New York Times (Op-Ed)
By Jacob Weisberg
February 24, 2016
HE
supported the biggest amnesty bill in history for illegal immigrants,
advocated gun control, used Keynesian stimulus to jump-start the
economy, favored personal diplomacy
even with the country’s sworn enemies and instituted tax increases in
six of the eight years of his presidency.
He was Ronald Reagan.
The
core beliefs that got Reagan elected and re-elected were conservative:
lower taxes, smaller government and a stronger, more assertive military.
But Reagan was also
a pragmatist, willing to compromise, able to improvise in pursuit of
his goals and, most of all, eager to expand his party’s appeal.
The
current field of Republican presidential candidates invokes Reagan as a
patron saint, but the characteristics that made him a successful
politician seem lost on them.
Instead, they’ve turned his party into a swamp of nativism, ideological
extremism and pessimism about the country’s future, in direct
opposition to Reagan’s example. And they’ve transformed primary season
into a reality show of insults, betrayals and open
feuds, defying the so-called 11th Commandment that Reagan espoused:
Thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican.
Once
in office, Reagan said that anytime he could get 70 percent of what he
wanted from a legislature, he’d take it. Today’s congressional
Republicans won’t settle even
for 99 percent: Their mentality has shifted away from having policies
and governing and toward a kind of bitter-end obstructionism.
In
the early days of the presidency of Bill Clinton, congressional
Republicans essentially went on strike, treating any legislative
accomplishment as a Republican defeat,
but they came to the table for a budget deal in 1997. With President
Obama, they have largely refused to accept the basic legitimacy of a
Democratic president. The tactical obstinacy of the 1990s has curdled
into the belief that any compromise constitutes
betrayal, a dynamic now playing out in the primaries.
The
issue that shows the divide most sharply between Reagan and the current
crop of presidential hopefuls is immigration. In the past, Republican
candidates have been
justly criticized for deploying racially coded messages around crime
and welfare. But in the main, the party has for decades embraced
Reagan’s notion of American identity based on immigration, assimilation
and economic opportunity. Every Republican presidential
nominee since Reagan has been a moderate on immigration, and has wanted
to bring Latinos into the Republican fold.
How
did the inclusive, forward-looking Republican Party of Reagan become
the crass, xenophobic party of Donald J. Trump and Ted Cruz?
The
rise of super PACs and the right-wing media has disempowered the
party’s gatekeepers, while wage stagnation has widened the opening for
populist demagogy. This year’s
primary candidates have learned the lesson not only that exploiting
prejudice around immigration and terrorism works politically, but so,
too, does defying the party’s elders and its official apparatus. Thus
Mr. Trump thrives and the establishment favorite,
Jeb Bush, is already out.
A
more surprising reason for the shift? Money. In economic terms,
Republican politicians see increasing returns to extremism. The Citizens
United decision has raised the
potential financial stakes of presidential elections for media
companies, political professionals and candidates alike. The
presidential campaign of 2016 will most likely cost upward of $5
billion, more than 10 times the one that elected Reagan in 1980.
A
lot of people get rich in a $5 billion industry, and some are
politicians. Mr. Trump is not the only contender to make the calculation
that running for president is
win-win, burnishing “brand” value even for the losers. Ben Carson —
yes, still in the race — seems more interested in selling books than in
attaining higher office. Marco Rubio has already enjoyed years of
patronage from a billionaire auto dealer in Florida.
The
examples of Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee
underscore the point that a no-hope presidential run has more upside
than downside. A career
as a right-wing celebrity — a stint on Fox News, speaking fees, book
advances — is more profitable than one in the Senate. These incentives
have helped to shift the Republican Party from a party of opportunity to
a party of opportunists.
The
loser could be the party itself. Unless it repudiates the inflammatory
rhetoric of the primary, it will lose Reagan’s claim to the center and
become more like one
of Europe’s chauvinistic right-wing parties. In the 1980s, it was said
that the Democrats looked for heretics while the Republicans looked for
converts. To watch the spectacle in the 2016 primaries is to see those
tendencies reversed.
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