” 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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] 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”[4]
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.[5]
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.
[1] There was no majority voting to remove McCarthy in the 435 member House. However, with 216 votes to oust him and only 210 to retain him, he did not get the 218 needed to remain Speaker (12 members did not vote).
[2] The Senate of course, was split 50-50 with Vice-President Kamal Harris casting the deciding vote on the Inflation Reduction Act.
[3]Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer, “Why Democrats Might Want to Save McCarthy,” Washington Post, October 3, 2023 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/03/why-democrats-might-not-want-save-mccarthy/
[4] Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. New York: Doubleday, 2020.
[5] Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2021.
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