Imagine how shocked Will Rogers would be if a time machine transported him to the year of our Lord 2024. “I’m not a member of any organized political party,” he famously declared. “I’m a Democrat.”
Another quotation often attributed to the actor and witty social commentator makes a similar point. “Democrats never agree on anything. That’s why they’re Democrats,” Rogers quipped. “If they agreed with each other, they’d be Republicans.”
The feeling among Democrats that their party was hopelessly divided survived into the social media age, with the hashtag #DemsInDisarray.
But in contemporary politics, Rogers’s barbs apply with greater force to the Republicans. As the House clings to the thinnest of majorities, GOP lawmakers remain at cross-purposes over the most basic legislative priorities. We’re already down one House speaker in this Congress with whispers, if Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) locutions can be characterized as such, about what it might take to eject another.
Under these circumstances, it’s not surprising that #DemsInDisarray is now most often used ironically.
Michigan Republicans could wind up with dueling state conventions as part of a fight about control over the party. That should have little bearing on the presidential primary, but it is suboptimal, to say the least, that the Republican leadership is in turmoil in a battleground state Democrats could otherwise easily lose in November.
Internal Republican debates are now almost as nasty as partisan battles with the Democrats. It is therefore not surprising that Republicans can’t get their own House in order.
Conservatives are often blamed for Republicans’ inability to get their legislative agenda across the finish line, and there are times when this is true. But there is plenty of blame within the party to go around. There is a reason the rank and file is suspicious of its leaders’ commitment to their campaign promises — remember that Obamacare replacement we were promised? — while a lot of campaign cash comes to those who promise the moon with Mexico paying for it.
Meanwhile, the federal government grows, the debt-to-GDP ratio becomes less sustainable, and conservatives feel as if they are on the defensive on every front. President Joe Biden’s poll numbers are abysmal, yet even with all his shortcomings and failures he remains at least an even bet to win reelection.
Here that elusive Obamacare replacement plan is instructive. On a variety of fronts, Republicans have failed to provide a compelling alternative conservative model of governance. Instead, Republicans often seem to lurch from crisis to crisis, often of their own making.
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In so doing, they have facilitated Democratic demagoguery about grandmas being pushed over literal and fiscal cliffs. The GOP’s shutdown culture has made budgetary responsibility seem irresponsible to a great many voters the party needs to be able to alter our disastrous course.
The leadership deficit could be the one Republicans are least equipped to confront. Perhaps the most applicable quote comes not from Will Rogers but from New York Mets manager Casey Stengel: “Can’t anyone here play this game?”
Editor-in-chief Hugo Gurdon will be back next week.
