Republican Realpolitik
As each day goes by, political power shifts further from the American left and the oppressed groups they represent. 2020 has been a string of defeats, with underwhelming responses to police brutality, millions losing their jobs and homes, and President Trump now seeking to cement a conservative stranglehold on the Supreme Court by appointing a third justice. Frustratingly, progressive ideas are popular with most Americans and yet the country is slipping into further market deregulation and fascism. Why is it always the Republicans winning and the Democrats losing?
The answer is fairly simple. Democrats would often rather cling to ‘decency’ and ‘decorum’ in their symbolic resistance than act as a real opposition party. For example, amidst an impeachment trial (that was doomed to fail), the Democratic House overwhelmingly (377-48) passed Trump’s defense bill, including money for Trump’s wall, the Space Force, and the Saudi war in Yemen. The result of this complacency is a two-party state where one party ruthlessly carries out its dangerous agenda and the other reluctantly obliges while performatively protesting. The Republicans set the boundaries of public policy because they are not afraid of bad optics. They can maintain control of the Senate and presidency while doing unpopular things for a minority of the electorate because they exploit features of the system to their benefit.
Republicans are phenomenal at punching above their weight. Nothing illustrates this better than the recent death of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg and the question of her replacement. Even though Republicans decried the idea of nominating a justice in an election year in 2016 when Obama nominated Merrick Garland, 4 years later, when they now control the presidency with a Supreme Court vacancy, they will nominate and confirm a justice less than two months before the election. Liberals will cry and scream about the hypocrisy of the situation (such as Lindsay Graham even going as far to say “If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said, ‘Let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.'”). But who can blame Republicans? Strategically, it is simply good politics to appoint a third justice. At the end of it all, Republicans will come out ahead because they are not afraid to use every weapon in their disposal to achieve their political goals. What’s more is that their supporters love it or at worst ignore the ruthlessness. Why wouldn’t they? If I was a conservative voter that cares about abortion and the second amendment, I wouldn’t care how the GOP gets a conservative court, only that they succeed in doing so.
Democratic leadership claims that they must avoid proposing radical (but necessary) legislation because doing so would alienate ‘independents’ and ‘swing-voters,’ with the most recent example being Harris vehemently defending fracking in the vice-presidential debate, despite polls showing that a majority of people in Pennsylvania oppose fracking. A contrary theory of electoral politics that I subscribe to is one laid out by forecaster Rachel Bitecofer. Bitecofer argues that elections are not shaped by a few people deciding to switch sides, but instead by people deciding to vote in the first place. Conventional electoral forecasting forgets the over 40% of the eligible voters didn’t show up in 2016. The most convincing qualitative argument for Bitecofer is that Donald Trump won in 2016. If the traditional theory goes that elections are decided by the candidate that panders the most to moderates in the middle, then how did Trump, by all measures an extremist, win the election? It seems obvious to me that there is something to be said for being able to mobilize disaffected voters if you want to win elections. However, Democrats don’t believe in this and instead continue to form their unimpressive platform around the swing-voter. In my view, Democrats could propose bigger reforms, help more people, and simultaneously win more elections.
Unfortunately, power begets power. Undemocratic rules and systems give the minority a majority of the power, giving a big advantage to Republicans. They know it too, which is why they promote voter suppression (such as felons not being able to vote and shutting down polling sites), the Electoral College, and gerrymandering more than Democrats do. And once they have power because of these rules, like they do now, you can be sure as hell they won’t change them. Republicans are phenomenal at manipulating the rules of our political institutions and electoral system to their advantage. Ending the filibuster and reducing the number of senators required to confirm a justice epitomize this.
Democrats are either subscribing to an outdated electoral philosophy or, worse, know that they could mobilize voters and win elections but do not care to because the current situation is advantageous for them personally. Interestingly, of the richest 36 members of Congress, only one is not an incumbent and it is roughly evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. It’s something to think about: just because Democrats lose political battles does not necessarily mean Democratic politicians are really losing much themselves. Perhaps we should not view it as the Republicans winning and the Democrats losing, but instead the forces of capital winning and the oppressed losing even more.
The boundaries of public policy for years have been entirely framed by the Republican Party, to the country’s detriment. And unfortunately, the Democratic Party has done little other than symbolically protest and never act as confidently and decisively as Republicans have.