A ‘Strong’ GOP Is Bad For America
And it always has been.
Republicans just passed a hateful, cruel budget that will cost 17 million Americans their health care, let children go hungry, and give tax breaks to billionaires, who prefer that the poor die quietly and away from view. Congressional Republicans were not forced into submission by Donald Trump. They voted for this abomination of their own free will. It’s the perfect distillation of right-wing priorities — they will gut Medicaid while funneling billions into Trump’s anti-immigrant secret police. As long as the “right” people are suffering, Republicans are satisfied.
It’s time we all agree that the Republican Party is irredeemable — though that’s too generous a word. There was never anything to redeem. What we are witnessing now is the GOP unfiltered and unrestrained.
Mainstream Democrats have so desperately desired a noble opponent — at least from the right — that they have imagined an idealized version of the GOP that has simply never existed.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hoped that Republicans would finally reject Trump, even though they had enabled him at every turn.
“One of my prayers is that the Republicans will take back their party,” Pelosi said. “The country needs a strong Republican Party. It’s done so much for our country, and to have it be hijacked as a cult at this time is really a sad thing for America.”
The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing so many people, including Democrats, that the GOP was almost respectable before Trump. Pelosi was asking supposed “good” Republicans to “take back their party” back when Barack Obama was president and Donald Trump was hosting The Apprentice.
The Republican Party has done nothing good for the nation since Pelosi was in bobby socks. After George W. Bush passed his surplus-shredding tax cuts in 2001, Grover Norquist boasted that he wanted the government small enough to drown in a bathtub. Ronald Reagan cynically said in 1986, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” He was the leader of the federal government! This has always been a party more interested in picking the poor’s pockets than in actual governance.
Whenever Republicans have gained power, they’ve worked to roll back any gains marginalized groups have made during the liberal-led rights revolution. Reproductive freedom was a frequent target. Yet, in 2019, Joe Biden expressed concern that Republicans could suffer too great a loss in the upcoming election. He seriously worried about what would happen if the GOP got “clobbered” up and down the ballot.
“I’m really worried that no party should have too much power,” Biden said. “You need a countervailing force.”
The future Democratic nominee really went around hoping his party didn’t beat Republicans too bad. Their kids were watching after all.
In this alternate reality that Biden apparently dreaded, Democrats might’ve flipped Senate seats in North Carolina and Maine. They could’ve ignored Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and killed the filibuster — protecting voting rights and abortion rights. The child tax credit would still exist. There was never any danger of one-party rule from Democrats, whose big tent is inherently fractious.
Literally the day after Trump’s failed (or simply delayed) insurrection, Biden said, “We need a Republican Party. We need an opposition that’s principled and strong.” The DNC didn’t take that attitude for progressives who simply opposed them on one issue — the war in Gaza — and refused to let Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman speak at the 2024 convention.
Biden later claimed the current GOP “is not your father’s Republican Party.” At a House Democratic caucus event last year, he said, “Time and again, Republicans show they’re a party of chaos and disunion … They shout about a problem but then do nothing to solve the problem.” However, this accurately described the Republican Party of the Gingrich era. They weren’t even that great when Biden’s father was young.
In September 2021, Republicans were technically out of power, but they were actively spreading lies about the 2020 election while passing voter suppression laws at the state level. They also enjoyed a 6-3 Supreme Court majority. Yet, Pelosi nonetheless gave them a pep talk at an event in Massachusetts.
“I say to my Republican friends,” Pelosi said, as if she had any. “Take back your party. The country needs a big, strong Republican party. Here, I say that as a leader in the Democratic Party, but we need a big, strong Republican party. You’ve done so much for our country.”
By 2022, Pelosi had descended into complete fantasy, openly describing a Republican Party only found in West Wing reruns.
“I want the Republican Party to take back the party to where you were when you cared about a woman's right to choose, you cared about the environment. Here I am, Nancy Pelosi, saying this country needs a strong Republican Party. Not a cult.”
Of course, Pelosi was appealing to the GOP establishment, which she hoped could subdue and contain its extremist wing. She believed 2016 and 2020 were successful examples of the Democratic Party doing just that. Republican strategists turned Never Trumpers like Rick Wilson had openly catered to the Marjorie Taylor Greene electorate, but they were horrified that these people would dare try to take prominent elected positions in the party. The establishment position is that the extremists vote for the preferred acceptable candidates but never try to lead or even represent the party. That’s too embarrassing.
Mainstream Democrats don’t actually believe any benefit comes from the left. They rarely suggest that obvious stars such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani inspire them to dream bigger. No, they consider progressives political anchors, especially on the moderate candidates in red-leaning districts. Progressives are welcome to vote for “sensible” Democratic candidates, just so long as they don’t get too passionate when advocating for issues.
Democrats still believe deep down that Republicans help keep them in check and promote moderate, reasonable legislation. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin were obsessed with bipartisan legislation for this very reason (along with gentle nudging from their donors). There is no compelling evidence that Republican intervention has ever practically improved legislation for any non-billionaire Americans. Even in Pelosi’s imagined “good old” days when Republicans almost cared about policy and didn’t mindlessly obstruct Democrats, their involvement was like the old joke about a Hollywood executive giving extensive notes to a writer before suddenly stopping and peeing in the writer’s pool. The shocked writer asked, “What are you doing?” The executive proudly declared, “I’m improving it.”
What I personally find amusing is how mainstream Democrats will eventually embrace positions considered too far left barely 20 years ago. Here’s Elissa Slotkin promoting the public option.
Nothing has significantly changed since Joe Lieberman torpedoed the public option in 2009, but the progressive push for single payer or other forms of universal coverage made the public option seem like a moderate goal. Without left-wing advocacy on health care or most other issues, Republicans would stand firm on their economic Darwinism approach and mainstream Democrats would still insist on not veering too far left from their position. It’s the third way to nowhere.
The Republican Party is strong enough to inflict untold misery on millions of people, not just at home but across the globe. We need the GOP significantly weaker if we’re too survive.
The value of an opposition party can be diversity of ideas and tempering enthusiasm for quick change that may lead to unintended and negative consequences.
But only if that hypothetical party is, in fact, grounded in reality, evidence, facts, reason and operating in good faith.
The opposition party to the Democratic party exists within the Democratic party itself.
The Republican party is a reactionary one. It is faith based. And not even faith based on a justifiable interpretation of source material. It operates in bad faith to advance its agenda. It's agenda is conservative. Not conservative as in a slow resistance to inevitable change. It is conservative in that it actively seeks to conserve the worst aspects of the past: white supremacy, male supremacy, Christian nationalism, Imperialism, xenophobia, domestic tyranny through corrupt laws, courts, institutions, and the State's monopoly on violence, partiality for the wealthy, and a weakened ability of the people to respond in any way through the levers of politics.
Clearly what the Democratic Party is doing now isn't working. They should try moving to the left, and if it doesn't work then we can go back to what they were doing before. My thinking is that they are actually afraid that it will work and if it does then there will never be any going back to the center.I get the distinct feeling they are fearful of progressive success, not that it will lose elections.