Steve Benen gives an overview of the chaos that is the GOP:
On a related note, there’s never been a more important time to appreciate just how little loyalty Trump has towards the Republican Party as an institution. He has no real history with the party, no real future with the GOP, and no dependence on the party for any kind of support after Election Day (assuming he loses). Trump is focused entirely on Trump – which creates a dynamic in which his aides talk openly about undermining down-ballot Republican candidates, and Trump himself throws off his “shackles” and goes after his party’s House Speaker publicly.
Trump is creating an intra-party crisis, and if it does lasting harm to Republicans, he doesn’t care since he has no debts, commitments, or loyalties to the GOP itself.
Note how Trump is a private sector mentality at work – the world is his to conquer, and the rules are not iron-clad, but merely part of the calculation of the cost of any particular maneuver. In the private sector, there are laws, but one merely threatens to go to court and the opposition folds; occasionally a judge must be faced, but it’s only money to be lost – not prestige, not power. In a sense, he’s the GOP in ten years, the last vestiges of public sector decency banished.
In the public sector there are fewer laws, but more rules & traditions – and, if he’s truly the power-hungry narcissist, the latter mean very little.
But they are important, even critical, in the public sector. Government, especially in the United States, is a cooperative venture, an attempt to do the very difficult by using many talents and inputs. As such, it’s an ugly, inefficient venture, occasionally enraging, sometimes corrupt (but usually self-correcting).
This is why you hear that Justices Ginsburg & Scalia were actually close friends, despite their ideological differences; or you discover the late Senators Helms and Wellstone, two very different men, shared a bond, as explained by Helms on the occasion of Wellstone’s death:
“Despite the marked contrast between Paul’s and my views on matters of government and politics, he was my friend and I was his,” Helms said. “He unfailingly represented his views eloquently and emphatically. Paul Wellstone was a courageous defender of his beliefs.”
No doubt there are many other similar examples. Whether the cordiality is natural or forced, it serves a very important purpose: to oil the gears of a machine that does not and cannot run very well. The good politicians have known that for most of the history of the United States. It serves at least two purposes; to enable the building of coalitions between dissimilar factions; and to permit a civil government to continue to operate.
This may be one of the most fundamental problems with the incursion of private sector methods into the public sector, especially in combination with the natural intolerance of those ruled by their religious passions1 – these apparently oddball relationships seem unnatural. When you consider how the typical citizen is immersed in the private sector and all of that nearly unfettered competition, it’s not surprising that sometimes the citizen is shocked, baffled, alarmed, even sickened by these relationships – after all, did not the good Senator or Representative promise to do something about the opposition’s horrendous plans?
But these twin incursions from the private and religious sectors are combining to divide us, unsurprisingly. We’ve seen that since the Clinton Administration as Representative Gingrich led the way with the impeachment of President Clinton over a matter, not trivial, but not worthy of impeachment. We’ve seen quite a number of elected GOP officials that are best characterized as far-right, until those who were far-right a few government classes ago are now considered middle of the road, or even a little more moderate than the GOP base can easily tolerate. Thus does party creep to the right, towards intolerance and self-righteousness.
BUT EVEN more telling has been the rise of the Freedom Caucus within the House of Representatives – a caucus of far right GOP representatives who are so restive that they forced the retirement of Speaker Boehner (R) and replaced him with the deeply conservative, if mildly charming, Representative Ryan – and then refused to cooperate with him. So certain are they, so unfamiliar with doubt they’ve become, that they obstinately take positions that sometimes horrify even other GOPers. For them the humility of doubt is not acceptable, and if that means denial of our best studies of reality because they breach the dictates of ideology or religion, then that’s what it will be.
Government, because it’s so difficult to do well, must be an institute of doubt. Doubt & skepticism that any particular path will lead to a better future – and thus a willingness to compromise by those who’ve taken the lead role in government. Because of the difficulty, cooperation becomes a major part of the toolkit of the good politician. Incessant study and thought, exchange of viewpoints and information, all these must also become a constant companion to the good legislator. The ideological zealot has less application in these roles.
Doubt & skepticism is not part of the toolkit of the private sector baron, and not overly much of the religiously ecstatic, although for differing reasons. This is why I am interested in the Sectors of Society analysis, the realization that major accomplishments in one sector do not incur confidence of success in another.
The great laboratory of Democracy is now seeing the results of several decades of the takeover of one political party by political amateurs from the private and religious sectors. Not that we’ve ever had professional rulers, and I’d be aghast if we ever had – but enthusiastic, thoughtful amateurs must be the best we can do. The GOP has morphed away from that high standard, into a group that offers nothing constructive when it comes to major controversies, such as what was the skyrocketing cost of healthcare and the falling percentage of those insured, now somewhat stemmed by the ACA; refuses to participate in good governance, such as the EPA litigation over common-sense moves to preserve the environment of the Union, or the more recent SCOTUS debacle; and have been caught engaged in moral turpitude of sometimes staggering magnitude, such as the pedophilia of Speaker Hastert, or of mind-numbing banality (Livingstone, DeLay, Gingrich, and so many others caught indulging in such hypocrisy as to be embarrassing).
It is signal that they fecklessly accuse the Democrats of their very own failures without the least apparent embarrassment. Senator Helms, for all of his unfortunate policies, would have blushed and disowned many of them. It is also important to note that, with a few exceptions, the mud simply slides off. Indeed, the Clintons have been investigated so many times that they are not slick, but rather clean as a whistle.
Hopefully, we’ll not have to suffer through another GOP Presidency before the inevitable reformation, or destruction, of the GOP occurs; the last GOP Presidency was disastrous for both us and for people a world away. A President Trump would, no doubt, attempt to indulge in a number of illegal actions, and then try to hide behind government immunity when they backfired. we’d be witness to the sad spectacle of an impeachment, or, worse, watch the GOP tear itself apart over whether or not to impeach – and I do believe they lack the leadership to actually impeach a sitting President Trump, no matter how repulsive might be his offenses.
If we’re fortunate, this election will lead to either the dissolution of the GOP and its replacement by a party that realizes how important it is to govern seriously, or a reformation of the GOP that accomplishes the same goals. Either will need to once again exclude the power-hungry, those who have no training in politics, and those who fail to understand the importance of doubt in the realm of governance and, indeed, simply being an adult. We did not evolve to govern large nations, but rather small groups, so having such immense certainty in a world of nuclear weapons is the height of hubris.
1As observed by no less an authority than Senator Barry Goldwater (R).
