” Republicans Don’t Believe in Politics Anymore”
I don’t know how
many of you had the fortitude to sit through the Republican Presidential debate
last Wednesday. I didn’t, but I did watch the post-debate analysis on MSNBC. That entire program was worth watching, but
for me there were two especially important points made.
The first was when Rachel
Maddow declared that “Republicans don’t want to do politics anymore.” (the
title of this post is a paraphrasing of what she said). She elaborated saying
that if, by politics we mean open debate between different factions, parties,
etc., democratic competition with outcomes producing majorities and minorities in
legislative bodies, and compromising to find pragmatic solutions to issues,
then Republicans don’t believe in those processes anymore. This is because
opinion data as shows that on most major
issues (climate change, abortion, gun control, voting rights, etc.) most
Americans’ views are closer to Democrats than they are to Republicans.
Undaunted, the
Republican majorities in Red States impose voting restrictions, gerrymander representative
districts and stifle debate in state legislatures. They gerrymander legislative
majorities and often refuse to debate in the chambers. They don’t want to contend over ideas or
policies. They just want to have their way.
Maddow concluded,
and I agree, that the reason the Republican base adores Trump so much is
because he fits the mold of a classic authoritarian leader (or) a dictator. The
dictator foregoes the pulling and hauling endemic to politics in favor of “his
way or the highway;” or “kickin’ ass and takin’ names.”
Later in the
discussion Joy Reed added that there is another large group of Americans who
are frustrated by politics these days. They’re mostly young people who can’t
pay student loans, can’t afford to buy a house, and are pro-choice. They don’t
like politics either ... But we keep telling them you gotta keep voting ... and
this is the generation that’s not getting more conservative.”
These people who are
fed up with politics on both the right and left are the bases of not just the
two major parties, but also the core of the populisms defining the two American
nations. In my previous posts I’ve argued that while the populist bases of both
parties are tugging their centrist establishments toward the extremes, the
Democrats under Biden seem to be more successful at nudging the policy needle
to the left just enough to keep their left flank at bay and still govern.
The events of this
week in Congress aptly illustrate this difference. Yesterday the resolution to
oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy that was advanced by Matt Gaetz and some
Freedom Caucus members took effect. So
McCarthy is out! This after narrowly averting a government shutdown via a
continuing resolution which only delays the shutdown issue for 45 days. Add to
this the impeachment hearings of President Biden over what most observers see
as baseless charges involving his son, but not Biden himself. The McCarthy-led House resembled a circus
more than it did a legislative body.
Juxtapose that to
the passage of the Infrastructure and Inflation Reduction Acts last year with
razor thin Democratic majorities in each House. In
recent days House Dems ranging from minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, to former
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Progressive Caucus stalwart Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
proclaimed that they didn’t trust McCarthy.
Their reasons
included several actions McCarthy took to support Trump after he lost the 2020
election including:
·
voting not to certify the election even after insurrectionists stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6,
2021
·
First saying Trump
was responsible for
the Jan. 6 riot, but then going to Mar-a-Lago to curry Trump’s favor.
·
Trying
to stop the creation of the Jan. 6 select committee.
·
Giving the Jan. 6 security footage to Fox Cable host Tucker Carlson, but not to other networks.
McCarthy also went
back on several legislative deals too numerous to discuss here. But
the last straw came when he agreed in August that he would hold a vote on
opening a Biden impeachment inquiry, but then opened the inquiry in September
without holding a vote. By this week Democrats had seen enough of McCarthy and
after an intense conference meeting, decided in unity to let McCarthy sink or
swim on his ability to control his own party.
The Republican Party
is in a tailspin. A party held hostage by its older White conservative base in
an increasingly multiracial country, it has come under the spell of the
authoritarian right-wing populist Donald Trump. Having once elected Trump and
witnessed the way he sought to scrap all the rules and processes and govern as
he saw fit, that Republican base is now (one hopes not irrevocably)
contaminated. Following Trump’s lead, House Republicans are happy not only to
disregard the rules, but also the underlying value of democratic governance.
There are a couple
of books I’ve read recently that offer penetrating insights to the appeal of
leaders like Trump. In the Twilight of Democracy Anne Appelbaum
describes the way that groups who feel the world is passing them by can long
for a return to the “good old days” when either people like them, or the countries
they once knew were more consequential in the global scheme of things. These
groups can become willing to throw out democracy as they are enamored by the
charismatic leader posing simplistic solutions frame by
catchy slogans like “Make America Great Again”
In Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, Ruth
Ben-Ghiat surveys the careers of a number of authoritarian leaders including
Trump. Her portrayals of spellbinding impact that Mussolini, Hitler and Trump
can have on audiences of ordinary people provide a cautionary saga for the
moment this country finds itself in today.
The Republican base is spellbound by Trumpism. This renders
it incapable of civil democratic discourse. It is incumbent upon progressives to
engage our fellow citizens on the center right and encourage to abandon today’s
Republican Party and either form a new conservative party committed to democracy
or become Democrats.
REFERENCES
Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy:
The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. New York: Doubleday, 2020.
