Tag: Ronald Reagan

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I grew up under a different Republican Party (and admittedly a different Democratic Party as well). The Republican Party of my youth won elections big. The biggest vote getter was Ronald Reagan. He called himself a big tent Republican. Republicans didn’t have to agree with him 100% of the time. He was all right with that if they stuck with him most of the time. He also famously worked with Democrat Tip O’Neill in creating budgets that both the Democrats and Republicans could live with. Reagan showed how well the big tent worked by winning two two landslide elections.

Something Republican candidates for President can’t do anymore. Since 1992, Republicans have won a majority of the popular vote once — 2004. This depressing statistic doesn’t seem to bother them in the least. Indeed, they are moving to a strategy that is puzzling. They only want true believers and, because they only want true believers, they are chasing away members who actually would prefer to stay. Really Liz Cheney, George Will, where the Hell are they supposed to go but the present party leadership wants to scream Liberal when they walk in the door. So instead of going to a big tent, they want to move to a much smaller tent, let’s call it the pup tent strategy.

You can catch this strategy if you watch the endless election of the Speaker of the House. The normal procedure is that the Republicans would choose their candidate through a majority vote of the Republican members. The guy (or gal) who got the majority of the votes would then become Speaker. This tried and true system no longer works for Republicans because they hate each other so much that one individual member always will hold grudge for anyone who winds up being their candidate for speaker. Just because someone has a majority of the votes doesn’t mean I have to respect the majority’s decision. We certainly have known this since the 2020 election but that involved a Democrat which, while troubling, is at least understandable. Republicans are supposed to hate Democrats but that they turned this hatred on to Republicans is a bit of shock. I am enjoying it tremendously but I don’t understand it. So a party where members pretty much agree about everything will torpedo one of their own — making their party a laughingstock because of a petty disagreement with the guy who won. It makes no sense at all, at least no sense for a party that wants to win an election.

The present Republican Party would rather quarrel. Kevin McCarthy had to sell his soul and, even that wasn’t enough, they still kicked him out. Steve Scalise preferred to bow out rather than be humiliated by numerous failed votes. Jim Jordon tried to steamroll his way into winning and ended up pissing off so many people that they wouldn’t buy his soul if he was the last soul on earth. So a revolving number of Republican members continue to thwart majority rule. Because. Because. Because they can???

And after thwarting these men, all who had at one time were the choice of the majority of Republicans, they are about to destroy any future candidates chances. Tom Emmer’s name is being batted around as the next victim person to run for Speaker. Instead of saying great here is the person to lead, there are Republicans saying that Emmer is Nancy Pelosi in a suit. Now that is about as low as a Republican can get when throwing insults around and, unsurprisingly, not even remotely true. Emmer’s only sin is accepting the election of Joe Biden in the 2020 election otherwise his record is similar to every other Republican in Congress and certainly doesn’t match Nancy Pelosi record. Hyperbole I guess but Jesus this seems to be way beyond hyperbole.

And it is going to get even worse. If a minority can hold finance bills hostage, this minority will do it. McCarthy was able to delay this reckoning. It is in fact what did him in — cooperating with Democrats. So we know there are enough Republicans who would rather shut down government than have a bill that has any Democrats fingerprint on it. Since Biden is a Democrat and the Senate is run by the Democrats, Democrats, by the very structure of our government, are going to have their fingerprints on it. The idea, at least in the past, was that people worked together to find a bill that would get a majority of votes. It is hard work and difficult but government has to run and the only fair way to do this is by majority rule. But Republicans don’t care about majority rule and they certainly can’t pass a bill that Democrats may like and so they will shut down the government. Of course, their true believers will love it but what about everyone else. Pup tent thinking.

But these Republicans aren’t interested in creating a broad center right party. They are working to make voting harder instead of trying to attract new voters. There is even talk of limiting the franchise to fewer and fewer voters — to land owners only, to people who have children only, to men only ( see here and here). Ideas that have long gone ago passed their expiration dates but, because the Republicans aren’t able to persuade a majority of Americans to side with them, they are fondly remembering that you were once able to choose your voters and are trying tirelessly to make that happen.

