Bruce Bartlett is a well known moderate Republican, serving in the Reagan and Bush I administrations, as well as multiple Congressional staffs. In this piece he penned for Politico, he gives a short history of recent Republican factions (which recalls this Internet meme from Barry Goldwater), and then he speaks for Donald Trump – for political purposes, of course:
As a moderate Republican who voted for Obama, I should be Donald Trump’s natural enemy. Instead, I’m rooting for him.
The Republican establishment foresees a defeat of Barry Goldwater proportions in the unlikely event Trump wins the Republican presidential nomination. As Trump’s lead in the polls grows, so too does their panic. Yet, for moderate Republicans, a Trump nomination is not something to be feared but welcomed. It is only after a landslide loss by Trump that the GOP can win the White House again.
Trump’s nomination would give what’s left of the sane wing of the GOP a chance to reassert control in the wake of his inevitable defeat, because it would prove beyond doubt that the existing conservative coalition cannot win the presidency. A historic thrashing of the know-nothings would verify that compromise and reform are essential to recapture the White House and attract new voters, such as Latinos, who are now alienated from the Republican Party.
There is a certain logic here, but it depends on an assumption: that the ‘know-nothings’, to use his term, are capable of learning, adaptation, and compromise. The entire Obama Administration contretemps with Republicans in Congress, illustrative of Republican conservatives’ refusal to compromise, is a counter-argument which he doesn’t address. Along the same lines, while Goldwater’s observation is from maybe 50 years ago, I think it’s just as applicable today:
Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.
And they still exist and sent Ted Cruz & many others to Congress. The refusal to compromise, to grow, and to understand that sometimes your ideology is simply wrong is symptomatic of the fundamentalism that has taken over the Republicans, and, because it’s religion based, will not change in itself. Only if the believers stop believing, are willing to realize that their faith is taking them down the wrong road, will the Republicans begin to recover their sanity.
I think it’ll be Trump, then Cruz, and then maybe Rubio, all running for President, before the conservatives simply begin to die off and the new generations, rumored to be far more reasonable, begin to assert themselves.
