GOP battling to survive
Ravaged party must rebuild coalition after Trump
In 1972, I ran as a Republican in a statewide election for a seat on the New York Court of Appeals. The Republican ticket that year was headed by an extremely popular President, Richard M. Nixon.
Nixon won that election by carrying 49 states and 520 electoral votes. Compare that to Donald Trump’s 2016 win of 30 states and 306 electoral votes. By any measure, Nixon was a far more popular president in 1972 than ever was Trump during his presidency.
Then came Watergate. That scandal, coupled by Nixon’s conduct during the cover-up and his firing of those he thought “disloyal,” became a national embarrassment.
It took years for the Republican Party to rid itself of the stench of Watergate and the humiliation of a vengeful president. The party was reconstructed by what are now referred to as “establishment Republicans.”
Trump has tweeted that “establishment” Republicans who did not support him, “though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats. Watch out for them, they are human scum.”
It is true that many Republicans did not support Trump’s divisive rhetoric, his debasement of our intelligence community, his overreach of executive powers allowed by a submissive Senate, his condoning extraordinary deficit spending, his cozying up to tyrants and white supremacists, his demagoguery and his endless and disparaging tweets. Far from being “human scum,” however, they still consider themselves Republicans who believe in the principles of the party of Abraham Lincoln, which has become more inclusive over time. They proved that at the ballot box — not by signing on to Trump’s movement, but by believing in the principles that made America great. Our Republican Party establishment still persists. And though Trump did not win, Republicans made impressive downballot gains across America.
That does not mean that today’s Republican Party, which did not enact a party platform this year, speaks for any principles at all – other than being against abortion, Muslims, most immigrants, democratic socialism and those who have been “disloyal” to Trump. Recent events have shown that, despite the fact that our nation is imperiled by a deadly virus, vast unemployment, bankruptcies and evictions, the Republican Party seems more concerned with determining who started the “Russia hoax,” winning the two Senate seats in Georgia and raising funds to provide fees for Rudolph Giuliani to defend Trump’s lost campaign.
Today’s Republican Party has badly damaged the Reagan coalition by excluding so many people. After the election of 2016, many thought that the Republican establishment was doomed. It was not. The big question now is whether, after this last election and the way Republicans are supporting Trump’s incoherent actions and his false claims of fraud, the Republican Party will survive at all.
It will not unless it welcomes the ideological Republicans back in and sets its sights on building a new coalition. The time frame for doing this rebuilding has historically been amazingly short — less than three presidential cycles. Just as the Calvin Coolidge folks would not have recognized the party of Nixon, the Republicans of 2032 will likely not recognize the party of Trump. Once you destroy your governing coalition, you need to build a new one — and the Trump paradigm that looks back to a very different demographic past than what we will see in the future can never last beyond the next cycle or two.
If you doubt that, you probably aren't talking to enough millennials or Generation Z folks. If my interaction with them is representative, they seem to be concerned about the COVID-19 pandemic, health care, treatment of the mentally ill, and the environment; not very worried about immigration (except the notion that children were separated from their parents at the border); and not at all interested in rigid ideology.
They seem much more interested in a lifestyle based on “live and let live.” They recognize that people aren’t necessarily defined by the kind of work they do. They are not particularly deterred by any label—be it “socialist” or “redistributionist” or “communist” or “conservative” or “liberal.” They loath “white supremacists” and those who use peaceful protest as an excuse for acts of vandalism almost as much as those who confuse “nationalism” with “patriotism.”
This is hard for some of us from older generations to understand, as we are busy whipping our parties to the extreme base, but the future will be where it has always been — in the pragmatic center. The Republican Party does not belong to Trump or those who watch silently as he destroys what is left of it. This current madness will pass, hopefully without the necessity of great pain. We don’t want democratic socialism, we don’t want to defund the police, but we do want a return to decency, and we want our party back.
After the election of 2016, many thought that the Republican establishment was doomed; it was not. The big question now is whether, after this last election and the way Republicans are supporting Trump’s incoherent actions and his false claims of fraud, the Republican Party will survive at all.