One of the (many) oddities of the 2016 Republican race is how perverted our language has become in categorizing the candidates. Marco Rubio is the “establishment” candidate. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are “anti-establishment.” Neither of these definitions really fits what’s going on.
The 2016 race featured a trio of real, live, establishment Republicans. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and John Kasich are all actually parts of the Republican establishment. And they’ve been pretty soundly rejected by primary voters.
There were also a bunch of reformist-Republicans-that is, conservatives who were part of the establishment by dint of their positions, but were looking to change the party in important, substantive ways and could never be accused of being part of the Georgetown cocktail party circuit. I’d put Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, and Scott Walker in this category.
And then there’s Cruz and Rubio, who by any reasonable definition should be seen as Tea Party insurgents. They came to office by challenging and routing the Republican establishment. They have different visions for how they want to transform the party, but both of them intend to change it in dramatic ways.
The very fact of their candidacies has been a challenge to the Republican establishment. Cruz is so hated by the Mitch McConnells of the world that they’d probably prefer Trump as president. Yet Cruz grew up within the establishment-Harvard Law; the Bush administration. The best way to describe Cruz is probably with the old evangelical phrase, “in, but not of.”
As for Rubio, none of the party big wigs wanted him to run in the first place, as evidenced by their attempt to keep him out of the race at first, deny him resources once he got in, and then spend tens of millions of dollars attacking him as he ran.
That’s all changed now. As you watch the Republican establishment and money rally to Rubio this week, you have to understand that this isn’t the act of a class protecting one of its own. It’s an act of surrender. The Republican establishment has lost. They are embracing Rubio in an attempt to form a coalition in which they’re the junior partner.
The fact that none of the three remaining candidates is really part of the GOP establishment is actually a sign of the total victory the Tea Party has won over the party regulars. This is a good thing. The Republican establishment was, depending on your view, either ossified or rotten to the core.
But the question going forward is what will replace the old establishment. Will it be a revived, middle-class conservatism of the Mike Lee school? Or more libertarian-ish? Rubio and Cruz offer compelling, but distinct visions.
What separates them from Trump is that they are looking to revolutionize the party from the inside. Trump is staging a hostile-takeover of the party from the outside. And what he wants to replace the old establishment with is neither Republican nor conservative.
There’s clearly a market for what he’s selling. So maybe the future of the Republican party really is pro-choice, big-government, nationalist populism-a Frankenstein’s monster that’s part Nelson Rockefeller and part Father Coughlin.
But whatever happens, understand that Rubio isn’t the “establishment candidate.” The establishment has already lost. And they’re surrendering to Rubio only in the hopes of getting better terms.
