Yesterday in comments I said my piece about the Democratic Party. Now in fairness I’ll give my assessment of the Republican Party.
The Republican Party is a mess. It can win elections at the local, state, and national level but it has a grave problem with governing, particularly at the national level, because the contradictions in governing well while opposing big government are just too great. Republican governors fare better but not in places where they face concerted, steadfast, and well-funded opposition as is the case in Illinois. The situation in Wisconsin will provide a test case.
Power in the party is divided among three groups: social conservatives, what I would call “Chamber of Commerce Republicans”, i.e. the charred remnants of what used to be the Republican Establishment, and Ayn Rand fans/Tea Party/anarcho-conservatives. Most officeholders don’t represent those factions in a pure form and the precise mixtures varies by region. The only thing they can agree on is that taxes are too high so they always vote for tax cuts.
The party’s problems were never so evident as in the recent campaign for the party’s nomination for president. Trump vanquished the representatives of each of the party’s factions seriatim, simultaneously demonstrating his strength, their weakness, and the fecklessness of the party organization in responding to the challenge he posed.
Trump is a one-man party. He is one of a kind, sui generis. He will build no organization and leave no successors.
What comes after Trump is a more interesting question than what comes with him. My guess is nothing good; his hyper-religious base won’t have ascended to heaven after bringing about the conditions they believe necessary for the Rapture; orthodox Republicans have nowhere to go; the Tea Party -> libertarians -> classical liberals -> will be left thinking up a new contradictory and historically ignorant name for themselves.
I am less certain than you that Trump is unique. I think there is a good chance that he represents the true beliefs of the GOP base. They went along with the idea of free trade, just to use an example, because they needed to get the judges they wanted. They probably never supported immigration like the business class did. I can see the Trump version of conservatism hanging around for quite a while.
That said, with him gone, the other strains may be able to reassert themselves. Just not sure they will ever again be able to generate the same enthusiasm. Unless they get a Hillary to run against again
Steve
It would be interesting to revisit this column a year from now, the day after the 2020 elections, and assuming Trump wins that one the day after the 2024 elections. What we have going on is a revolution in the Republican Party. Right now the bomb-throwers are busy trying to tear down the Republican Establishment while clawing their way into power. Six-seven years from now assuming Trump is still on top these same people will BE the establishment, consolidating their gains and fighting off wannabe usurpers. The big question will be how forgiving the future establishment will be towards those they overthrew as well as dissidents within their own ranks. If they insist on purity tests, i.e. ‘were you a not-Trumper or a never-Trumper’, (the kind of purity test we’re seeing from the even-more-left-than Bernie wing of the Democrats) then Trump’s accomplishments will be ephemeral even if the socialism-forever looney tunes completely take over the Democrats.
1) Which “even-more-left than Bernie” people are insisting that you be pure?
2) What does pure mean?
3) If you think it’s difficult to be left of Sanders I recommend spending time in Europe.
There’s a fourth group in the current Republican Party; the blue collar “Jacksoniansâ€, they are not particularly zealous on social matters. They think chamber of commerce types downsized and shipped their jobs overseas. They don’t have a problem with big government like the tea party; their problem is they aren’t getting their share of the “spoilsâ€, ie government isn’t paying enough attention to them.
They have power in the Republican Party because Trump courts them – but where will they go in 2 or 6 years. Will they go to their traditional home in the Democratic party, split their support; or become apathetic.
Jacksonians aren’t limited to the Republicans; many Democrats are Jacksonians, too. For example, most black folk are Jacksonians. Frequent commenter Gray Shambler is a blue collar Democrat and he’s a Jacksonian.
I lumped Republican Jacksonians in with social conservatives but you’re right. That’s an overgeneralization. Although there’s a substantial overlap between Republican social conservatives and Republican Jacksonians they’re not completely identical.
It’s a regional thing. In the south; the two groups do overlap significantly; outside they are quite distinct.
Examples are the 2016 Republican Iowa and New Hampshire primary.
I point this out because Jeff Sessions said on election night that Trump’s campaign ran on the assumption the 3 groups were who supported Romney; it was not enough and Trump could make a difference by appealing to folks who while not hostile to social conservatives, were not social conservatives.
C’mon, Ben, those are generalizations I’d expect from steve, but not you.
Anyway, Trump is not complex. He’s a product of those who are fed up with government and social dictatorialism. That’s it.
I just watched an hour long CSPAN/YouTube of HRC testifying before a committee chaired by Trey Gowdy. He took her apart limb by limb. Absolutely dismembered her. She’s a filthy liar and piece of shit, and she knows she was had. But it’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove. And what the media reports. It was fascinating watching two lawyers joust. (And she paid the ultimate price. She lost. To Donald Trump. Heh )
Trump has tapped into this sentiment. Lord knows he is an imperfect vessel. But that’s what we have.
I do not agree with Dave’s partitioning of the Republican Party, but I do have an open question to this august body. Is Trump a real change agent?
To me, that’s all that matters, as long as he’s not a looney. (He’s been accused of starting the last 5 nuclear wars that have never happened) Seriously?
Is he changing the immigration narrative? The trade narrative? The regulatory narrative? The business environment narrative.
These are real issues, people. This is what leadership looks like. Many, who proclaim they want change, appear to in fact hate it.
I’m a change agent by profession. I love it.
They are generalizations, but it was fun to write. You’ve got to admit I spend way more time bashing Democrats; I took a few sentences to even the ledger.
As Chou En Lai is reputed to have said about the French Revolution, it’s too early to tell.
I think there’s a paradox. It is very difficult to change Washington unless you are an insider and if you are an insider you do not want Washington to change.
Right now Trump has no power base in the Congress. He might in the next Congress but the Democrats also might take control of the House. He’s doing what he can with the Congress, the media, and the civil bureaucracy all against him.
“They have power in the Republican Party because Trump courts them – but where will they go in 2 or 6 years. Will they go to their traditional home in the Democratic party, split their support; or become apathetic.”
I’m waiting to see if the Democratic party wants us enough to stop talking about transgender bathrooms and more about economic issues that affect us.
Is Trump a real change agent? AS Dave said, only time will tell. He is a good bomb thrower. Does he have the ability to put together something after he blows stuff up? We don’t know yet, but his lack of leadership ability makes me worry that it won’t happen. His only real “deal”, was convincing the Republicans to cut taxes. He makes big announcements, but not much on follow through. (Obama was blamed for not being able to reach deals with the GOP, so I think we should lay the blame on Trump for not reaching agreements with the Dems.) Like Obama, after his first two years, Trump is mostly accomplishing stuff with executive orders as far as I can tell.
Steve
steve,
I think we can say Trump is more an agent of chaos, taking a sledge-hammer to a machine as its logical self-conclusion. Our system wants to die.
The GoP, IMO, has become the party of corporatism and nativism, but it changes so frequently thanks to insurgent “takeovers” that it’s hard to see where it ends up.
The basic problem is that is that any sufficiently large and coherent faction can take over – first, it was the Tea Party, now it’s Trump.
I think once the Clintons are finally out of the scene and the Democrats are successful in defenestrating their core elites (ie. making primaries “more democratic”), then they’ll follow the same path and be just as vulnerable to factional takeovers.