The Decline of the GOP - The Atlantic - 0 views
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The Republican Party’s slide away from those values preceded Donald Trump, providing the conditions for his rise. In recent years, the GOP has thrown away its guiding values and embraced its darkest instincts. It has blown up long-standing norms in the Senate, creating divisions that outstrip anything I have seen before; done nothing about rank corruption in the White House and the Cabinet; accepted the politicization of the Justice Department and lies from the attorney general; avoided any meaningful oversight of misconduct; and failed to curb attacks on the independence of inspectors general.
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The GOP now distinguishes itself by inaction. It has stood and watched as this administration separated children from their parents at the border, mistreated asylum seekers, botched its response to a hurricane in Puerto Rico, attacked science, and opened new avenues for toxic materials in our air and water. It said and did nothing about Russian interference in the 2016 elections, and is actively blocking efforts to combat a recurrence in 2020
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It has refused to pass a new Voting Rights Act after the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder eviscerated the legislation, which, reflecting the GOP of the past, had passed the House unanimously. It has refused to deal in any fashion with urgent problems such as climate change, immigration, global competition, hunger, and poverty. It confirmed nominees who lied to the Senate, who inflated résumés, and who failed to meet minimum qualifications for the job. It confirmed judges who were unanimously rated unqualified by the American Bar Association.
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The party jammed through a tax cut at a time of low unemployment and low economic growth, making a mockery of modern economics and leaving little flexibility to deal with the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. It slashed the budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, delivering an 80 percent cut to global-health programs designed to fight pandemics, and leaving the agency without the resources necessary to battle COVID-19
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It has said almost nothing about the pitiful and reckless responses of the president to the pandemic, which has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths that should never have occurred. And now it is silent as we learn that Russia offered bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers, while the president said and did nothing.
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America’s crisis of governance has been driven by a party that my colleague Tom Mann and I, long before Trump, described as an insurgent outlier in American politics. “It is ideologically extreme,” we wrote in 2012; “scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”
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A reshaped GOP would be very conservative, but not radical. It would believe in limited government, but a government run by professionals, respecting data and science, and operating efficiently and fairly. It would believe in genuine fiscal discipline. It would try to apply free-market approaches to solving difficult problems, such as climate change. It would believe in the integrity of institutions and insist that those in office adhere to high ethical standards. It would respect the sanctity of alliances and the fundamental values of decency and equal treatment. It would work to broaden its base across racial and ethnic lines, not use division and voter suppression to cling to power.
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Sadly, even if Donald Trump is defeated in November, there is no sign that such a party will return anytime soon. But restoring the Republican Party to its traditional values is absolutely essential to preserve the core of our system of governance.