An editorial this weekend in the New York Times, R.I.P., G.O.P., bemoaned the state of the Republican Party, wondering if Trump’s tenure has left it for dead. “The Party of Lincoln had a good run,” said the sub-head, “then came Mr. Trump.”
”It would be more precise,” the writer acknowledged, “to say that Mr. Trump accelerated his party’s demise, exposing the rot that has been eating at its core for decades and leaving it a hollowed-out shell devoid of ideas, values or integrity, committed solely to preserving its own power even at the expense of democratic norms, institutions and ideals."
If only the writer had stopped right there. But that nod to reality was over as quickly as it began.
This editorial is off the mark in so many ways, not the least of which is that it ever so briefly assigns fault to the GOP over the past 50 years, but then spends more than 90 percent of its word count blaming Trump. (I counted.) Calling the GOP the party of fiscal conservatism and family values, the editorial writer fails to note that the "fiscal conservatism" applies primarily to ensuring poor people don't get free lunch (though for the wealthy and the military there is always an all-you-can-eat buffet), and "family values" applies only to GOP-approved families and never involves ensuring family-controlled family planning or bodily autonomy for women and trans folks. This GOP has, since FDR, opposed every single initiative which might have brought comfort to the masses at minimal cost to the uber-wealthy. Every single one.
(While we might be tempted to try to give Nixon a pass for his support of clean water and air, plus his flirtation with with the notion of a universal basic income, his war-mongering, paranoid “enemies list,” racist Southern strategy and creation of a drug war to disrupt black communities far outweighed whatever goodwill he might have almost earned.)
The writer calls it "dismaying" that the GOP has been destroyed by Trump; I'm more of a mind to consider it a gift and a relief that this mean-spirited party of McConnell, Gingrich, Ryan, Rove and Cheney, plus McCarthy, Goldwater, Helms and Wallace, might be meeting its demise. Long overdue, it is no more a loss than the Know Nothings of the mid-19th century.
The editor waxes wistfully about the need for a center-right party to counter the worst impulses of the far right and mourns such a loss, but given the number of Republicans now finding a comfortable home in Biden's Democratic Party, I'd say we already have a center/center-right party. What we're missing is a party of the left. (And lest you argue that the “radical left” is as much a problem as the right, I would remind us that the further left you veer, the more surrounded you are by people who work for the common good, who try to make other people’s lives better.)
The editorial ends with a mystery of whether Trump's damage is short-term or forever, and a hope that the GOP can reclaim a measure of its prior socially responsible posture. I can't believe I have to say this to the New York Times: they never had such a posture. To prove my point, but not theirs so much, they quote "longtime (Republican) party strategist" Stuart Stevens: Trump “is the logical conclusion of what the Republican Party has become in the last 50 or so years.” He recommends “Burn it to the ground, and start over.”
I couldn't agree more. But thanks to the Lincoln Republicans, the bankers and faux cross-overs like John Kasich, the actual Dems are the ones who should start over. Hand the GOP the keys to the DNC office, and start fresh on the left edge of town.
We have the foundational platform and we have the polls that show that the public supports it — things like universal healthcare, generous immigration quotas, reproductive choice, LGBTQ rights to live, marry and make families, mitigation of the climate crisis, increased minimum wage, and a strong desire to keep any particular religion out of the arena of public policy. Majorities support police reform, racial justice, reduction of prison populations, gun control. A greater percentage of people think we should provide more support for people in need rather than less, and most people think corporations have too much power.
In short, we have the numbers among voters; we just continually insist on trying to appease a minority of folks who have managed to solidify power over the majority. We are riding that phantom “unity” bus right to into the wall.
We can’t get there with a unity appeal, because the opposition is driving a power train. The GOP is as good at amassing power as the Dems are bad at casting a compelling vision or working the system to get stuff done.
It remains to be seen whether we have the intestinal fortitude we’ll need to shake off the dust of billionaires, fiscal Scrooges, militaristic police unions, extreme moralists and war-mongers — who surely will never vote our way anyway — and to rebalance the federal judiciary that decades of right-wingers have packed.
There are things a newly elected Democratic majority could do about this.
I wish I were confident Joe Biden is the one — and maybe he’ll surprise me. Certainly removing Trump and reclaiming the Senate are vital next steps.
But when it turns out that Biden and the Dems can’t — or won’t — we should be ready with a progressive party that knows what America is really hungry for.
Spoiler alert: It is not a rebirth of the perhaps once Grand Old Party. The New York Times knows this.