Ron Brownstein has a pretty good analysis of the Republicans’ electoral strategy, but I think he’s missing one important ingredient. He identifies two basic decisions that the Republicans have already taken that will have a major impact on the midterms and that will very difficult to compensate for over the course of the campaigns.
The first has been to align more closely with Trump even as questions have mounted about both his basic fitness for the presidency and the potential legal exposure that he and his inner circle might face in the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller. The second has been to pursue a policy agenda, on issues from taxes to health care to the environment, aimed almost entirely at the preferences of their party’s conservative base, with strikingly few concessions to any voices or interests beyond their core coalition.
Before November, the GOP might modulate each of these choices. But Republicans have engraved the fundamental outline of each direction so deeply over the past year that they are unlikely to be significantly altered.
The decisions to increasingly lock arms with Trump and to pursue such a partisan agenda reflect the same political calculation. On each front, Republicans are placing the highest priority on maximizing unity and enthusiasm among their base voters — even at the price of infuriating and energizing Democrats, and antagonizing more swing voters — especially suburban college-educated whites. For voters anywhere on the continuum from ambivalent to alarmed about Trump, congressional Republicans are now sending a clear signal that they are far more inclined to empower than to constrain him.
I think all of that is accurate. Yet, what it seems to miss is that the Republicans are looking to achieve as much as they can while they have their majorities rather than trimming their sails in the effort to maintain their majorities. This should be familiar, as it’s precisely what the Democrats did in 2009 and 2010. And the Democrats might have hoped back then that they’d be rewarded by their base with a lot of support and enthusiasm in the 2010 midterms, but the eventual result was that the opposition was more mobilized by a very wide margin. It turned out that doing things like vastly expanding access to health care after decades of futility caused the base to moan about the details and be complacent about the accomplishment. Doing what you promised isn’t as good of a vote-getter as being in the minority while your party is getting rolled by the opposition.
It didn’t help that the Democrats didn’t act like they were proud of their achievements or in love with their president, so as a general matter I don’t think it would help the GOP much to distance themselves from their record or their president. And it would be incorrect to say that the Democrats plunged ahead in 2009 and 2010 without any regard for self-preservation. They hoped that they would do well in the midterms and a lot of that hope was justifiable. Likewise, I don’t think the Republicans are consciously throwing their majorities away. Instead, they’ve made the decision that they’re going to get everything they can now, and let the cards fall where they may.
Where Brownstein is unambiguously correct is that the GOP is acting in an almost heedless manner in their drive to advance their agenda. And one of the main reasons why this behavior is going to be a bigger problem for them this year than last year is that they’ve reached a point now where they actually need to get Democratic votes. Last year, they pushed everything through a dual budget reconciliation process that flamed out badly on Obamacare repeal and barely worked for their “tax reform.” Nothing else was accomplished legislatively and now they’re on the verge of a government shutdown because of their inability to pivot and deal with the Senate Democrats. Eventually, some kind of deals will be made to keep the government operating, but unless the Republicans adopt a bipartisan legislative agenda for the rest of the year, they will not be getting any more legislative wins. Instead, they’ll be left sputtering about the obstructionist Democrats.
If they were rational, they’d see that they’ve pressed their advantage as far as it can go and make the pivot, but they’re not inclined that way. So, they won’t get out of the trap they’re in and they’ll probably lose their majorities in both chambers of Congress. And I think this would be the case even without considering the president’s erratic behavior or his coming legal problems.
I’m not sure they can pivot. They’ve invested so much for so long in revving their base, no matter how unreasonable the expectation engendered. Obama warned them. They didn’t listen. Now they’re stuck. Trump is extremely unpopular with the American people but still very popular among Republicans. He could still shoot someone on 5th Ave as far as his base is concerned. In fact, if he were to shoot a Democrat or a hippie or a person of color, they’d cheer him on.
Look at how they howl in outrage at that terrible RINO, McConnell. Look at what happened to that other sissy RINO, Cantor. Ayn Rand or no Ayn Rand, Paul Ryan is a RINO these days.
No sir, there’s no turning back. They’ve made their bed and they’re fucked.
I really, really, really, really hope that both you and Booman are right.
My time is taken up by my job in healthcare (with some racing on the side to stay sane) but I plan to donate wherever I think I can make a difference. We can’t take it for granted that the general populace is engaged enough to understand the stakes…
If anyone has suggestions of worthy candidates in tight races please let me know.
That is reason enough for the Dems to stay out of the coming budget BS. Let the GOP kill all the hostages and then there will be nothing else for them to do.
When Reagan was President, he led the GOP on an ideologically-motivated reform of most of government. Examples include defense spending, foreign policy, tax rates, tax reform, regulation, etc.
Is the current Republican government doing likewise. Certainly, Paul Ryan and his ilk are committed to cutting taxes and the safety net. Trump makes noises about foreign policy unilateralism.
Yet, the whole doesn’t seem coherent. The only thing the party seems to agree on is cutting taxes for the top 0.1% of Americans. Obviously, that’s easy enough to reverse when the Dems retake power, whereas more fundamental changes to society (e.g., Obamacare, welfare reform) are not.
It may be true that the Republicans care more about “their agenda” than the midterms, but in this case, that agenda is pretty narrow.
