Do we even need the Republican Party? - Jennifer Rubin

[octoberlib]

Opinion by
Jennifer Rubin
Columnist
August 10, 2020 at 12:56 p.m. EDT



In anticipation of President Trump’s loss in November, there is a cottage industry of speculation about the fate of the post-Trump Republican Party. The New York Times’s David Brooks pines for a Republican Party without racism, anti-government animus or unbridled faith in free markets. (The technical term for that might be “the Democratic Party.”) It would be refreshing to see the Republican Party cast off its obsession with old white men in favor of “a cross-racial alliance among working-class whites, working-class Hispanics and some working-class Blacks.” That, however, supposes Hispanic and Black voters have no memory of years of racism and xenophobia, and that the party’s heavily White support is based on something other than racial resentment. Both propositions are questionable.

A Republican Party that does not depend on White grievance and cultural resentment (leading to incessant whining that its members are victims of everything from Facebook to climate scientists to immigrants) and does not depend on what Brooks aptly describes as “an anti-government zombie Reaganism long after Reagan was dead and even though the nation’s problems were utterly different from what they were when he was alive” would frankly not have much to say. After you strip away those two failed themes, what’s left?

We need a two-party system, but we do not have a two-ideology political culture if the price of admission is a reality-based, decent, inclusive and constitutionally respectful ideology. If there is to be, as I hope, a grand coalition from center right to center left that generally defends constitutional government, curbs on the excesses of the free market, globalization with a safety net, responsible international leadership and a determination to root out systemic racism, I am not certain what that leaves to the opposition. On the left, it might be Sanders-style socialism. But on the right?

Trump cultists and the proponents of zombie-libertarianism continue to drive the party into the ground, relegating it to a regional party of dead-enders. Maybe the real question is not what the Republican Party will believe and who will support it, but whether we need it at all. Perhaps there is no morally, politically and intellectually decent party of the right to be had.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/10/do-we-even-need-republican-party/?hpid=hp_save-opinions-float-right-4-0_opinion-card-e-right%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans


The answer is no, of course but seeing as how about 30% of America is composed of horrible people, I don't think Trumpism/ the hard right is going away.

[Gothmog]

1. No we do not need the GOP

Link to tweet

[RainCaster]

2. We need a set of checks and balances

However, the RNC has become so corrupt that they are useless. Who would believe them when they say "Senator Foo is corrupt". The response will be "BFD, that's just you gaslighting again".

Having said that, it's not my problem. I don't care. However, the Lincoln Project does care, and they will eventually have to figure this out.

[OneBro]

3. Absolutely!

Racists, fake Christians, and racist fake Christians need a safe space where they can congregate and share. Best that we know where to easily find them.

[madinmaryland]

6. They all need to go back to the John Birch Society and leave everyone the fuck alone.

[sanatanadharma]

4. The coming 'new' 'old' Republican party will be called the Lincoln Party.

The coming 'new' 'old' Republican party will be called the Lincoln Party.

This new party will be the reactionary republican party of money and elites that it has always been. This republican party of the old robber barons will freeze out their worst elements of today but will continue seeking to rule over a feudal society of disposable 'gig-a bots'.

Essentially nothing will change until the famine finally forces folk to feed their families upon the rich.
Or Democratic souls finally prevail over the beastly class of bufons and morans (sic).

[Buckeye_Democrat]

5. I'd prefer a parliamentary system myself, but...

... that won't happen.

Coalitions between different parties would still be necessary in that system, but I feel like this pre-election binary system of representation often doesn't cut it.

I'd love to see the GOP just disappear, but that likely won't happen either.

[Steelrolled]

7. Republican party will evolve just like the Democratic party did some years ago.

Laws of physics (almost )