Posted on 05/31/2021 3:34:43 PM PDT by DoodleBob
The headline from the new Quinnipiac poll is pretty straightforward: The Republican party remains Donald Trump’s party.
No fewer than 84 percent of Republicans have a favorable opinion of Donald Trump. Two-thirds of Republicans want him to run for president. And most of the rest of the remaining third would prefer a Republican candidate who mostly agrees with, rather than disagrees with, Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, the most prominent recent Republican critic of Donald Trump—Liz Cheney—is now deeply unpopular with Republicans: 12 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of Cheney, while 52 percent of Republicans have an unfavorable view. One expects that if Cheney’s name-ID was higher among Republican voters, then these numbers would be even more lopsided. Her -40 percent net favorability would be higher if she were better known.
On the other hand, in what is surely Quinnipiac’s most striking finding, Democrats—by 44 percent to 16 percent—have a favorable view of Cheney.
Think about that. Trump is so much at the center of our politics that a conservative Republican such as Cheney can become (at least temporarily) a favorite of Democrats simply because she has straightforwardly and steadfastly criticized Trump.
Now hold in mind the fact that Democratic voters seem well-disposed to anti-Trump Republicans. And then consider three three arguments—correct arguments, I believe—made on this website over the last few months.
In December, Tim Miller explained that the Democrats and Republicans had traded blocs of voters in the last several years. While Trump has picked up even more white, non-college voters, a number of mostly suburban and better-educated, and often female, anti-Trump Republicans have moved over to become, in effect, a wing (or a mini-wing) of the Democratic party.
Some of these new Red Dog Democrats may wish the trade hadn’t happened. But it has. Reality being what it is, the trade isn’t being reversed. And sports teams have, after all, won championships with new players who at first yearned to be back with their old team.
So Tim Miller’s core message to anti-Trump Republicans is: You’ve been traded. Get used to it. Make the best of it.
In March, the moderate Democrat Liam Kerr elaborated on Miller’s argument: The management of the new team could and should do a little more to make the best of its new players. The core of his argument:
Both a centrist third party and a pro-democracy GOP are unicorns: It’s easy to picture what they look like, but they’re the stuff of imagination.
The viable path to saving our democracy is more like a platypus: An animal which sounds ridiculous when you describe it—a tiny seal with a duck beak, webbed feet, and a bushy tail?–but is, in fact, quite real.
The path forward . . . is a weird, unsettling platypus-like option: Having Democrats start to woo “future former Republicans.”
Kerr has in mind actually recruiting “future former Republicans” to run for office as Democrats in seats and states where traditional progressive Democrats are likely to lose. These candidates don’t have to be literal former Republicans, though they could be. But they have to appeal to the, let’s say, 12 percent of Republicans who like Liz Cheney. Because if you can hold the traditional Democratic voters and pick up some of those Republicans, you can win Senate and House seats.
Which brings us to the third Bulwark piece I want to quote from, a May 27 article by Mona Charen. In the course of making a broader argument about the dangers a rise in crime and inflation pose to the Democratic party and the Biden administration, Charen remarks:
It’s crucial for Biden’s presidency to be successful. There are two reasons: 1) The country needs a breather, and 2) the Republican party is not fit to hold power. Perhaps it may be again sometime in the future, but for now, it’s a danger to democracy.
So, Charen argues, it’s important for the country, at least for now, that Democrats govern successfully and be able to win elections.
Put this together and you get three theses.
Can these three theses be acted on?
Why not?
Couldn’t this be a moment when entrepreneurs could bring supply, demand, and the moment together in the political marketplace to create an expanded pro-democracy, governing majority party. With entrepreneurship and leadership on all fronts—in politics and policy, among the public and among elites—this doesn’t seem an impossible task.
The alternative is to remain mired in a kind of political liquidity trap where the political market will equilibrate at a place that is suboptimal for democracy.
Or, to end with Lincoln rather than Keynes:
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”
“The senator charged Tunney to convey the following message, through confidential contacts, to the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Y. Andropov.”
Kennedy’s message was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. “The only real potential threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations,” the memorandum stated. “These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign.”
Kennedy made Andropov a couple of specific offers.
First he offered to visit Moscow. “The main purpose of the meeting, according to the senator, would be to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA.” Kennedy would help the Soviets deal with Reagan by telling them how to brush up their propaganda.
