Should We Welcome the Republican Party’s Descent Into Insanity?

Posted by Peter Frase on 11/13/08 • Categorized as Domestic

After any massive electoral failure comes the backstabbing and recriminations, and the Republican Party is proving to be unexceptional in this regard. The only real question is who will win out in the GOP’s civil war: the reformers who would like to move the party toward a more inclusive form of Christian Democracy, or the dead-enders who want to double down on right-wing orthodoxy. And for the moment, it appears that the wingnuts are winning.

If this happens, what should the left think about it? By “the left”, I mean all of us who have a politics that is well to the left of the Democratic Party mainstream, even if we may pragmatically work for or with Democrats. Is it good or bad for our political project if the Republicans retreat into a hermetically sealed cocoon of right wing nuttery?

There’s a certain school of thought on the liberal left that sees this development as a bad thing. The general line of argument is that there will always be an opposition party, and the prospects for progressive policy are better if the opposition is made up of reasonable moderates rather than ideological extremists. And indeed, all things considered it would preferable not to have to do battle with a crypto-fascist mass movement made up of anti-intellectual religious fanatics, which seems to be the direction the GOP is going. And I will note in passing that one very real and scary consequence of this turn is going to be a revival of right-wing domestic terrorism, as we saw in the 1990′s.

But I nvertheless think that the pious liberal wish for a better and more responsible Republican Party is shortsighted. I take a broader view: the way American politics moves to the left is not by having the Republicans become more moderate, but by having the Republican party disintegrate entirely.

Let me elaborate. The desire for “good Republicans” rests on the premise that the existence of the current two-party setup is a permanent and unchangeable feature of American politics. And it’s true that given the way the American political system is set up, there’s a very strong bias toward having only two major parties. However, that doesn’t mean it has to be these two parties. Before the civil war, after all, the two parties were the Democrats and the Whigs. And what happened to the Whigs? Their party disintegrated after it became impossible to reconcile the ideological tensions between different factions. Out of that implosion came the modern Republican party. And the end of the Whigs also set the stage for the most momentous progressive advance in American history: the end of slavery.

Could the Republicans really go the way of the Whigs? For some speculation along those lines, see here. The idea that the Republican party could actually collapse is, admittedly, pretty far-fetched–but then, making socialist politics a plausible orientation is also pretty implausible, as we saw in the absurd waning days of the Presidential campaign.

My dream for the next few years of American politics goes something like this. First, the Republicans continue to Palinize themselves and commit to an increasingly absurd and unpopular right wing politics. This leads to further isolation and electoral losses, as Obama wins a second term and eventually commands a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate. Seeing that the GOP is doomed, the remaining moderates jump ship for the Democratic Party, leaving the Republicans as a shrunken rump, a Know-nothing party whose shrinking base is primarily among evangelical Christians and southern Whites.

This would produce a situation where the US was essentially a one-party democracy at the national level. Such an equilibrium is inherently unstable, however, and you would soon see major battles between the left, Bernie Sanders-Russ Feingold-Barbara Lee-etc. wing of the party and the pro-business “Blue Dog” right wing of the party. Which, in my dream, ultimately causes the Democratic party to split apart as well, leading to a new status quo in which the two parties are a social democratic “Progressive” party and a center right party of Blue Dogs and moderate conservatives. In this scenario, the far right that currently dominates the Republican Party would be relegated to something like the same status leftists have now: marginal to electoral politics, and forced to support a party that they find ideologically objectionable.

As I said, this is a far-fetched scenario. But I don’t think it’s impossible, and it seems to me that this is the only way to realize Michael Harrington’s old dream of left-wing “realignment” in the Democratic Party. So I would propose this as a vision of what we as leftists should be aiming for at the level of electoral politics, a vision of where we want to go in the medium- to long-term.

But I am not really a scholar of American Politics, so there are probably good reasons why this imagined future is totally impossible. I look forward to hearing those reasons in the comments.

Tagged as: Blue Dog Democrats, do-nothing-party, presidential campaign, realignment, Republican Party, Whigs

7 Comments

Terrence Nielsen
November 13, 2008 • 7:54 pm

I wonder how the G.O.P. intends to attract younger voters like myself? (I’m 27) I believe in small federal government, strong state and individual rights, the 2nd amendment, no negotiating with Iran or Venezuela or N.Korea unless certain conditions are met, I am for an expanded development of military technology and personel and for working hard and succeding on your own merit. Yet because I don’t think our constitution should arbitrarally amended to ban gay marriage or abortion, I am some how not a republican. In staying true to the conservative tennets of small federal government and greater individual freedom one must also think this includes no government decisions or judgements on personal decisions as well. I would dare or even invite some one to tell me I am not a true conservative or a true republican. I just hope that the rest of those with similar views to my own don’t let themselves be pushed out or drowned out because we can’t let the religious wing take over. It would be the end of moderation and pragmatism. Both of which we need to conquer the full menu of issues facing us.

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Adrian Bleifuss Prados
November 16, 2008 • 6:16 pm

Recent discussions about the future of the GOP have described a good-faith “battle of ideas” between the party’s different constituencies.

In the end the American right will do whatever it takes, principles-be-damned, to secure the best possible deal for big capital. No doubt the think-tankers and the Very Serious People will have a lot to say and Edmund Burke will be quoted ad nauseam … but ultimately these debates are really between the costume, lighting and set design departments of the Republican Party’s theater company. Let’s remember that Ross Douthat, the wunderkind of the GOP’s reform wing, heralded Sarah Palin as the new face of the party before she turned out to be a total fucking moron.

If the GOP takes a populist turn (and I think it will) it will be due to the social pressures and anxieties that will attend this recession (mini depression?) and not thanks to some brilliant argument from David Brooks or any other center-right conventional wisdom boob.

The cheapest and easiest populism – the populism of first resort – is the purely rhetorical Joe the Plumber shtick we saw in the last months of the campaign. It requires no real concessions or adjustments to the political program.

Should this kind toothless populism fail as it did on November 4th, the right can shift to a meatier but riskier populism based on national, cultural and ethnic chauvinism, redirecting social grievances of economically traumatized voters and turning them against international financiers, immigrants, sexual minorities, etc. This kind of brownshirt conservatism is already a reality in theTancredo wing of the GOP, but it runs the risk of developing into an economic nationalism that would also pose a number of problems for business.

Finally, if things look really grim, the right might consider striking a bargain with the enemy. This might mean meeting the left halfway via some kind of Christian Democratic welfarism, or New Deal style collusion between the government, social movements and corporations.

Whether the right chooses to resist, coopt or accommodate the popular pressures it will face in the coming years will depend on the strength of its political poker hand. Since this is a huge country, I bet the right will probably adopt a number of strategies depending on the region.

I take the vulgar conspiracy-theorist view that these strategic calculations really are being made by fat cats in smoke filled rooms. I have no doubt that the Club for Growth, the Family Research Council and the big lobbies are debating and considering these options at this very moment.

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