Pollster and political prognosticator Charlie Cook has a piece in the National Journal arguing that last week was as good a sign as any that Republicans need to do some “soul-searching” and move into the 21st century.
Though Obamacare has been a divisive subject, it is the controversy over the Confederate battle flag and the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision on gay marriage that bring to sharp focus the cultural and generational disconnect between the Republican Party’s conservative base and the direction of the country as a whole.
In the aftermath of the tragic shooting in a Charleston, South Carolina church and the resulting focus
on the Confederate flag, with the notable exception of Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and to a lesser extent, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the GOP contenders initially avoided taking a firm stand on the flag. That is fine with many in their base but not with moderate and/or independent swing voters, or for that matter, many Republicans. And the gay-marriage decision again put GOP presidential contenders in a position of choosing between their base and being on the wrong side of history—with all but a couple choosing the latter.“Simply put, Republicans are loaded up in a car, racing toward a generational cliff with their eyes focused on the rearview mirror, with many (but notably not all) oblivious to the societal changes taking place all around them and the growing wedge building between their comfort zone and presidential swing voters… Republicans need to do some soul-searching about their future and their relationships with voters of generations to come. Vibrant parties change with the times, adapt themselves to changing conditions and circumstances. Maybe this past week will help the GOP do this.”
“If we don’t try to broaden out the map … we’re going to have to win with an inside straight, to use a Vegas term. Inside straight flush or whatever … I’m not a big gambler so I don’t know any gambling—does that sound stupid when you say that?” — Jeb Bush, quoted by Bloomberg.
Yes. On multiple levels.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) “is about the best kind of top challenger” that Hillary Clinton “can have: one who focuses on issues that pretty much every primary voter in their party can agree upon, while doing nothing to challenge her character or competence for office,” the National Journal reports.
David Axelrod, a former campaign strategist for President Obama, said Republican candidates must develop “a Trump strategy.”
“You heard his opening salvos, many of which clanked and created some discomfort among Republicans,” Axelrod said. “Every Republican candidate now has to calculate how they deal with him, particularly in the debates. If he says something outrageous and no one challenges him, that’s bad for them and bad for the Republican Party.”
The prospect of such a Trump moment in a debate invites memories of 2012 Republican primary debates that ended up becoming obstacles for the eventual nominee, Mitt Romney. In one debate, when audience members booed a gay soldier, neither Romney nor any other candidate came to his defense.
Erik Smith, a Democratic strategist who worked on Obama’s campaigns, said the danger for Republicans is that Trump becomes “an anchor” weighing down the party’s brand, especially with Latino, millennial and independent voters.
“The truth is this entire field is currently reinforcing their party’s worst perceptions among the voters they need the most,” Smith said. “Trump simply super-charges it. He turns the volume up to 11.”
The legalization of same-sex marriage is a potent example of a dominant theme in American history: Over time, civil rights expand, and discrimination ebbs.
Discrimination doesn’t end, as a recent mass shooting and some police interactions with the public have made clear. There have even been long periods, like the aftermath of Reconstruction, when rights have contracted. But the exceptions don’t disprove the rule. On basic issues — who can vote, who can work, who can serve in elected office, who can marry — the country tends to move in one broad direction.
As a result, it’s fair to divide the major issues in American political life into two broad categories. In one category are the rights-based issues in which the future can be safely predicted. In the other category — which includes abortion, gun control and climate change — there is far less clarity about the direction of public opinion.
Like all mood changes that take place in a mass society, it takes a great deal of groundswell for there to be any uprising that forces government to change. The cycle we are in has been 40 years in the making. The Republican Party has been masterful in using culture war wedge issues as a means of attracting and distracting voters, while they used their time in office to repeatedly pass legislation that favored business over workers and downshifted costs to individuals, which accelerated the erosion of stagnant wages. They have smugly gone about the business of enriching themselves and their sponsors, comfortable in the knowledge that Americans are largely uninformed and do not pay attention to the details of the legislative process.
This time around, however, the evolution of the Republicans will come too late for them to maintain the control they have had over their base. As the party is forced to shift away from cultural issues, it will become increasingly clear that the Republican stance on economics has not benefitted small business, as they claim; it has not benefited American families, as they claim; it has not benefitted students; and it has not benefitted workers. However, the Republican stance has uniformly and consistently disadvantaged the working American under the guise of “unwarranted government welfare,” “freedom to chose,” and “liberty from government interference.”
As that reality is broadcast by an increasingly progressive Democratic Party, combined with a president who only recently realized that he could display his liberal side, economic issues will continue to erode the Republican Party’s control over the public it seeks to attract.