Then he offered to make it possible for Andropov to sit down for a few interviews on American television. “A direct appeal … to the American people will, without a doubt, attract a great deal of attention and interest in the country. … If the proposal is recognized as worthy, then Kennedy and his friends will bring about suitable steps to have representatives of the largest television companies in the USA contact Y.V. Andropov for an invitation to Moscow for the interviews. … The senator underlined the importance that this initiative should be seen as coming from the American side.”
Kennedy would make certain the networks gave Andropov air time–and that they rigged the arrangement to look like honest journalism.
I trust that Mr. Kristol will take himself and his needless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over to the Dems and never come back.b
billy bolshevik is truly unhinged
Since I am having a drink, I will toast Billy: Here’s to you Billy Kristol, here’s to you. You think you’re upper class, but you’re just a horse’s ass. Here’s to you Billy Kirstol, here’s to you.
Bill Kristol who tweeted about a train wreck five minutes before it happened...
“...pro-democracy GOP are unicorns: It’s easy to picture what they look like, but they’re the stuff of imagination.”
Uh....yeah....because democracy is antithetical to a constitutional republic.
Vichy bastard.
A permanent Democrat majority is what every Bush League Republican pushing open borders/amnesty has been working towards.
The main purpose of the GOP since 1989 has been to block the citizens from stopping the illegal alien inundation.
I’ve been wondering what a trotskite thinks about current events.
That pool isn’t wide enough or deep enough for a paramecium to do the backstroke !
Kristol writes for the Beltway, that’s almost his entire audience. He writes so he’ll be an acceptable “conservative commentator” on NPR talking head shows. He has no other following. He truly is a legend in his own mind.
So, Charen argues, it’s important for the country, at least for now, that Democrats govern successfully and be able to win elections.
Put this together and you get three theses.
There is a pool of ex-Republican voters (and conceivably, office holders) available to the Democratic party.
Many current Democratic voters are open to including these future former Republicans in their coalition.
It would be good to move the relative strength of the two parties off the current knife’s edge, and for the Democrats to become the nation’s majority party as quickly and as decisively as possible.
Can these three theses be acted on?
—
These people want, in effect, a one-party system much like China. The bottom line is they see themselves in power and above the riffraff with their annoying demands for jobs and secure borders.
Kristol and Charon: Filthy Neocons.
What Mr. Kristol knows about Conservative Politics would easily fill a Book. What Mr. Kristol Thinks he knows about Conservative Politics but Really Doesn’t, would easily fill an damned library.
Yep
Funny you should say that. I was going to post this tripe from The Bulwark (I believe it's important to know your enemies' thoughts), but it's too long and, frankly, it pushes the Democrat talking point - that wanting to secure elections is racist and anti-democracy - to such a childish dimension that I'd need to attach a Parental Advisory warning to it.
Anti-Democratic Conservatism Isn’t New
The conservative political movement Buckley championed shared his ambivalence about democracy. The refrain “the United States is a republic, not a democracy” is part of this tradition. A few scholars have tried, following the example of the conservative political philosopher Martin Diamond, to popularize the term “democratic republic” for the American system—one in which the people participate and elect their representatives, who ultimately make decisions—but the term never really caught on outside of conservative circles, maybe because it is too confusing, or maybe because “democratic republic” perversely sounds too much like the name of a dictatorship, like the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or the old German Democratic Republic.
A comprehensive history of the attitudes of American conservatives toward democracy would excavate source material at least as far back as the Founding and the American response to the French Revolution. But for present purposes, focusing on just the twentieth century and after, it is clear that there is a strong undercurrent of anti-democratic thought in American conservatism. And when the politics have been convenient, many conservatives have used their critiques of democracy to justify authoritarian regimes or deny citizens the vote on racial grounds in the United States and abroad. Which is to say that the democracy-denying beliefs and actions of today’s conservative Republican party—rejecting the results of the 2020 presidential election and seeking to manipulate voting laws nationwide in a cynical assault on the democratic process—have plentiful precedent in conservative history.
Back when I followed him in the 90s before and just after this week with David Brinkley, I could never figure out why he was so apologetic of liberal actions rather than condemn or have strong counterpoints. I just presumed he must’ve been neutered by ABC.
Well now we know…
<< “It’s crucial for Biden’s presidency to be successful” >>
If the Biden regime successfully implemented its agenda, the border would be completely erased and American sovereignty would be history, China would be the world’s only superpower, the first two amendments to the constitution would be eliminated, and the middle class would become permanent members of the serf class. For starters.
Kristol and Charen and all the other America Lasters would be in hog heaven.
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