This piece will also be appearing this weekend in newspapers in my very red congressional district (VA-06), but without “Optimistic” in the title.
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Though I rarely feel I see the future clearly enough to make predictions, this is a moment when I envision these two as highly probable:
First, that we Americans are quite possibly in for a prolonged period of liberal rule, along the lines of what started in 1933 when FDR became President in the depths of the Great Depression.
Second, that the next time that Conservative America regains power, it will either be with the Republican Party having changed back into a normal conservative party, or with a new conservative party having replaced it.
The first prediction hinges on two things:
The first is that Biden’s team will deliver for the American people. At present, that looks likely. The American people apparently think so, too, with Biden’s approval ratings having shot up to 62%, including 11% of Trump voters.
In some ways, Trump was a very difficult act to follow. He was so dominant, and he left everything a mess. But in other ways, he is the easiest act to follow: all Biden has to do is be honest and competent and caring, and people think “Wow! Imagine that!”
The second thing that “prolonged period of liberal rule” depends on is that the Republican Party will remain trapped – for some time to come -- in a kind of darkness unappealing to the American majority.
That second prediction, then, depends on how long it will take American conservatives to dispel the darkness – the embrace of violent extremism, and of falsehoods that justify hatred and violence – into which the majority of the Republican base has descended.
This darkness is shown, for example, by the fervent devotion the base still shows for a President who waged a months-long campaign to hold onto power even if that meant wielding a Lie about the election to drive his followers to overthrow America’s constitutional order.
It is shown, too, by the feelings of the base toward Liz Cheney, on the one hand, and Marjorie Taylor Green, on the other. I.e. their:
- wanting to punish Cheney for honoring her oath of office when she voted to impeach a President who, as she said quite rightly, had committed the greatest betrayal of the nation in our history.
- feeling positively about Rep. Green, the woman who endorsed the idea of assassinating the Speaker of the House, and who believes all sorts of loony notions that identify groups to hate.
Most Republican politicians are likewise wedded to brokenness:
- half the Republican members of the House gave a standing ovation to Rep. Green, whom the Republican Party of old wouldn’t have touched with a ten-foot pole;
- 43 out of 50 Republican Senators voted to acquit a President who had attacked the very heart of our constitutional democracy;
- And the state parties – like Wyoming, North Carolina, Illinois, Louisiana – have voted to censure Republicans who acted with integrity regarding Trump’s impeachment.
That preponderant spirit of the Republican Party – ever more intensely devoted to rage and to the falsehoods that justify hatred and conflict -- separates the Party from the American mainstream.
National polls -- on one issue after another – have shown a widening gap between the views of Republicans and those of the rest of the nation (including Independents).
And now, despite the clear dominance in the Party of the Trumpian spirit, splits within the Republican world are also widening.
- It’s reported that many self-described Republican voters are leaving the party.
- Efforts have been launched by some serious conservatives to start a new party that stands for the kinds of things that American conservatives used to stand for.
It is only a minority of the GOP that has rejected the Trumpism being enforced by the predominant Spirit. But these developments – shrinking the Party, and/or dividing the conservative vote -- threaten to drain the Trumpian Republican Party of its electoral clout.
No American Party has driven itself into extinction since the Whigs broke apart over slavery in the 1850s, opening the way for the birth of the Republican Party. Never in my life has such a scenario seemed so plausible as now for the Republican Party.
If the increasing darkness of the Trumpian spirit of the GOP is repellent to the American majority, then the return of Conservative America to power will require a conservative party with a different spirit.
The recent behavior of Republicans, it was widely said, made Marjorie Taylor Green the face of the Republican Party. But decency and sanity are still widespread enough in America that this is not a face that most Americans would accept.
How long will it take before the face American Conservatism presents to the nation is one most Americans can admire.
To me, the biggest unknown is how many Republicans -- who are now caught up in the darkness into which they’ve been led -- can come back to the better angels of their nature. And how long it will take for that darkness around their hearts and minds to be lifted.
America needs a sane and constructive conservative political party. (No party can be entrusted with one-party rule indefinitely.) So I hope it doesn’t take too long.