Still GOP after all these years

Loading

Ed Morrissey:

ForĀ almost my entire adult life, I have been both conservative and a registered Republican. There was a very brief moment in the summer of 1992 when, out of disgust at the tone of the George H.W. Bush campaign, I registered Libertarian while living in Arizona. After attending a meeting and listening to some of their positions, I quickly registered back as a Republican, and voted for Bush. Lesson learned, even if in the end my candidate didnā€™t win the election.

Since reading George Willā€™sĀ cri de coeur last week about his disgust with the GOP, Iā€™ve thought about that weeks-long episode almost a quarter-century ago. Will is one of my favorite conservative writers and a man I respect, but his declaration of independent status reminds me of my own fit of pique ā€” and shortsightedness. I respond today in The Week:

Iā€™ve long admired Will as both a writer and a conservative, and he owes his allegiance to no organization or candidate that hasnā€™t earned it. Still, this sounds more like pique than principle. Presumably, the reason Will chose to join the GOP was to give his conservatism an opportunity to succeed in governing. What possible purpose would a pullout of movement conservatives from the GOP serve at this point? This cycle shows that conservatism has been marginalized within the Republican tent, which means it has no chance as a standalone movement to move the needle of governance. Such a schism would disconnect conservatism from one of only two large bases of aggregated electoral power that offer any chance of implementing policy at any level but local. Itā€™s the equivalent of cutting off oneā€™s nose to spite oneā€™s face.

Furthermore, the Republican and Democratic parties consist of more than just presidential nominees. If anything, conservatives worried about losing the argument in the presidential primaries should redouble their efforts to influence Senate, House, and gubernatorial elections. The GOP has a good chance of holding onto their majorities in both; the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows an even split in the congressional ballot test at 46/46. Two years ago at this time, the same test favored Democrats 45/43 ā€” in an election in which they lost 13 House seats and nine Senate seats. A schism puts Republican majorities at risk, and with it any opportunity for conservatives to influence the path of governance for at least the next two years.

Staying within the Republican coalition and fighting for conservative principles and policy does not require one to endorse the nominee. It doesnā€™t even require one to vote for the nominee. It does, however, require conservatives to recognize that their presumption of preeminence has blinded them to the currents within the Republican electorate, and to energize themselves as evangelists for conservatism where the movement has its first and best opportunities to succeed. Abandoning the GOP will only marginalize the conservative movement and concede the mechanisms of governance to those that conservatives oppose ā€” in either the GOP or the Democratic Party.

Iā€™m not #NeverTrump, but Iā€™m still skeptical of Trump, both for my vote and for his chances of success. Regardless of how I feel about Trump, though, I do not begrudge GOP officials for accepting him as the nominee. The Republican Party set the rules for the primaries, and GOP voters chose Trump, which makes whether Paul Ryan or anyone else treats him as the nominee a moot point, and not indicative of their own views of the Republican Party.

Read more

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
1 Comment
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

I’ve been a republican since 1980 when i voted for Reagan my parents with both repubicans