The incredible hubris of Grover Norquist
by David Atkins
From one perspective, Grover Norquist’s little victory lap yesterday is understandable. After all, government funding has dropped to near Ryan budget levels due to sequestration, and it appears that more damage may be done soon as the result of some kind of new “grand bargain” over the debt ceiling. Norquist assumes there will be another Republican president in the near future and that Ryan budget spending levels will be solidified, so it’s worth it to trade sequestration items for long-term cuts of earned benefits programs. With an intransigent House and a Democratic president keen on deficit reduction, it would be hard to blame Norquist for his bullish attitude. He certainly does appear to be winning in the short term.
But that perspective overlooks a few very important facts.
The first is that among the general public, Norquist is losing the argument badly. Republicans fare extremely poorly in public opinion polls, and Republican ideology fares even worse. Large majorities want higher taxes on the wealthy, and almost no one wants cuts to Social Security or Medicare. The successful implementation of Obamacare will only make matters worse for conservatives looking for broad national appeal.
The only reason Norquist is in a position to declare victory at all is quirky happenstance: a Republican wave driven by a poor economy and Democratic missteps in 2010 happened to coincide with a redistricting year, delivering a House of Representatives nearly structurally unable to fall into Democratic hands. The districts have become so gerrymandered that Republican House members are more afraid of losing their seats in a primary challenge than to a Democrat. That is a happy accident for them, but an accident all the same that only intensifies the problem of epistemic closure on the Right.
It’s important to remember that in 2012, 1.4 million more votes were cast for Democratic House candidates than Republican ones. That’s in addition to President Obama’s smashing victory over Mitt Romney. Under normal circumstances we wouldn’t be talking about grand bargains and government shutdowns today: we would be talking about gun control legislation, an equal pay amendment or some other progressive priority. That Norquist is even in a position to chortle is due to temporary good fortune for the Right.
It’s also a product of being willing to use the most extreme hostage-taking measures to secure their legislative aims. Norquist cheers sequestration, but it’s important to remember that sequestration only happened because Republicans took the government hostage and no one actually believed they would follow through. This time is different, which is why we are seeing much stiffer spines from Harry Reid and the White House. It’s always possible that Democrats will capitulate once again when Republicans hold both the debt ceiling and the budget hostage, but Democratic talking points are already fairly firm that they will not “negotiate” under those conditions. Nor is it credible that Republicans will continue to get concessions from Democrats via hostage taking, year over year, budget after budget, debt ceiling after debt ceiling, for the next nine years (assuming Democrats control at least one of the Senate or Presidency–a likelihood given the unpopularity of Republican tactics themselves.)
And there’s greater danger ahead for conservatives. With every act of contempt for good governance Republicans make themselves even more unpopular. Norquist is counting on a GOP president taking office someday soon. But there’s no indication that such an event is likely, at least within the next 11 years. It’s not clear that any of the current GOP frontrunners can touch Hillary Clinton, or even Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren for that matter.
Finally, there is demographic change. Every year, national elections become that much tougher for Republicans. Every year, solidly conservative states become purple, and purple states shade into blue. This isn’t just a factor at the Presidential level: states that used to reliably send two Republican Senators are shifting blue as well. Demographic changes aren’t just a nakedly partisan issue, but ideological as well. Millennials have just as positive an impression of socialism as capitalism. Most minority populations do not have hostile views of government. The older, white, mostly male base of the Republican Party is dying out. With Republicans still afraid of primary challenges from the right, their chances of appealing to the emerging majority of much more progressive voters are essentially nil.
Analysts often roll their eyes at the long-term demographic arguments. What matters is the short term, they say. Anything can happen in the long run, they say. True. And on any given night, it’s impossible to know if the championship team will beat the cellar dweller in professional sports. That doesn’t mean the odds aren’t stacked against team with the worse roster.
Anyone looking for an example of how this shift takes place need look no further than California, home of Ronald Reagan and governor Pete Wilson just a couple of decades ago. It didn’t take long for a combination of minority and young voters to change the face of state politics. A non-partisan redistricting law sealed Republicans’ fate here. When demographic changes come, they come slowly and then reach a tipping point. Once that tipping point is hit, look out below. Republicans failed to shift with the demographic winds, and are now a near forgotten irrelevance in California politics. The same thing can and will happen nationally, absent dramatic changes.
Norquist and his allies can feast now on their temporary gains. But 9 more years of Republican dysfunction combined with demographic changes and redistricting in 2022 mean that whatever wins he notches are almost certain to be short lived.
Remember: budgets are easily changed. Spending levels are easily massaged. Indexing rules are easily altered. But once is a conservative voter ages out of the electorate and is replaced by a progressive one, that’s much harder to change.
Given the extraordinary circumstances under which Norquist’s ultimately Pyrrhic victories have come, he would be unwise to display such hubris about the future.
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