Rep. Joe Crowley’s primary loss to Alexdandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday is yet another reminder that George Will is wrong, and Republican majorities in Congress are important and worth protecting.
Last week, the brilliant and venerable conservative columnist wrote that the Republican caucuses in the House and Senate “must be substantially reduced to minorities,” and he is now openly rooting for Washington Democrats to take the majority in both Houses of Congress.
That is a huge mistake.
Congressional Republicans have a solid record of achievement. The tax reform law passed late last year was the first fundamental overhaul of our nation’s tax code since 1986. Combined with rollbacks of some of former President Barack Obama’s job-killing regulations, tax reform has acted as rocket fuel for our economy. Employment levels, business confidence, and optimism are at levels not seen in decades. Neil Gorsuch sits on the Supreme Court, and a new generation of young conservatives are filling the benches of lower-level federal courts. The House has passed 58 bills to help address the opioid crisis that has killed more Americans than the Vietnam War, and our military is fully-funded for the first time in years. Although Obamacare is not repealed, it is certainly hobbled.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and his House Republican team have succeeded in an era of brash flash the old-fashioned way: They laid out a legislative agenda (dubbed “A Better Way”), won an election, and passed what they promised.
I certainly share some of Mr. Will’s frustrations, both with Trump’s endless mendacity and the decades-long ascendancy of the executive branch at the expense of the legislative. Republicans (and Democrats!) in Congress can and should do more to assert their constitutional prerogatives when it comes to waging war, setting trade policy, and a range of other issues.
But the alternative to a Republican-controlled Congress is not a return to Madisonian utopia of checks and balances. The fury of their opposition to President Trump is radicalizing the Democratic Party.
Consider the platform of the aforementioned Ocasio-Cortez, for example.
She calls for the most expansive (and expensive) version of ‘Medicare for All.’ She wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which would essentially open America’s borders. She supports a government jobs guarantee, which is an essential building block of communism. As Rolling Stone put it, “You couldn’t have written a more liberal platform if Bernie Sanders – for whom Ocasio-Cortez worked as an organizer in 2016 – had written it himself.” And, of course, she wants to impeach President Trump.
Democratic leaders in Congress know this is the platform their liberal base of voters wants – and they worry it sounds poisonously extremist to the swing voters they need. But this is where their party’s energy is, and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and current Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer are like Statler and Waldorf heckling from the balcony in “The Muppet Show” as their party slides further Left.
Ocasio-Cortez’ platform will not be passed by the House if Democrats hold the majority, nor would it pass the Senate, or be signed into law by President Trump. But if these increasingly radical Democratic candidates win, the parameters of debate in this country will shift. Tired and wrong-headed dogmas and ideas that have proven disastrous when put in practice abroad would be within the mainstream of our public discourse. And for conservatives, that is an outcome worth fighting against with all our strength.
Michael Steel (@Michael_Steel) served as press secretary for former House Speaker John Boehner from 2008 to 2015. He also served as press secretary for Paul Ryan during the 2012 presidential election.
