Here in California, the political arguments all take place within the Democratic Party because the Republicans are pretty much irrelevant. That makes for unpleasant family fights, to be sure, but at least there’s no need to deal with the nihilist lunatics known as the GOP. It is far from perfect but the compromises that emerge are far better than the gridlock or the incoherent legislation that happens when Republicans are involved.
If the Republicans totally lose power (God willing) in the federal government and end up marginalized as they should be, that dynamic will likely happen on a national level. And that means that progressives and moderates in the Democratic Party will be running things. It is not going to be a lot of fun but it may be possible that the country can be saved.
I suspect the moderate faction will include people like Jennifer Rubin, who writes today that she no longer considers herself a conservative:
My Twitter blurb used to describe me as a “conservative opinion writer.” Now it reads: “NeverTrump, pro-democracy opinion writer.” Why the change?
Let’s be honest: There is no conservative movement or party today. There is a Republican Party thoroughly infused with racism and intellectually corrupted by right-wing nationalism. But there is no party that believes in less or small government (though expect the GOP to hypocritically resume singing that tune as soon as a Democrat steps into the Oval Office).
If you say you are a staunch defender of the rule of law, that you are devoted to ending systematic racism, that you are an advocate of legal immigration, that you believe in objective reality (including climate change science) and that you think illiberal regimes such as Russia are our greatest foreign threat, the party of Trump will lash out at you. They will accuse you of Trump derangement syndrome and dub you a “fake” conservative. Well, they have a point. Because conservatives no longer seem to champion any of those positions (or free trade or American international leadership or NATO), it is hard to say I fit in any longer.
Writing for the Bulwark, Shay Khatiri details the collapse of the alliance among economic, national security and social conservatives, concluding:So yes, conservatism is dead. The Tea Party in 2010s tried to resurrect it. But all that the angry and bitter zombie Reaganites of the Tea Party ultimately accomplished was making conservatism look obstructionist — and, with the ascension of Donald Trump, they have turned into zombie Buchananites. To the extent that the mindless mush that is called “conservatism” today is in obedient lockstep with Donald Trump, it is nationalist, hateful, intolerant, and unpatriotic.
If adherents cannot defend their position without resorting to conspiracy theories, factual misrepresentation and racism, perhaps what they are adhering to is fundamentally flawed. The need to invent a scary, socialist-possessed Joe Biden to justify reelecting President Trump (as my colleagues have delightfully parodied) strongly suggests there is no morally defensible reason for reelecting a man who thinks our covid-19 deaths wouldn’t look so bad if we just ignored blue states. (First, that’s monstrous, and second, the states with spiking infection and death rates are red states.)
There is a healthy debate about whether Republicans were always racist frauds. My friend Stuart Stevens has a strong case to make that they were. Others claim Trump took that marginal element in the GOP and made it dominant. While I continue to believe that decent, honorable conservatives such as George H.W. Bush, John McCain and, yes, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) were or are sincere patriots, I am forced to concede the racist, xenophobic and anti-intellectual element in the party was far more pronounced than I was willing to admit.
So if “conservative” has no meaning and if many of the 1980 positions (e.g., infinitely reducing taxes for the wealthy, hostility to the New Deal) are entirely unsuited to our current challenges, what ideology properly fits ex-Republicans unwilling to swallow the lies or descend into intellectual dishonesty?
The same set of beliefs that always animated me — America’s international leadership, defense of human rights, constitutional governance, equal justice under the law, a vibrant but not unfettered free market, limited but energetic government and public virtue — could be considered “19th century liberalism” (quite a mouthful) or moderation (which I have frequently explained does not mean the squishy middle). The name is far less important than the outlook and the rejection of extremism, racism, authoritarianism, isolationism, xenophobia, cruelty, deceit and tribalism.
There are very, very few self-identified Republicans on the national stage who meet that criteria (okay, maybe just Romney) and only a handful at the state or local level (e.g., Govs. Larry Hogan of Maryland and Charlie Baker of Massachusetts). Most are out of government (e.g., former governors John Kasich of Ohio, William F. Weld of Massachusetts and Jeb Bush of Florida).
There are many (but not all) Democrats, including former vice president Joe Biden, I believe, who represent that world view. We will see how he does if elected. For now, the objective remains removal of Trump and obliteration of a party that has grievously betrayed democracy and abandoned simple decency and honesty. Whatever alternative to the toxic waste dump of the Trump GOP arises to replace it may be worth considering — but only if it embodies the most basic American creed (“We the people. . .”) and abandons veneration of authoritarianism.
Gird yourself for internecine arguments about taxes and foreign policy. They will never go away. And I have no doubt that many Democrats will not be welcoming toward these folks and that’s very understandable. Look what they did. But on a mature, pragmatic level, settling scores is less important than say … climate change. Or rampant wealth inequality. Or democracy. These are all existential crises. And they aren’t the only ones.
You know I am all for accountability for what Republican nihilists have done. We can’t fix anything unless this is stopped once and for all and that means investigations, sanctions, prosecution and punishment, all by the book. But I don’t think that can be done without a majority and a strong one. That means allowing these newly-minted “moderates” into the tent and negotiating with them in good faith.
I assume they will be pains in the ass. Democratic conservative-moderates always are. And some of them will be prima donnas who think they should run everything. It’s going to drive us crazy. So, we should always be ready to remind everyone what it was like when their former fellow travelers — the corrupt, authoritarian, ignoramus Republicans — were in charge.
But if the progressives are strong enough, they will be able to pass much, much better legislation than anything that’s come out of our government for decades, even if they have to negotiate with these people to get there.
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