Conservatives Demand The Destruction Of The Present Republican Party

I was talking to a friend this morning, trying to identify when exactly the Republican party went completely off the rails. He focused on Reagan and his racist dog-whistles and worse, such as "welfare queens" and his speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi. I pointed out that the racist Southern strategy that Reagan admittedly perfected was actually begun under Nixon in 1968 and more openly in 1972. But, to my mind, the real beginning of the GOP's unraveling began with Newt Gingrich and the idea that no boundary couldn't be breached in the raw pursuit of power, a belief that led us to the impeachment of President Clinton for an entirely private affair.

But, even then, the Republican brand of politics, disgusting and distasteful as it was, just seemed like it was an extreme version of hardball partisan politics, and not a deliberate attack on our democratic system. Even Karl Rove's illegal politicization of the US Attorneys seemed more like partisanship going over the line, rather than a deliberate attack on the rule of law and the right to vote. It was not until the extreme partisan gerrymanders in 2011 and 2012, the immediate introduction of voting rights restrictions in the wake of the Supreme Court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act, and, finally, the refusal to even give a hearing to Merrick Garland, that I finally realized that the Republican party had crossed the line from partisanship into an attack on our democratic institutions in its raw pursuit of power.

I was probably naïve and ignorant in that it took me so long to realize the true depths to which the GOP had sunk. But I have been railing against the anti-democratic nature of the Republican party for the past 18 months. In the fall of 2016, I suggested that the combination of Trump and the radical path the party had taken would finally force principled conservatives, of which we would find out only amounted to a handful of people, to separate themselves from the Republican party. There were the handful of Never Trumpers, such as David Frum, but for the most part conservatives and party "leaders" were willing to hold their nose and keep their mouth shut and go along.

But it interesting that we now see some of these disaffected conservatives actually making the case that many in the mainstream refuse to either acknowledge or openly aver, namely that the Republican party as we know it must be destroyed in order to save our country and our democracy.

Here is Benjamin Wittes in the Atlantic: "The Republican Party, as an institution, has become a danger to the rule of law and the integrity of our democracy. The problem is not just Donald Trump; it’s the larger political apparatus that made a conscious decision to enable him. In a two-party system, nonpartisanship works only if both parties are consistent democratic actors. If one of them is not predictably so, the space for nonpartisans evaporates. We’re thus driven to believe that the best hope of defending the country from Trump’s Republican enablers, and of saving the Republican Party from itself, is to do as Toren Beasley did: vote mindlessly and mechanically against Republicans at every opportunity, until the party either rights itself or implodes (very preferably the former)." I couldn't agree more, although I happen to believe it will it will take the latter to get the former.

Here is Max Boot agreeing with Robert Kagan: "[T]he entire Republican Party is making itself ever-more complicit in Trump’s crimes — which range from offenses against good sense, rationality, and common decency to, perhaps, actual violations of the law such as obstruction of justice. It becomes ever harder to disagree with the verdict of foreign-policy sage Robert Kagan, like me an erstwhile Republican, who writes that the GOP in its current form is doomed and that Republicans who cannot stomach Trumpism 'should change their registration and start voting for Democratic moderates and centrists'...This is truly Trump’s party, and that leaves me to root for Democrats to win a landslide victory in the midterm elections next fall."

Here is Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post: "This is not a party that can be described as coherent, sensible, respectful of the rule of law, dedicated to equal protection or grounded in reality — let alone conservative. Today’s GOP stands for a set of crackpot ideas, unworkable and unpopular policies and a president not remotely fit to remain in office. Some sunny optimists think the GOP can be saved. From our perspective, it’s not worth trying."

And here is Michael Gerson in the Washington Post: "With the blessing of Republican leaders, the lickspittle wing of the GOP is now firmly in charge. The existence of reckless partisans such as Nunes is hardly surprising. The nearly uniform cowardice among elected Republicans is staggering...By his recent actions, the speaker [Paul Ryan] has provided political cover for a weakening of the constitutional order. He has been used as a tool while loudly insisting he is not a tool...A generation of Republicans will end up writing memoirs of apology and regret. The political damage to the GOP as the party of corruption and coverup should be obvious as well. This is a rare case when the rats, rather than deserting a sinking ship, seemed determined to ride it all the way down."

All these are diehard conservatives and Republicans through and through. And yes, they still pine for a center-right party that they can call home. But they all see that the Republican party in its present form must be thoroughly and utterly destroyed, stripped of all political power, if our Republic is to survive. These are words that few Democrats, and none of the mainstream media, can bring themselves to say. But sometimes it takes the people who know you best to tell you the awful truth.