I understand what Ruth Marcus is saying, but you should never lament the fall of a shit-weasel like Eric Cantor. The idea that Cantor was some kind of centrist who helped Democrats and Republicans meet in the middle is sub-mental and contradicted by Ruth’s own words:
“An informal dinner party at the Georgetown apartment of Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, turned into a celebration.”
On one level, this reaction is entirely understandable. Cantor’s political shape-shifting and overweening ambition earned him few friends in either party. His cynical willingness to torpedo deals worked out between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner made him particularly noxious to Democrats.
She could have ended her column right there, because in light of those observations the rest of her piece is a non sequitur. Here we have a noxious shape-shifting overweeningly ambitious man who is most famous for undercutting all efforts at compromise and naked disloyalty to his leader.
Will his defeat make things worse? Perhaps it will. But shedding tears for the Cantor doesn’t make any sense. Eric Cantor was in no sense and in no way going to the part of any productive change in the culture of Washington.
The real-life consequence of Cantor’s loss will be to further diminish the already slim prospects for serious legislating, not only dooming immigration reform, at least in the short term, but also raising the prospect of dangerous showdowns on the budget and debt ceiling.
You cannot doom something that is already doomed. And if the nation needs a national default or another five government shutdowns to understand just what kind of beast the Republican Party has become, then that’s what it is going to take. Eric Cantor was thrown out of office for paying our debts and supporting some kind of amnesty for kids who have committed no crime. We wasn’t going to fix the problem with his base, which he was responsible for fostering in the first place. His defeat was just. His defeat clarified where we stand. His defeat shows that Ruth Marcus is simply wrong about this:
This sensible center is willing to compromise; half said they’d be willing to split the difference 50/50 between Republicans and Democrats.
But the centrist majority isn’t inclined to translate this attitude into action. “On measure after measure — whether primary voting . . . volunteering for or donating to a campaign — the most politically polarized are more actively involved in politics, amplifying the voices that are the least willing to see the parties meet each other halfway,” Pew reported.
How to change this dynamic is the central puzzle of American democracy.
This is not the dynamic that needs to change. You don’t split 50/50 with a party that wants to strip the federal government down to the studs, neuter the Voting Rights Act, overturn Griswold, pass a personhood amendment, eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency, privatize Medicare, default on our debt, and force 11 million people to self-deport.
What is it going to take to get Beltway pundits to give up on the idea that the problem is not enough compromise?
Eric Cantor’s defeat won’t solve anything. But Eric Cantor wasn’t going to solve anything either.