On July 31, Sen. Rand Paul thundered on the Senate floor, this is “the last gasp of a movement in America that was concerned with our national debt.”
“Today’s vote will be the last nail in the coffin; the Tea Party is no more,” he declared. Paul was blasting Republicans for passing yet another outrageously reckless budget. He’s right: The GOP, under President Trump, continues to abandon fiscal conservatism, with the deficit set to reach $1 trillion in 2019.
And that’s why Mark Sanford says he is running for president. On Fox News Sunday, the former South Carolina congressman and governor said he would challenge Trump primarily to highlight runaway debt and spending.
Sanford reiterated this on Twitter:
I am compelled to enter the Presidential Primary as a Republican for several reasons – the most important of which is to further and foster a national debate on our nation’s debt, deficits and spending.
— Mark Sanford (@MarkSanford) September 8, 2019
Paul, a frequent Trump ally, declared the Tea Party “dead” in July, due to Republicans now embracing the kind of reckless spending they used to blast during the Obama era. Sanford, a frequent Trump foe, is making the same observation, and has decided that a primary challenge to the president is the best way to make his point.
It is fair to debate whether or not Sanford’s strategy is sound. It is also reasonable to wonder if the point Sanford would like to make could ever be driven home in the current climate, particularly through a controversial candidate such as himself.
Most observers will now judge whether Sanford is a hero or a villain based on how they feel about Trump. If you’re a Republican who likes the president, and most overwhelmingly do, Sanford is a heathen. If you’re a Democrat or #NeverTrump Republican who loathes the president, you’re more likely to see Sanford in a positive light.
But this is just emotion-based partisanship; it’s good guy, bad guy stuff. It has little to do with elevating the issue Sanford cares about. And whatever one’s opinion of him, reining in spending has unquestionably been the primary political cause that has animated Sanford his entire political career.
Yet, this current environment does call into question how effective Sanford might be in re-injecting fiscal responsibility back into the Republican agenda. He knows he won’t become the GOP nominee, much less president. However, if he can get Republicans to start caring about spending again — better yet, if this move somehow forces President Trump to become an advocate on this issue — then Sanford’s quixotic run would certainly be worth it.
And if his campaign doesn’t move the ball at all, how does this move make things any worse than where we are now? The person with the most to lose, in terms of credibility and any kind of political future, is Sanford himself.
Sanford’s announcement comes at a time when high-profile conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh have shamelessly said that debt and deficits don’t matter anymore, and Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has warmed to Elizabeth Warren’s socialist economic plans.
To their credit, today’s self-styled “nationalist” conservatives make no bones about rejecting the old ideology of fiscal restraint and free markets. There is much to their various critiques that should be considered. They are not wrong that human beings in any country should be considered more than mere actors in a market (though the degree to which they assume “libertarian” forces have somehow ruled the day is absurd).
That said, the last successful right-wing populism before Trump’s version was primarily based on holding Republicans’ feet to the fire on spending. For a time, the Tea Party was successful in accomplishing this. It’s not impossible to imagine the grassroots Right and Republicans-at-large under President Trump taking spending seriously as an issue again.
Whether Mark Sanford becomes the man to bring about this change in his party remains to be seen. But he’s not wrong about Republicans and spending. They’re a total mess.
Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Sen. Rand Paul.
