Not a bad analysis, but I would have to say that your "Old Republicans" no longer have any group cohesion. A minority of us do vote for Democrats -- sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes holding our noses to varying degrees -- and will until we either give up or develop the courage to say "enough!" and start a new Center-Right party to r…
Not a bad analysis, but I would have to say that your "Old Republicans" no longer have any group cohesion. A minority of us do vote for Democrats -- sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes holding our noses to varying degrees -- and will until we either give up or develop the courage to say "enough!" and start a new Center-Right party to replace the Republicans. We're overrepresented here at the Bulwark, but even if ALL the others suddenly turned never-Trump and meant it, I think that we'd still be outnumbered by the MAGAs.
The larger share are people like Paul Ryan, as ably outed by Charlie's recent interview: they deplore the things that Trump and the MAGAs say and do, but that doesn't keep them voting, with whispered apologies, for MAGAs because if they didn't, they'd have to vote for *gasp!* Democrats! They may not be full MAGAs, but they are absolutely Fellow Travelers. It also doesn't keep them from accepting fat MAGA sinecures, like Fox directorships, if they're prominent enough to be offered them.
I get that. I think Liz Cheney is in that camp. But I think there is a blue dog dem camp, also decimated, that can be revived and provide a home for centrists. No politician will love it but it would serve the country and the people through this treacherous time. Third Way is another such bunch I think. Those who are willing to share govt and not demonize opposition.
I sometimes wish you were right, but it's not just my natural aversion to "irrational exuberance" that makes me think that you're not. I'll be a stalwart ally of the Democrats in the struggle to save the country from the far Right, and vote for as many Democrats as it takes to do that. I also agree with the Democrats on a number of policy issues, like civil rights, equality, the need to address climate change and structural racism, and infrastructure. But I know who the Democrats are, and there's no place for me in their party.
You use the right word when you say that the "Blue Dog Dem Camp" has been "decimated", because they're being intentionally eliminated, as Pro-Life Democrats already have been. There's no secure home for centrists in the Democratic Party, and eventually there will be none at all. The case of Joe Manchin is instructive. His seat was crucial to the Democrats for the first two years of Biden's administration, and whenever any portion of Biden's program made it into law, it made it because Joe Manchin supported it. Yet, the attacks on him from his own party have been unrelenting and absolutely merciless, and sometimes came from the Administration itself, even while he was saving their bacon. I think that a majority of the current Democratic base and a strong plurality, if not a majority, of Democratic officeholders, would rather lose that West Virginia seat, no matter how much they need it, than see Manchin re-elected. That's a negative for me.
I laud the Democrats for defending the Constitution against Trump, but I understand the limits of that defense. It's more situational than philosophical, more opportunistic than normative. They don't really accept the principle that the Constitution imposes limits on the power of the federal government to act; for me, that's the essence of the Constitution. We can collaborate on policy, but we're on different planets philosophically.
The last fiscally responsible Democratic President was Bill Clinton. It's often said that Joe Biden instinctively gravitates to the center of the Democratic Party, and God bless him, he does that! Right now, the center of the Democratic Party seems to believe that the People's Money is nobody's money, so it should just be handed out to whoever most deserves it, and who deserves it more than people who need it? Ethical questions and even legal questions be damned, because it's RIGHT! And deficits and debt don't really matter. That's where policies like student loan cancellation and the SVB bailout come from. Nope, won't be part of that. To steal from Tim Miller, "not my party". Never will be.
Not a bad analysis, but I would have to say that your "Old Republicans" no longer have any group cohesion. A minority of us do vote for Democrats -- sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes holding our noses to varying degrees -- and will until we either give up or develop the courage to say "enough!" and start a new Center-Right party to replace the Republicans. We're overrepresented here at the Bulwark, but even if ALL the others suddenly turned never-Trump and meant it, I think that we'd still be outnumbered by the MAGAs.
The larger share are people like Paul Ryan, as ably outed by Charlie's recent interview: they deplore the things that Trump and the MAGAs say and do, but that doesn't keep them voting, with whispered apologies, for MAGAs because if they didn't, they'd have to vote for *gasp!* Democrats! They may not be full MAGAs, but they are absolutely Fellow Travelers. It also doesn't keep them from accepting fat MAGA sinecures, like Fox directorships, if they're prominent enough to be offered them.
I get that. I think Liz Cheney is in that camp. But I think there is a blue dog dem camp, also decimated, that can be revived and provide a home for centrists. No politician will love it but it would serve the country and the people through this treacherous time. Third Way is another such bunch I think. Those who are willing to share govt and not demonize opposition.
I sometimes wish you were right, but it's not just my natural aversion to "irrational exuberance" that makes me think that you're not. I'll be a stalwart ally of the Democrats in the struggle to save the country from the far Right, and vote for as many Democrats as it takes to do that. I also agree with the Democrats on a number of policy issues, like civil rights, equality, the need to address climate change and structural racism, and infrastructure. But I know who the Democrats are, and there's no place for me in their party.
You use the right word when you say that the "Blue Dog Dem Camp" has been "decimated", because they're being intentionally eliminated, as Pro-Life Democrats already have been. There's no secure home for centrists in the Democratic Party, and eventually there will be none at all. The case of Joe Manchin is instructive. His seat was crucial to the Democrats for the first two years of Biden's administration, and whenever any portion of Biden's program made it into law, it made it because Joe Manchin supported it. Yet, the attacks on him from his own party have been unrelenting and absolutely merciless, and sometimes came from the Administration itself, even while he was saving their bacon. I think that a majority of the current Democratic base and a strong plurality, if not a majority, of Democratic officeholders, would rather lose that West Virginia seat, no matter how much they need it, than see Manchin re-elected. That's a negative for me.
I laud the Democrats for defending the Constitution against Trump, but I understand the limits of that defense. It's more situational than philosophical, more opportunistic than normative. They don't really accept the principle that the Constitution imposes limits on the power of the federal government to act; for me, that's the essence of the Constitution. We can collaborate on policy, but we're on different planets philosophically.
The last fiscally responsible Democratic President was Bill Clinton. It's often said that Joe Biden instinctively gravitates to the center of the Democratic Party, and God bless him, he does that! Right now, the center of the Democratic Party seems to believe that the People's Money is nobody's money, so it should just be handed out to whoever most deserves it, and who deserves it more than people who need it? Ethical questions and even legal questions be damned, because it's RIGHT! And deficits and debt don't really matter. That's where policies like student loan cancellation and the SVB bailout come from. Nope, won't be part of that. To steal from Tim Miller, "not my party". Never will be.
The shameful positioning of some of the "old Republican" stalwarts, like Chris Sununu also fall into the "fellow travelers" category.
Far too many of them rationalize holding their noses to vote MAGA and say that "Well, obv, I can't vote for Biden..."
It is a bleak time indeed