Environmental actions may also cause irreversible damage. By taking away funds for oil spill remediation after loosening regulations intended to prevent spills and blowouts. By allowing extensive near shore drilling for oil. By approving unwise resource development and inappropriate use of public lands that impact flora, fauna, archaeological, historical and cultural resources, soil, air and water. And so on.
You are correct for the most part but the offshore drilling is a bit problematic. The three west coast states have already come out opposed to the allowance as have FL, VA and all the New England and =Middle Atlantic states with Atlantic shorelines. TX and LA already have offshore drilling and they would likely not oppose more drilling given how bright red they are. Most of the states opposed aren’t just citing environmental concerns but also potential hits to tourism, recreation, fishing and other revenue streams that are much higher than any royalties from oil production. Also the added employment from them is tiny.
Finally, low oil prices aren’t providing much of an incentive for offshore drilling, which is really expensive.
Easy enough to reverse? Haha. I’ll beliebe that when I see it.
All this sounds perfectly reasonable to me. The big wild card in all this is what road that Democrats decide to go down between now and the midterms. As a rule, I generally take a pragmatic view of what you are sometimes forced to do in an effort to maximize your leverage when, in reality, you have very little. But after grinding my teeth daily watching the insanity that is the modern Republican Party, I am tending to fall in line with the point of view expressed by John Cole, among others, which basically boils down to “FUCK YOU, REPUBLICANS!” You have both Houses of Congress, and the Presidency. You have absolutely no interest in hearing ANYTHING from Democrats, unless it’s “we’ll give you what you want in exchange for basically nothing”. So FUCK YOU!
Let them govern. No help from Democrats. No “bipartisanship”. Democrats need to simply say, “Go ask the Republicans why nothing is happening. They are the majority.”
Being the “adults in the room” has achieved nothing, other than satisfying the fervent longings of the media for pleasing the daddy party. There is zero good faith in existence within the GOP. It is nothing more than a stinking, steaming pile of shit. If the Democrats once again fall back on that knee jerk response of satisfying this obsession they seem to have of caving any time the pressure rises, then they will just continue to fail.
That needs to be the effect but it needs to be dressed up in “concern” rhetoric. Congressional Dems shouldn’t say they won’t vote for it, they should talk endlessly about problems in the bills and say they Republicans need to fix the problems and work with them in a bipartisan way and then they’ll vote for it.
In the unlikely even the Republicans actually do all that, they should vote against it anyway.
This is how the Republicans did obstruction under Obama. Bipartisan centrist blather to distract the villagers but ironclad opposition on the motion to table. It works and we should learn from it.
I’m not so sure I agree with your assessment- I’d actually say that the difference between the Republicans and Democrats that you cite is more along the lines of the old adage that the Republicans fear their base, while the Democrats despise theirs.
Although I would add that one ironic similarity between the two parties is that their signature achievements, The ACA for the Democrats, and the Tax Scam for the Republicans, were both mostly written by lobbyists (well in the ACA case, technically by an ex-Wellpoint executive) from the industries that were affected by the legislation. Maybe that’s just the way it’s done these days, but I doubt that the unseemly process for creating these major pieces of legislation is improving the favorbility rating of anyone in congress.
The other obvious thing that is going on is that plenty of Republican legislators are planning on cashing in their chips and getting out, And in the process are trying to make their true base- i.e. the right wing billionaires (and the companies they run) as happy as possible so that they can reap their just rewards for favors done.
Artifact of Newtys cuts, they out source to lobbyists because they lack trained staff.
538 commented on a poll out saying 60% of people think congress has low moral and ethical standards which is less favorable than LOBBYISTS.
I think it’s more likely Republicans can rely on their base to vote and Democrats can’t rely on theirs to do the same
Which is why republicans fear theirs — they vote, and dems hate theirs — they don’t.
hate may be a strong word here, it’s probably more of them not trusting their base to have their backs – good example would 2010
The way Republican House members are heading for the exits tells me they have thrown their majorities away, and they know it. I think it was a relatively conscious decision, at least for a those who still have some contact with reality. Anybody could look at the polling for the various initiatives they’ve tried and know there would be a huge political price to pay.
Had the disquieting thought that Republicans are acting this way because someone has calculated that however significant Republican midterm loses are, any lose of power will be temporary like 2006-2009.
A split or entirely Democratic congress could actually re-energize the conservative base and return enough moderates into the fold in time to re-elect the Orange Shit Gibbon in 2020 (aka. I don’t like the Tweets…but judicial appointments!!)
It’s not like much of the structural impediments that helped suppress just enough of the 2016 Democratic vote will be gone in 2020.
The GOP may be apparently as complacent as they are about this year’s midterms because they are planning to massively game the election system (again!) through allowing Russian hackers to have their way in the states, to launch massive conventional and social media attacks and to continue their largely successful massive vote fraud and voter suppression schemes. The Democrats have done nothing to combat their terrible situation in the media.
Basically, to have any hope of flipping the HOR, Democratic and Indie voters in the red states would have to turn out in truly massive numbers to have any hope of turning out a GOP representative. The same with the Senate.
Despite VA and AL, I am not really very sanguine about this year’s prospects.
Who set up that budget process that the Republicans have had so much trouble with?
Where a former House speaker can have the effect of a Supreeme Court if they understand process. Who has that understanding these days? Democrats benefited from the fact that neither Boehner nor especially Ryan could use their majorities.