By Georgi Boorman
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Donald Trump is the new face of the Republican Party. The
presidency is so important that, try as pundits may to downplay the GOP
presidential nominee’s success and diminish his credibility as a leader of the
party, he is the GOP’s top voice now. Millions of Americans, a significant
plurality of Republicans, have voted
for Trump’s platform of Make America Great Again, complete with trade wars,
mass deportations, a disregard for constitutional limits on the presidency, and
“we’re going to take care of everybody” health care.
The fact that House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Trump-like
primary challenger failed to overthrow an incumbent GOP leader (when do primary
challengers ever succeed?) and that other GOP incumbents look secure against
primary challengers doesn’t change that.
Trump’s nomination, however narrowly decided, shows how
the ideas that we thought anchored the party and would guide any GOP nominee
are actually more like tertiary thought bubbles. Likely this wasn’t a sudden
revolution among the voting base; those thought bubbles have probably been
floating farther out into neglected GOP brain space for some time. As someone
once pointed out to me, the GOP has “coasted on populist sentiment” for quite a
while, and now we are beginning to see its fruit. If the base was weak enough
to let Trump in, then Trump and his supporters are strong enough to ignore them
and their clingy conservatism.
Consider, for instance, that GOP delegates modified the
GOP platform on trade toward Trump’s protectionist positions, eliminating
mention of the Trans Pacific Partnership, decrying “massive trade deficits,”
and throwing in his “America First” slogan. Trump also picked an infamous
traitor to religious liberty—a dearly held conservative principle—as a running
mate. With Trump at the helm, many conservative or libertarian-leaning
Republicans are asking themselves: do I even belong here? Is this still the party
of Reagan, or has it morphed into something else?
So if the main current of Republicanism is populist
nationalism, replete with moderate versions of the statism the Democrats have
put forward, what is a Republican in name only (RINO) now?
All the Outsiders
Are Now Insiders
Defenders of the entitlement state (John Kasich, for
example) aren’t RINOs anymore. Trump doesn’t want to touch entitlements, his
running mate sought to expand Medicaid in his state, and all the Trump
supporters I’ve talked to are at least apathetic about his weak stance on
reducing the national debt. The mainstream Republican voter still wants his
Social Security check and Medicare. These voters are not RINOs; the Republican
Party is just the slightly more responsible home for their comfort votes.
Proponents of the LGBT agenda aren’t RINOs—Trump has been
pro-gay marriage from the get-go, and has said transgender people should be
allowed to use whatever bathroom they want.
Advocates for protectionist trade policy aren’t
RINOs—that’s a cornerstone of Trump’s platform. Those who support market
regulation (the “right” regulation) instead of pushing back against the
regulatory state wholecloth aren’t RINOs. That’s Trump’s policy, although he
talks big about ditching the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S.
Department of Education. Letting Apple have parts of its iPhone manufactured
overseas for a fraction of the price isn’t “free trade,” Trump’s people argue.
It’s “stupid trade.”
To have “smart trade,” we need high tariffs—or, rather,
increased control over exports and imports. We need regulation, because the
“right” regulation ensures jobs. As one Trump fan argued on Twitter:
Do you want jobs in this country?
Because free-trade means nothing if people can't work. High-paying value-added
jobs have been lost to 'developing' countries with no regulations.
The only RINO offenses from past decades here to stay are
to be soft on national security (however ignorant and irresponsible Trump’s
foreign policy is, one cannot say he is soft), and soft on illegal immigration.
But those who believe in free markets and respect the
Constitution are increasingly marginalized in the GOP. They face pressure on multiple
fronts: on one side the establishment Republicans in seats of power (former
House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, for
example) who are invested in the status quo and maintaining their authority,
and on another, the nationalist populist front, with Donald Trump at the helm.
Yes, conservatives have fought back with some success against the GOP’s
establishment wing through the Tea Party, only to have it mobilized later for
Trump’s populism.
Maybe a RINO Is
Now the Principled One
Indeed, it seems Trump’s rise may have done in the
conservative movement within the GOP, or at least halted it for a time. Free
traders and strict constitutionalists are guests in what they thought was their
home. This alienation begs the question: has “RINO” come to mean the opposite
of what we’ve understood it to mean in past election cycles, that of a centrist
or a populist that consistently caves to pressure from the left? Or would it
mean, in 2016, that a RINO is a conservative or libertarian who refuses to toe
the line for the establishment or be carried away in the flow of populism, and
who rejects white identity politics and widely propagated myths about how
globalization is ruining our country?
I used to grimace at the pro-Trump tweets accusing
various conservatives, from David Limbaugh to Jonah Goldberg, of being a “RINO”
for not supporting Trump.
But now, I believe, NeverTrumpers can embrace the
name-calling. “Yes, you’re damn right I’m a RINO,” they can say on Twitter.
“This party doesn’t represent me anymore. I’m just here because right now,
there’s nowhere else to go.” Such disloyalty may make them traitors to their
party, but not to their country, or the principles they believe truly make
America great.
Conservatives deserve a party that represents them, but
that party doesn’t exist right now. So let’s settle into our new role on the
margins and accept the title of RINO gladly—not just because it reflects the
fact that we are Republican in name only, but because if conservatism is to
survive the Trump era, we must create some separation within the party between
the populists and the members who are grounded in free market principles and
constitutionalism.
Millions of self-identified conservatives have backed
Trump from the beginning, so to simply assert “No, I’m the real conservative!” does little to protect the brand.
Besides, we have the wonderful new insult of “cuckservative,” for
self-described conservatives who actually support candidates who share conservative
values. It makes literally no sense, as “cuck” is supposed to mean a coward or
sellout, but a conservative NeverTrumper is begging the insult by insisting on
conservatism. And if Trump fans continue to describe themselves as
conservative, the term is of little use to differentiate among the free
marketers and protectionists, the constitutionalists and the soft
totalitarians.
As Goldberg wrote back in 2007, in anticipation of an
election cycle not nearly as divisive as this one, “unity is overrated.” We
must push the separation even farther, and if that means accepting the harsh
reality that we really don’t fit in the GOP of 2016, so be it.
Nowadays it’s popular to attempt to bend reality to our
will to create the world we desire, but it brings tension and confusion, not
contentment. Embracing my RINOism has given me a small measure of peace about
the future of the GOP and my political ideology. The exact hashtag doesn’t
matter much—#proudtobeRINO, #StraightUpRINO, #RINOconservative—but if you feel
out of place in the GOP, consider giving RINOism a try.
No comments:
Post a Comment