Alan Abramowitz, an Emory University political scientist, has published a predictive model of presidential elections for decades. Through three simple factors—economic growth, presidential job approval, and tenure of the incumbent party—Abramowitz explains most of the variation in presidential elections. This time around, his model points to a narrow Republican victory, but he does not believe this result—because the GOP has gotten behind Donald Trump, which “violates a basic assumption of the model that parties nominate mainstream candidates.” Meanwhile, the FiveThirtyEight “polls plus” model, which combines polling and economic data, finds Hillary Clinton nearly a 2:1 favorite over Trump.
Admittedly, the 2016 race is still in flux. Clinton’s standing in the national polls notably declined after FBI Director James Comey excoriated her over her email server. There is a chance Trump could win. Still, all things considered, this is a race that the Republicansshould win, or it should be a virtual toss-up, at least—if it weren’t for Trump.
Bizarrely, the party is unwilling to do anything about this. The stalwarts in the Republican National Committee are telling the New York Times that it’s “Trump or oblivion,” while almost all of the party’s elected leadership is staying quiet. Of the more than 300 current Republican governors, senators, and representatives, only Utah’s Mike Lee assisted a final effort to “dump Trump” at the convention.
These leaders are political pros who understand how bad Trump’s fundraising is, who have access to the best polling data, and whose careers depend on reading the pulse of the people. Better than anybody else, they know that a Trump nomination likely means a Clinton victory in November.
With that in mind, it’s time for conservatives to ask themselves some difficult questions, above all: What is the point of the Republican party anymore?
The best definition of a party is a team whose goal is to win elections, for the purpose of advancing shared principles. The election that parties wish to win above all others is the one for president. But the 2016 GOP does not fit this definition. By nominating Trump, it is knowingly giving the Democrats their best chance to take control of the government, including the Supreme Court.
And think about the disastrous implications of a liberal majority on the Supreme Court! Religious liberty and the rights of conscience could be rolled back. Ditto our Second Amendment rights. The liberals on the court are eager to gut separation of powers, and allow the president to act like a king. They’ll transform the Voting Rights Act into a mandate to elect as many Democrats as possible. They’ll force taxpayers to fund abortions. If the next president selects three justices, the Court could wreak havoc on the constitutional order for a generation.
GOP leaders know this, and yet only Senator Lee stood up to Trump in Cleveland.
The notion that Republican leaders have a duty to submit to Trump because he won the most votes is nonsense on stilts. He won less than a majority of the Republican vote, and in fact won the smallest share of any presumptive nominee in the modern era. Since the beginning of the country, party nominations have been decided by a majority. The only majority that Trump won was of the delegates. The delegates are pledged and bound according to the party’s rules, which also empower them to unbind themselves if they wish. In other words, there is no moral duty for the party to abide Trump. It is doing so of its own volition.
For years, I have been writing about how to reform the Republican party. Last year, when Glenn Beck announced his departure from the GOP, I called for sticking around, and endeavoring to fix its problems. But I do not know if that makes sense anymore. I was operating under the assumption that the Republican party was still a party in the traditional sense—a team united to win elections for the sake of common principles.
The GOP does not fit that definition right now. Its leaders are far too ignorant, cowardly, indolent and self-interested. They have chosen to submit to Trump, and run the unnecessary risk of handing the whole government—including the Court—to the liberals.
Conservatives should feel unbound (to borrow a phrase!) from any attachment to these people. After all, we are in the Republican party because it is supposed to advance the principles we care about. The GOP of 2016 does not fit that description, so we should feel free to leave, if we decide that is the proper course of action.
And maybe it is.
