make sure that healthcare was available for all of the nation’s citizens and that none of the nation’s children grow up in poverty. If Republicans wanted to instill a sense of patriotism in the nation’s citizens, they should also support mandatory national service. This would not only impart a sense of duty to the nation (as opposed to a culture of everybody for himself), but it would also cause people of different races, religions, and backgrounds to serve together and learn to appreciate (and not despise) each other. Quite to the contrary, all of the Republican Party’s actions encourage individual rather than joint efforts.
Brooks’ third principle for rebuilding the Republican Party is that it “should be intellectually self-confident and not apocalyptic and dishonest.” While Trump is clearly the most intellectually dishonest and apocalyptic president the Republican Party has produced, he is far from their only such leader. For nearly 100 years Republican Party presidential nominees have been branding Democrats as socialist because of their support for social welfare programs and warning voters that, if elected, Democrats will move the country toward a soviet-style police state which would control their every action. In reality, virtually every nation in western Europe offers its citizens the type of social welfare programs advocated by Democrats, and these nations have not only remained democratic but in many cases enjoy higher average standards of living than exist in the U.S. (See, “Fear of Socialism”). Even though Donald Trump also warned that the nation’s suburbs would be overrun by undesirable people, he did not invent this brand of racial politics, he has just been more open in his racial bigotry and his pandering to white supremacists.
Similarly, while Trump has amassed more “Pinocchios” than any other politician, intellectual dishonesty has long been a hallmark of the Republican Party. For the past 40 years, the party has been peddling the fiction that tax cuts for the rich are revenue-neutral and will help create jobs. This proposition has now been disproven by the Reagan tax cuts, the George W. Bush tax cuts, and the Trump tax cuts. It also brought the State of Kansas to the brink of bankruptcy. As I pointed out in my article entitled “The Myth of Republican Economic Managerial Superiority”, the only economists who support this debunked theory are the economic charlatans the party keeps around to add gravitas to its bankrupt economic assertions. Similarly intellectually dishonest has been the party’s six-year fight to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The very concepts embodied in that legislation were devised by the Heritage Foundation, a Republican Party think tank. In addition, those concepts were road-tested by Mitt Romney, a former Republican presidential nominee, when he was the Governor of Massachusetts. It’s not that the Act which has enabled over 25 million Americans to obtain healthcare insurance doesn’t work; what Republican politicians find objectionable is that the insurance made available by the Act is financed by a tax imposed on members of the party’s donor base.
As evidenced by David Brooks’ article, many mainstream Republicans are now beginning to recognize that Donald Trump has cast a malignant spell over virtually the entire House and Senate Republican caucuses. That has led many Republican luminaries like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, John Thune, and Kevin McCarthy to publicly proclaim that the future of their party lies with Trump as their leader. In contrast, many mainstream Republicans, as well as hundreds of business leaders, are coming to the conclusion that Trump is not only detrimental to their party, but also to the nation's democratic foundation.
While our nation’s founders, perhaps out of naiveté, did not envision that the federal government would incorporate a two-party system, a viable second party is necessary if our federal government is to remain a democracy. Those countries with a single political party quickly evolve into dictatorships; and while some dictatorships are able to thrive economically, most don’t and they all erode the civil rights of their citizens. Thus, restoring the well-being of the Republican Party would not only delight remorseful mainstream Republicans, but is also important to our nation’s future. Unfortunately, that will not be easily achieved and it can’t be achieved as long as Donald Trump remains the leader of the Republican Party.
From the time he was a youngster, Trump was led by his father to believe that the world is composed of “winners” and “losers;” and if you are NOT a “winner” you must be a “loser.” That binary approach to life also forms the basis of Trump’s approach to politics. In large measure, it also explains Trump’s popularity as his entire being has been dedicated to projecting himself as a winner-- and people like to associate themselves with a winner. The problem is that he views his role as his party’s leader as requiring him to support those who serve him and to vanquish those who oppose him. That outlook is wholly alien to the concept of a democratic government in which persons with differing views nevertheless work together to resolve national problems in ways that benefit the nation as a whole. Trump’s world view also drives him to choose his associates, not on the basis of their competence, but rather on the basis of their loyalty to him. That not only poses a danger to his party but also to the nation as well.