Compromise is the only way the American system works. It isn’t perfect but it is the system we have. If you can gain more seats, you don’t have to compromise as much as the other party but you will still have to compromise. That compromise is seen as a problem speaks to a much bigger problem that Republicans seem to have with democratic institutions. Working with the system we have and making it work isn’t nearly as much fun as making the system dysfunctional. They don’t give a damn what the majority wants and apparently have no interest in making the tent larger. Indeed, some even don’t believe the majority should decide. That is a problem.

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The present Republican party loves love fighting each other, if not more, than they like fighting Democrats. The recent Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene dustup was shockingly unnecessary and brutally public. If I understand this correctly, Greene called Boebert a bitch and, not under her breath, out loud so Boebert could hear her. There were some extra adjectives dangling before the actual word bitch but I am on a roll here and don’t want to lose my momentum so I am not going to stop and look them up, suffice it to say they weren’t very nice and Boebert got pissed about it.

On the other hand, was it a faux pas worthy of kicking Greene out of the Freedom Caucus. Boebert and Greene agree about almost everything, what is a little name calling among friends? This is really nothing, right? Not something to make a public scene about. Why put their party in a bad light over something so petty? But apparently I am wrong. Petty as it appears to be, the two battlers are making this public. I don’t know about you but I would be mortified if everyone in my office knew I was arguing with a coworker about being called a bitch. I would have to quit from the embarrassment.

This is, I think we can all agree, small potatoes. There are other arguments going on as well. The Never Trumps like George Will, the Bushes, Liz Cheney, who are basically in ideological agreement with the Republican Agenda, they just hate Trump are also battling with the Trump Republicans. The Trumpies like to imply that the Never Trumps are somehow not real Conservative Republicans because they are critical of Trump. Loyalty to Trump is now the baseline that Trump requires from all Republicans. This means that the Never Trump Republicans will continue to hate Trump from afar as Trump will not go away. In a normal political party this is where the party elders might come in and tell everyone to play nice. Except that the party elders are all almost universally despised by the Trump Republicans. So, even if they did try to bring peace, it isn’t going to matter.

At this point, Republican Party brawling is a pretty reliable expectation, kind of like Saturday night boxing. So I thought I was inured to this petty but vicious infighting until I read this column by Robert Zimmerman. He is mad at Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz. Zimmerman sounds really far right wing, but not that much further right than Cruz, a senator that only the Reddist of Republicans could love. Cruz was apparently too accommodating with the Democratic Majority when dealing with a matter in the senate. That Cruz is in the minority and his hands were tied is irrelevant. He should have made a scene. I am certain Cruz was perfectly willing to make a scene when he sees potential gain but he does have to space them out to make them more effective. If he were to make a scene every day, he might be mistaken for Marjorie Taylor Greene and nobody wants that distinction.

The funny thing, at least I find it amusing, is that this destructive political infighting used to be the province of Democrats. All of these Republicans trying to pick up the mantle of Reagan forget that he was comfortable with a party that included a lot of different factions. Reagan was remarkably adept at keeping all these sometimes contentious factions in the same boat and, for the most part, rowing in the same direction. His 11th Commandment was thy will not speak ill of a fellow Republican. And, speaking as someone who didn’t like his politics, this was no mean feat. Reagan, if you will recall, also won elections with landslide margins. Trump can’t say that and will never be able to. He is poison to half of the electorate.

Don’t get me wrong. Personally, nothing makes me happier than Republicans on a suicide mission. But it is stunning to hear their lack of self awareness when talking about RINOs (Republican in Name Only) here and RINOs there and then complaining about election rigging. RINOs do vote. Their complaints might be more believable if they didn’t spend so much time bad mouthing their own party members.. Theoretically, in order to win elections, you have to add members to your party to achieve a majority and not chase members away. The sad truth that Republicans can’t face is that Trump doesn’t give a damn about the Republican Party. He cares only about Donald Trump and if he has to destroy fellow Republicans to get what he wants, he will happily do so. I don’t think you can say the same thing about Ronald Reagan and there, my friends, is the difference between a landslide and a close election.