In his New York Times column Ross Douthat seems to think that it is:
To the extent that any Republicans deserve credit for this constraint, though, they are mostly elected Republicans in the Senate. The House is more pure, uncut MAGA, more reflexive in its defense of a president whose behavior is often indefensible, more poisoned by the worst Trumpist tendencies (witness the steady migration of the Iowa congressman Steve King toward an overt white nationalism) and more inclined to allow Trump a free hand should he seek to make his actual presidency exactly like his Twitter feed.
So a Democratic House would supply a much more effective check on that temptation, along with more vigorous scrutiny of corruption in the White House, about which congressional Republicans have been studiously incurious. And it would offer that check without jeopardizing any potential conservative legislative achievements — because, let’s be frank, the congressional G.O.P. isn’t going to do anything serious with its power if it gets re-elected except confirm judges, and you don’t need the House to elevate Amy Coney Barrett if there’s one more high court vacancy.
At the same time, for the genuinely populist sort for conservative (that is, the best kind), having a Democratic House might force Trump himself back toward the economic populism of his campaign, which he mostly abandoned but has suddenly remembered in the last days before the midterms, talking up a phantom middle-class tax cut and proposing an “America First†approach to drug pricing.
I think he’s misreading both political parties, assuming good faith and willingness to compromise where none exists. Today’s Republican Party at the national level is divided between anarcho-capitalist objectivists like Rand Paul and Paul Ryan and MAGA nativists. The only thing those two wings can agree on is cutting taxes. Today’s Democratic Party at the national level is divided between social democrats who view anyone who disagrees with them as fundamentally evil and Rubinesque technocratism as a façade for plain old machine politics—credentialism as a pretext for personal enrichment. The only thing they can agree on is that more money is needed to accomplish their goals and their goals are forever changing.
Where is there room for compromise? There’s barely room for compromise within the two parties let alone between them. Consequently, Mr. Douthat is preaching kicking the can down the road and hoping for the best as a political strategy.
If only we could get rid of everybody. We need a Mulligan.
I don’t see that characterization of the Democratic Party as accurate, in that there are four factions rather than two: technocratic centrists, identitarian liberals, Left progressives and Left populists
I think that’s another way of analyzing the party but I don’t think it reveals a great deal more. The “technocracatic centrists” continue to hold the reins and will for the foreseeable future. I bundle the other groups you name together because they might make common cause. Mostly they make noise and rile up the crazies. If they managed to dispatch the “technocratic centrists”, it would end the Democratic Party on the national level.
On the other hand, if the technocratic centrists could hold down the others they could probably govern for as far as the eye could see.
What 5 upper echelon officeholders or presidential candidates do you guys see as the technocratic centrists? Because I see Booker, Harris, Holder, Warren, the DNC chair, Schumer, Pelosi all pretty much in the crazy camp.
Nah. Schumer and Perez are definitely Clintonistas. They’re just opportunistic like all Clintonistas. IMO Pelosi is a plain, unvarnished machine politician. Anything else is a pose.
I think you could dissect the parties into more groups as Ben suggested – another example: GoP #nevertrumpers – but I’d look more at the trend lines.
The parties are growing more radical, less representative, more ideological and represent the real interests of fewer and fewer Americans even as they continue to cement their oligopoly on the political process; while, at the same time, resisting internal reform.
They’re augering in, I just don’t know how this ends.
T op
Assume that’s Dave. I can understand that characterization. But it leaves the question, who are these centrist technocrats?
Centrists isn’t my characterization, it’s Ben’s. Let’s try another way of distinguishing between the factions.
The social democrats, progressives, etc. in the party only comprise about a third of the party at this point. The rest are less ideological and more, shall we say, practical. They’re the Goldman-Sachs Democrats, the Wall Street Democrats.
Mostly Clintonistas.
“represent the real interests of fewer and fewer Americans even as they continue to cement their oligopoly on the political process; while, at the same time, resisting internal reform.
They’re augering in, I just don’t know how this ends.”
Sure, but incumbents almost always get re-elected. Surveys keep showing that people hate Congressmen, but they like their own Congressman. The problem is not just with the parties.
Steve
I wasn’t trying to put words in your mouth. But just picking up on your picking up on Bens characterization. In any event, as I thought about it I couldn’t come up with any other label (and characterization) than the Clintonistas. And although the often quoted list of prez candidate’s is long, I really only see that 1/3 non-Clintonistas crowd.
But then, you get Spartacus. So you got that going for ya.