Is the GOP more substantial than just kissing Trump’s ring? Many commentators describe the Republican party hollowing. I’ve written about it for years, so I was cynical before this started, but even I’m shocked at their dark turn the last few years. In 2020, Republicans dropped their policies in favor of Trumpian idolatry. Then they decided they didn’t need goals anymore, settling for their many grievances. Now, the GOP routinely opposes legislation the majority of Republicans want to see passed. What are Republicans planning? What does the end game look like? This doesn’t make sense, so I find myself wondering: what are we missing?
Here’s a measure of political reality. Imagine your party opposes a new bill. You do all the usual things to stop it: you argue against it, you demonize the writers, you mischaracterize the results, and so on. If it’s popular, you fold or double down. When the bill finally comes to a vote, you do your last calculations. Politicians may not be the best or the brightest, but every representative can count. If you’re going to lose, you make the best of it. Dozens of politicians would switch sides, voting for the bill they opposed. It’s cheap, it preserves whatever popularity you have, and it opens the door to claiming credit later. Tawdry or not, it’s a practical and common political maneuver.
By comparison, look at the American Rescue Plan. The bill was highly popular, even with conservative voters. There were no surprises in the process; everyone knew the contents and commitments well ahead of the vote. And yet, every single Republican voted against it. Every one. A few Republicans took credit for the benefits anyway, and the press quickly savaged them.
The new infrastructure bill is equally popular. Republicans falsely promised infrastructure spending for the last four years. Democrats finally write a big proposal with lots of money. And yet, despite seeing all that money, Republicans stepped away. Professional politicians would have larded the bill with as many popular Republican programs as possible. But not today’s GOP. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell preemptively announced that no Republicans would support this popular idea. The bill, he insisted, would not gain a single Republican vote. McConnell didn’t care how many GOP priorities Biden added or how many compromises the other side made.
Republicans acted that way despite having seen how badly their standing had dropped the first time they used that approach.
This is political insanity.
I see three possible reasons:
- They’re all crazy. This seems unlikely.
- Republicans saw positive, popular votes as damaging compared with blunt obstruction. Given their dropping popularity, this seems unlikely as well.
- Republicans don’t value their popularity the way they used to.
The last option frightens me. Republicans have no apparent goals. They stage Trump loyalty purges, shout nonsense grievances, try to ignite new cultural wars, and call for increasingly biased ‘vote recounts.’ That’s not inspirational; it’s political petty vandalism. It’s hard to overemphasize how unusual this is for a major political party out of power.
Most Republicans aren’t idiots. (Ignore, if only briefly, Paul Gosar, Louie Gohmert, Ron Johnson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and (of course) Donald Trump.) Most Republicans understand the polling results. For all their lies to each other, they can see what happens. They can’t capture the loyalists without Trump, but Trump’s terrible reputation drags down everyone who tries to ride his coattails.
When you speak to Republicans privately, most acknowledge that the election was fair, that Trump is wrong about his claims, and minuscule fraud. They know that their party is only undermining voting rights to give Republicans an unfair political advantage. They know the truth of Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the other laws.
What are Republicans planning for their future?
The integrity of the 2020 election was threatened, but only from Republican meddling. And it wasn’t trivial. Finishing with a fair election was a near thing, frequently close to failure. What would have happened if Michigan officials had rejected the honest election results? Or if the election officials in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania had followed suit? The idea of “Republican election officials” should be an oxymoron, but it isn’t.
The House’s anti-democratic vote to reject Biden’s election victory only failed because Republicans didn’t have a majority.
Since the election, state Republican parties are granting themselves more power to interfere. In the 2020 Georgia election, the legislature wanted to override the state election results, but they didn’t have the authority. And Georgia state Republicans just voted themselves many new powers, including overriding state elections. It’s now legal under Georgia state law for the Republican-controlled legislature to discard election results they don’t like.
I’m profoundly afraid of what Republicans are planning. The GOP spent decades building themselves institutional advantages to lock in their power. From voting restrictions to Gerrymandering, Republicans already embedded substantial electoral benefits into the current system. State parties are adding hundreds of new state-level laws to expand that advantage.
And national Republicans are acting as if the fundamentals of representative democracy don’t matter to them. Do they feel the fix is in?
What are the Republicans planning?
