Vote for destruction in November
Anyone who genuinely cares about the future of the Republican Party - and you should if you care about strengthening democracy - has only one option in November: Vote to destroy the party to save it.
I care about the GOP. No one has ever mistaken me for a conservative but I believe our democracy functions best when there is healthy, fact-based competition between liberal and conservative viewpoints. Progressive ideas and policy positions are improved by being challenged, and the best decisions are forged from vigorous debate.
Now, however, we have the Democratic Party on one side and the Republican dumpster fire on the other. The GOP is a cult, held in thrall by an unstable bully and would-be authoritarian. Held captive by a man who sent armed insurrectionists to the Capitol in a violent attempt to overturn his defeat in a free and fair election. Held hostage by a man who punishes any perceived disloyalty with political execution.
At the 2020 Republican National Convention, the GOP didn’t even offer a party platform. Instead, it simply affirmed its “strong support for President Donald Trump” and his “America-first agenda,” whatever that might be at any given moment.
The nation would be foolish, at this point, to expect Republicans to rise up and free themselves. Look at how the congressional negotiations over border security and Ukraine aid have changed since Trump’s New Hampshire victory on Tuesday. Just last week, GOP senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), were optimistic that the package would swiftly be approved by the Senate. But on Wednesday, McConnell told a closed-door meeting of his caucus that there might no longer be a path forward for the bill - because Trump opposes any remedy for the border crisis that might make President Biden look good.
This is insanity. Democrats are offering something Republicans have wanted for years, and might never be offered again: tougher border security without a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the country. But Dear Leader Trump says no and, suddenly, GOP senators are afraid to say yes.
Republicans in Congress, clearly, will not free their party. And it looks doubtful that the GOP base has any intention of breaking the binding chains.
Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley finished a strong second in New Hampshire, becoming the anti-Trump by default. But the next contested primary is a month away, and it is in her home state, which might not feel very welcoming. For four weeks, she will have to survive personal attacks from Trump and calls from Republicans to drop out of the race in the name of party unity. And then, if she makes it to Feb. 24, she will need a miracle.
The RealClearPolitics average of polls in South Carolina shows Trump with a 30-point lead. Those surveys were taken before the other GOP candidates dropped out, so Haley can be expected to close the gap. But virtually all of the state’s Republican elected officials have fallen in line behind Trump including Sen. Tim Scott, whom Haley first appointed to the Senate in 2013 when she was governor, and who obsequiously told Trump “I just love you” during Trump’s New Hampshire victory speech.
It is also wrong to expect the justice system to come to the party’s rescue. It is possible that one or two of the criminal cases against Trump could end - in conviction or acquittal - before November. But that seems to me increasingly unlikely. And even if the former president is a felon, I find it hard to imagine his party throwing him overboard.
What can save the GOP from itself? Defeat. Crushing, unambiguous defeat.
Our political parties reform and reconstitute themselves after being soundly rebuked by the voters. After the disaster of President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation and the aimlessness of the Gerald Ford administration, Republicans regrouped and became the party of Ronald Reagan; his policies were not those I agreed with, but they were coherent and could be negotiated with. After Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis lost successive presidential elections, their party turned to Bill Clinton and the “new Democrats,” whose ideas were a break with the past - and, again, held together as an ideology.
If you want the GOP to be a conservative political party and not a MAGA cult, send Republicans into the wilderness. Vote for Biden. Take away Republicans’ control of the House. Give Democrats a bigger majority in the Senate. Vote Republican officials out of statehouses, city halls and school boards.
Make the metaphorical ashes from which a new GOP can rise.
Eugene Robinson is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group.
Ronald Reagan got called “the Gipper” for one melodramatic scene in the 1940 film “Knute Rockne, All American,” when the Notre Dame coach inspired his team with the dying words of the tragic hero George Gipp: “Sometime, when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell ‘em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper.”
If Hollywood remade that gridiron classic, such schmaltz would have to be updated for today’s athletic realities. His eyes moist, his voice wavering, a modern-day Reagan might struggle to gasp, “When the endorsement deals dry up, and their agents don’t return their calls, when nobody wants them in the transfer portal, and the fans are down on them for skipping a bowl game …”
College football has changed a lot since the days of leather helmets and letter sweaters. For the alumni, and fans nationwide, it might still be about pride and bragging rights. But for the players, it’s all about money and career advancement.
Good for them. Sentimentality is sweet but doesn’t pay the mortgage when your knees are busted out or your knuckles are permanently mangled at the ripe old age of 27.
The colleges, the coaches, the television networks and the marketers have been getting rich off “amateur” football, basketball and very few other sports for decades. It’s about time the “student athletes” — who sweat through two-aday practices and provide the essential entertainment — start cashing in on the few fleeting years that their bodies can bear the battering they endure.
The end of the 2023 football season brought more than the usual level of discontent and acrimony among sports commentators, fans and team administrators. A lot of the outcry focused on Florida State, which was unfairly shut out of the final-four playoffs largely because a very popular quarterback broke his leg. That led to a letdown Orange Bowl game, in which many players opted out.
And, like teams all over the country, the Seminoles lost stalwarts — and probably gained a few — through the transfer portal.
Coaches got lucrative contract extensions,
were fired or retired, or found greener sidelines at various campuses, too. At least there was no pretense of loyalty or team spirit for those paid employees, who can switch schools as readily as any dean or chemistry professor.
It would be good to complete the paradigm shift now, to fully recognize that universities are providing entertainment, charging admission for it, selling broadcast rights to it, peddling team-themed souvenirs and profiting — or hoping to — from the whole business. Let’s just decouple athletics from academics.
The NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball ought to sponsor college teams, as many as they want, as a minor-league farm system.
A college could recruit kids out of high school with a set salary plus a baccalaureate education that’s guaranteed.
But here’s the hook: The four-year education doesn’t have to be the same four years the kid plays. Players could be paid professionals from, perhaps, ages 18 to 22 and then go on to the pros if they’re good enough. If they’re another Tom Brady, they have a great career, never have to work and can donate their scholarship to a needy student, athlete or not.
If they don’t make it — as most won’t — they can fall back on a college education, perhaps in their late 20s.
The pro clubs sponsoring college teams would have first pick of players from those schools, but it would still be up to the players and teams to negotiate contracts in the annual drafts.
Such crass commercialism favors the big schools and the top three men’s sports but that’s already happening. You’re not going to see much of Wofford and Newberry on network TV anytime soon. ESPN will cover women’s swimming and lacrosse in between big basketball tournaments and whatever else the automotive, insurance and beer companies want to sponsor.
Fans could still love their Gators or Bulldogs. Somehow, Alabama will still draw 80,000 for its spring intra-squad game, even if the players are duly compensated for the show they put on.
Bill Cotterell is a retired capitol reporter for United Press International and the Tallahassee Democrat. Distributed by The News Service of Florida.