Voting is not a declaration of permanent allegiance. It is a judgment about who deserves the responsibility of governing right now.
It appears that the Republican party, which has wielded power for several decades and has had ample opportunity to demonstrate its merits to the voters, may have reached the point in its life cycle where we, the people, decide to cut it down to the ground.
The GOP’s problem didn’t begin with Donald Trump. Newt Gingrich helped transform Republican politics into warfare between enemies back in the 1990s. Then the Bush era, including the mistake and deception of the Iraq War, did not lead the GOP to examine its leadership and the consequences of their decisions.
The Tea Party movement in 2010 essentially radicalized Republican expectations so that an attitude of confrontation and unwillingness to compromise became the party’s way of judging authenticity. Cooperation was no longer something that was sought after to solve problems; in fact, it was rejected as a sign of weakness.
As a result, during the Obama presidency, the politics of obstruction became the Republicans’ preferred method of doing business, especially after the GOP took the House in 2011 and the Senate in 2015.
This is also the period when conspiracy theories began to take up increasing amounts of space in political discourse, as for example Donald Trump began to focus on President Obama’s birth certificate. Distrust became the default mindset.
Trump’s second term has found more Republican voters beginning to realize that the GOP no longer represents conservative values of limited government, fiscal responsibility and strong national defense. This is largely due to the decision of the Republican Congress to allow Trump’s decisions to go unchecked, or even undiscussed.
The result has been the burgeoning of Trump’s idiosyncratic preferences, often expressed through the eyes of a developer rather than the steward of our nation’s future. Not only our Congress but also our mainstream media has reacted as if it’s totally normal for a President to make dramatic, often irreversible decisions without consulting even the advisors close to him, much less Congress or the courts. Even when decisions end up being reversed they have often done much harm to many people by the time the President says, “Never mind.”
It seems ironic to me that the Republicans might be doing much better as a party if they had reined in the impulsive President and forced him to address the important issues on the nation’s mind, but those who spoke up were kicked to the curb by the ones who chose to abandon their job of working for the people in favor of caddying for the Boss.
Traditional Republicans, still conservatives but without a home base, struggle to find a path through the midterm elections between the choices of voting for a Democrat on the one hand or a MAGA mini-Trump on the other. While sitting the midterms out is certainly one option, I have a suggestion for a mindset adjustment that might make this painful decision a bit easier to navigate.
Step back for a moment and look at what’s become of our political system today. The role of corporate and individual fortunes in choosing our representatives and then paying them for their loyalty is a national disgrace. The ability to change voting maps to favor the party in power should be disavowed by both parties as cheating. The normalization of corruption makes it almost impossible for new voices to be heard and elected to positions of power.
Many Democratic candidates who are responding to the people’s repudiation of “business as usual” in the government are thoughtful and clear in what they are offering to the voters: transparency about how decisions are made and who makes them, a commitment to honesty and fairness, and the rights of all people to build a safe and stable life for themselves and their families. (Oh yes, and accountability for those politicians who have ignored the needs of the people with impunity.)
In other words, if you ignore the party affiliation and pay attention to the policy proposals, you will see a wide path forward that has room for Republicans as well as Democrats and Independents. To take this path, our nation must turn away from today’s Republican party completely so that a new Republican party can grow from the ground up.
The politics of inclusion means exactly that: everyone’s needs must be considered, even as decisions and choices must be made. Issues are meant to be discussed and to evolve so that outcomes benefit many more people than a simple yes or no allows. A healthy dialogue will allow the traditional tension between conservative and liberal philosophies to blend in a way that adds to the insight our elected officials need to do their job well.
I’m not suggesting that lifelong Republicans abandon their political values. On the contrary, they must reassert these values, and in the process abandon the present Republican party. It has brought our country to where it is today, and the midterm election results will confirm how the voters feel about that.
Susan Hull is a retired clinical psychologist, a horse trainer and an independent voter. She has confidence in the judgment of the voters to help us reset our political process in the years ahead. Call her if you need a ride to the polls on November 3.
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