The Republican Party already missed its best opportunity to end Trump’s political career when it failed to support the House’s most recent Article of Impeachment. It would have only required a modicum of political courage by seventeen Republican senators (even fewer if some of them had chosen not to vote). According to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, this was to be a vote of conscience, but after so many years during which political survival in Republican politics required adherence to the party’s dictates, only seven Republican Senators seem to still possess a conscience. Now Trump’s future, as well as that of the Republican Party, lies in the hands of the Democrats who control Congressional Committees that can investigate Trump’s past misdeeds and the Department of Justice that can prosecute them.
The most recent election demonstrated just how politically toxic Trump had become as a result of his many lies and his disastrous handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the nation’s economy. The January 6th Capitol insurrection only added to his public disapproval. While he still commands the support of a majority of Republican voters, his overall appeal has become a liability for all Republicans that have to run in national elections and contested political districts. Thus, in a very real sense, it is in the interests of the Democratic Party to allow Trump to continue to dominate Republican politics.
Fortunately for the Republicans, the Democrats are the designers of the circular firing squad and there is a good chance that they will feel it’s their patriotic duty to bring Trump’s political career to an end. This could take the form of criminal litigation or Congressional hearings exposing his deleterious actions and selfish motivations. Trump, however, is a master of delay and deflection tactics so it could take months, if not years, for the Democrats to bring about Trump’s political demise.
In the meantime, Trump will continue to raise money and promote political candidates loyal to him, and those individuals, if successful, will support his destructive ways. To some extent, Trump’s own success in promoting political candidates loyal to him could speed his own demise if those individuals whom he supports either fail to win in their general elections or spoil the chances of victory of other Republican office seekers. This also could take more than one election cycle so that Trump’s influence over the Republican Party could persist for several years.
Following its defeat in the 2012 presidential election, the Republican National Committee initiated an inquiry to explore ways in which to broaden the party’s political base. That effort never materialized for two reasons. First, Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential nomination and his appeal did not extend to independent voters, particularly college educated voters. In fact, his 2016 victory was largely the result of disinformation campaigns designed to discourage Democratic voters from going to the polls. Second, the Republican Party had essentially concentrated its efforts on obstructing Democratic programs to improve the lives of working class Americans. As a result, its appeal did not resonate beyond pro-business and evangelical voters and gun owners.
If the Republican Party is going to remain viable, it will have to adopt new tactics rather than simply doubling-down on its voter suppression and disinformation efforts which appears to be its current direction. This is because demographic changes are favoring Democrats and because the Democratic Party has woken up to the fact that the way to win elections is to duplicate across the south the voter registration efforts that Stacey Abrams successfully implemented in the State of Georgia. Abrams proved that voter registration and voter turn-out efforts can more than offset the voter suppression tactics employed by Republicans. Many of the southern states have large minority populations that have not voted in the past. Efforts to register and motivate those individuals could turn those states from red to blue. In addition, the recent debacle cause by Texas’ anti-regulation tactics place continued Republican control of that state in jeopardy.
While it would be nice for the Republican Party to revert to being a party of new ideas and new ways of enhancing the lives of Americans, such a transition will not come easily. For the past 30 years it has been the party of obstructionism and trashing its political opponents. This makes it difficult for the party to transform itself into a party ready and willing to act in a constructive and collegial manner. As David Brooks intimated that will likely require a new generation of Republican politicians. Moreover, the party’s current modus operandi has been the product of political gerrymandering and the party’s reverting into a role of loyal opposition may require abandoning its gerrymandered election districts which encourage political extremism. If its current elected representatives are so concerned about their personal political survival as to be willing to overlook Trump’s destructive actions to the nation’s political structure, you can surely imagine the depth of their reticence to give up their safe political districts.
I fully agree with Brooks that his party has ceased to function as a constructive political faction and that it is having a detrimental effect on our national government. Still, I’m not convinced that he and other mainstream Republicans are currently willing to recognize the full extent of the underlying strategic choices that have driven his party to its current state. That will take a much deeper assessment than they currently seem prepared to make.