Post-policy Republicans and what Democrats should do
The below article goes perfectly with my last piece on the state of the conservative movement. This week, conservatives and Republicans of many stripes gathered in Orlando for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The event, which lasted several days, discussed next to nothing on policy. It was almost entirely a festival of grievances. Attendees railed against the media, cancel culture, the left, wokeness and the usual bogeymen. This quote from Ron DeSantis says it all, “We can sit around and have academic debates about conservative policy, we can do that, but the question is, when the klieg lights get hot, when the left comes after you: Will you stay strong, or will you fold?”
Trump spoke at the end. His speech focused heavily on the tax code, infrastructure, healthcare, immigration, COVID relief and foreign policy towards China. Just kidding, it was entirely his greatest hits. Since November, he has a new greatest hit, claiming the election was stolen, and he focused on it the most.
As the article notes, there was no discussion of what went wrong for Republicans in 2020. In their defense, trying to figure out what went wrong in one election is risky in that a party can wind up fighting the last battle and not thinking ahead. Still, some self-reflection is usually necessary and there was none of that. Not a single person there spoke against Trump or his influence. As far as attendees and speakers were concerned, it is full Trump ahead. Jim Jones must be seething with envy.
The fact is the Republican Party is a post-policy party right now. Gone are debates about the US role in the world, immigration, jobs, infrastructure, etc. While this lack of interest in policy pre-dates Trump, he accelerated it into the dominant force that it is today. Despite having lost re-election, the House and the Senate, he is still worshipped as a deity. There was even a golden statue of him at CPAC, no joke, see below.
The world is not (totally) your oyster, Democrats
As things go now, I would much rather be the Democrats than the Republicans. The Democrats are fortunate in so many ways that Joe Biden is their leader. He has focused on providing relief from COVID and has worked to accelerate vaccine distribution, which is far and away the most important task in front of him. His next priority looks to be infrastructure, which should be popular and avoid an ideological or cultural battle.
It is ideological and cultural battles that most concern me. Laugh at the Republicans all you want, but remember that we have only two parties and when one party struggles, by default the other benefits. This is to say that if Democrats struggle, Republicans will be the ones who benefit from it, regardless of how dysfunctional and devoid they are of any substantive policies.
Right now, the Democrats have bare majorities in the House and Senate. It would not take a big loss for those majorities to go away. Historically, the party in the White House almost always loses seats in midterm elections. The good news is this is not set in stone.
Next year’s elections could be different from most other midterms. In a best-case, but not farfetched scenario, COVID will be long behind us. Life will have returned to normal. Biden will get high marks for his handling of the pandemic and will benefit from the subsequent economic boom. Unlike Trump, Biden will not exhaust everyone and squander their goodwill. The big-ticket items enacted will be the COVID relief package and an infrastructure bill and both will be overwhelmingly popular with the public. Anything else passed will be small-scale, low profile and have bipartisan support. Unlike 2009-10, Democrats will be proud of what they passed and will campaign heavily on it. If this scenario plays out, the Democrats could wind up keeping Congress next year and even making modest gains.
This is the opportunity Democrats have in front of them. They can take advantage of the Republicans being a post-policy cult of personality and maximize their appeal. To do this, though, they will have to avoid doing things that give Republicans oxygen. This is what worries me. My concern is that Democrats might go too far leftward and push for things that are unpopular and alienate large swaths of people. That potential exists with most issues if they are taken to their extremes.
Democrats need to remember that if they alienate people, by default they will go to Republicans because they are the only alternative. Despite their many problems, if Republicans can just make the case that Democrats are bad and they are not them, that should be enough for them to win, at least in the midterms.
Democrats do not have a license to do whatever they want. People clearly are not sold on Trump and Trumpism, but that does not mean they are far-left. This is not to say Democrats should avoid all issues, they should not. It is to say that when they push for something, be it healthcare, immigration, climate change, etc., they should go for the widest possible number of people and take the path of least resistance. This would likely mean curbing many of their ambitions and that the far-left wing of the party will have to take a back seat.
Someone reading this may be thinking, “But doesn’t Andy not like the far-left? Isn’t this self-serving?” Admittedly, it is convenient for me. I do not care for far-left ideas like abolishing private insurance, abolishing ICE and throwing open the borders. Then again, those ideas are not popular among the public either. I support immigration reform like what the Senate has passed before. I support the Affordable Care Act and expanding its subsidies. I support raising the minimum wage and addressing climate change. These issues can be addressed without alienating a large swath of people.
Outside of legislation, my main concern is the cultural left becoming a dominant force among Democrats or at least perceived as such. I have written before about my dislike of that crowd and am not going to repeat it here. What I will say is that these elements give more oxygen to Republicans than anything else by far. That is almost all of what anyone at CPAC talked about. Just turn on Fox or read right-wing websites or listen to right-wing radio and that is almost all of what they talk about. That is what unites them far more than dislike of anything else. If anyone reading this thinks I’m exaggerating, just know that today much of the right-wing media complex spent the bulk of its time talking about Dr. Seuss supposedly being canceled. You didn’t hear about that story? Good for you, you really don’t want to know.
The good news is I really do not see how a campaign against cancel culture would really work. If Democrats are running on a booming economy and their substantive accomplishments while Republicans are running against whatever their latest cultural grievance is, I would much rather be Democrats. As animating as cultural battles are for some, I would guess that more than 90% of the public has never heard of any of them. I highly doubt Joe Biden will get involved in any cultural battles. I suspect he is among the 90+%, which is very much to his credit.
Needless to say, November 2022 is a long time from now. Nobody knows what will be going on then. For better or worse, Democrats can only control so many things. In 2010, the economy was in shambles and Democrats were in the White House and bore the brunt of the dissatisfaction. A big loss was inevitable. There are many kinds of things that could go wrong for Democrats and Biden between now and then. That includes many things beyond their control, i.e., a crisis abroad or an economic downturn.
What is important is to focus on the things that they have control over. Both can control what legislation they pursue. They can also control whether they engage in cultural battles or focus on things that are unpopular. It should go without saying that they should not do things that are unethical or illegal or tolerate anyone who does.
Democrats, for the sake of the country, need to focus on things that are popular and not alienating. If that means forgoing some long-held ambitions, so be it. The Republican Party right now is a despicable party that is completely unfit to be anywhere near the reins of power. All kidding aside, I believe most of their elected officials are a threat to democracy. Huge majorities of them in the House voted to overturn the election. Rather than trying to convince people that they have good ideas to improve their lives, they want to make it harder for people to vote, justifying it by claiming the election was stolen. These are not people who are good, but mistaken, they are bad and authoritarian. They need to be out of power until they decide to start caring about governing and ideas again. For those who care about democracy, that needs to be the number one priority.
