- Joined
- Oct 17, 2007
- Messages
- 11,862
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- Political Leaning
- Centrist
When historians look back at 2017, they may well record that 2017 was the year the nation awakened from Trumpism. In starkly clear terms, exit polls in such states as New Jersey and Virginia revealed that the elections up and down the ballot were referenda on Trumpism. Up and down the ballots, the voters rejected Trumpism.
Depending what course the Republican Party takes, the 2017 election may also prove to be the cataclysmic earthquake that unleashed a political tsunami in 2018 that swept control of the House and even Senate away from the Republican Party. "May" is the operative word, as even in their weakened position, Republicans still have the strategic flexibility to do the right thing: Abandon Trump, reject Trumpism, and rediscover the nation's founding principles.
If one examines the exit polls last night, two messages are clear:
1. "Health care policy" is now a Democratic Party strength. Republican failure to come up with a coherent policy that would represent an improvement over current law combined with a reckless willingness to pursue defective bills that would have, among other things, risked millions of people losing their coverage, provided little or no premium relief, did not offer individual health purchasers the same tax treatment as employers, and masked a cynical bid to use the legislation as a vehicle to provide a low multiplier, extremely narrowly targeted tax cut, shattered Republican credibility on this issue. Once credibility is lost, it is very difficult to regain. Republicans who fail to heed the lesson of their health care debacle risk transforming the tax issue into a Democratic advantage as well. A 20% border adjustment excise tax that undermines supply chains and harms consumers, the reintroduction of "bracket creep," a politicized approach that targets taxpayers in so-called "blue states," and a plan that would result in tax hikes among many in all income groups by 2027 could bring about that outcome. For Republicans, the loss of what has long been among the Party's signature issues would be catastrophic.
2. Trump-Bannon-Coulter alt-right, white nationalist, identity politics is not a winning approach. It has been repudiated. Voters knew what the President didn't: there were no "very fine people" among the white nationalists who descended on Charlottesville like a Biblical plague of locusts. Millennial, female, and college-educated voters recoiled from the politics of depraved division.
Trumpism corrupts politically, economically, morally, and spiritually. Trumpist populism is a rejection of the nation's founding principles that embrace individual freedom, promote unity as opposed to "blood and soil" balkanization, and are anchored in truth. The political leaders who drank from the poisoned chalice of Trumpism paid a price yesterday.
Republicans now have a fateful choice before them. They can dissociate from President Trump, abandon the Trumpist populist agenda, rediscover the nation's founding principles, and devise policy solutions based on those principles for the 21st century context or they can stand with President Trump and Trumpism. If so, they will face electoral disaster in 2018 and risk the destruction of both the Republican Party as a nationally viable political party and the American conservative movement as a relevant national movement. The former course offers the possibility of political redemption. The latter leads to political damnation.
What choice will Republicans make? Will conservatives break free from the pull of toxic Trumpism?
For now, in Maine, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia, among other places, there is the rubble from 2017's political earthquake. A political tsunami watch has been posted for 2018. Whether such a tsunami occurs is still a matter of choice for Republicans, but the time for choosing is fast diminishing. At some point, the latitude for choice will disappear altogether. Then, a political tsunami will become inevitable and unstoppable. In its wake, control of one or both Houses of Congress could be lost and there is even a risk that the nation could no longer have a viable right-of-center political party.
Depending what course the Republican Party takes, the 2017 election may also prove to be the cataclysmic earthquake that unleashed a political tsunami in 2018 that swept control of the House and even Senate away from the Republican Party. "May" is the operative word, as even in their weakened position, Republicans still have the strategic flexibility to do the right thing: Abandon Trump, reject Trumpism, and rediscover the nation's founding principles.
If one examines the exit polls last night, two messages are clear:
1. "Health care policy" is now a Democratic Party strength. Republican failure to come up with a coherent policy that would represent an improvement over current law combined with a reckless willingness to pursue defective bills that would have, among other things, risked millions of people losing their coverage, provided little or no premium relief, did not offer individual health purchasers the same tax treatment as employers, and masked a cynical bid to use the legislation as a vehicle to provide a low multiplier, extremely narrowly targeted tax cut, shattered Republican credibility on this issue. Once credibility is lost, it is very difficult to regain. Republicans who fail to heed the lesson of their health care debacle risk transforming the tax issue into a Democratic advantage as well. A 20% border adjustment excise tax that undermines supply chains and harms consumers, the reintroduction of "bracket creep," a politicized approach that targets taxpayers in so-called "blue states," and a plan that would result in tax hikes among many in all income groups by 2027 could bring about that outcome. For Republicans, the loss of what has long been among the Party's signature issues would be catastrophic.
2. Trump-Bannon-Coulter alt-right, white nationalist, identity politics is not a winning approach. It has been repudiated. Voters knew what the President didn't: there were no "very fine people" among the white nationalists who descended on Charlottesville like a Biblical plague of locusts. Millennial, female, and college-educated voters recoiled from the politics of depraved division.
Trumpism corrupts politically, economically, morally, and spiritually. Trumpist populism is a rejection of the nation's founding principles that embrace individual freedom, promote unity as opposed to "blood and soil" balkanization, and are anchored in truth. The political leaders who drank from the poisoned chalice of Trumpism paid a price yesterday.
Republicans now have a fateful choice before them. They can dissociate from President Trump, abandon the Trumpist populist agenda, rediscover the nation's founding principles, and devise policy solutions based on those principles for the 21st century context or they can stand with President Trump and Trumpism. If so, they will face electoral disaster in 2018 and risk the destruction of both the Republican Party as a nationally viable political party and the American conservative movement as a relevant national movement. The former course offers the possibility of political redemption. The latter leads to political damnation.
What choice will Republicans make? Will conservatives break free from the pull of toxic Trumpism?
For now, in Maine, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia, among other places, there is the rubble from 2017's political earthquake. A political tsunami watch has been posted for 2018. Whether such a tsunami occurs is still a matter of choice for Republicans, but the time for choosing is fast diminishing. At some point, the latitude for choice will disappear altogether. Then, a political tsunami will become inevitable and unstoppable. In its wake, control of one or both Houses of Congress could be lost and there is even a risk that the nation could no longer have a viable right-of-center political party.