A Political Party in Disarray
If you’re a glutton for punishment like me, you probably stayed up late to watch a handful of absolutely bizarre Republican presidential candidates debate each other last night. It was as if they handpicked every single misfit and socially awkward Republican and then threw them up on a debate stage. You can say a lot of things about Trump, but at least the man’s comedic relief is entertaining. The entertainment on display last night was of a different variety entirely. This was the first presidential debate of the 2024 cycle and it was hosted by Fox News. A very unserious group of candidates were able to say all sorts of unserious things, on a very unserious cable “news network.”
The entire two hours was a greatest hits of Republican grievance politics. A laundry list of things the average American probably doesn’t actually care about or actually believe. Things like cities being scary and dangerous, trans athletes unfairly dominating women’s sports, teacher unions are indoctrinating children, abortion is murder, Putin isn’t actually that bad of a guy and the list goes on. One of my personal favorite arguments by Republicans lately is that Trump is a victim of a legal witch hunt by mastermind Joe Biden while also saying Biden is not mentally fit to be president. To say that the modern-day Republican Party is in a bit of an identity crisis would be an understatement.
What led us to this point was Republicans consolidating their power via gerrymandering beginning in 2010. The end-result has been a political party dominated by the far-right wing fringe, a group of people that the Republican Party leadership has had no ability to control. In many states, like in our beloved Ohio, the only elections that have mattered for the vast majority of Republicans since 2010 were primary elections. The voters who participate in primary elections are typically the ones with the most passionate and extreme view points. General elections became irrelevant for so many Republicans which caused the party to take a hard turn to the right. Independent voters, and apathetic voters in general, do not vote in primaries. Republican Party leaders at the national level eventually threw up their hands and just succumbed to the craziness of the far-right because of the old saying, “if you can’t beat em, join em.” Trump thumped all traditional candidates in 2016 and embraced the sort of dangerous race-based grievance politics that propelled him to the White House. That most likely happened because many voters did not ever take him serious and became extremely apathetic in the post-Obama years. What Republicans have had a hard time doing since 2016 is getting rid of Trump’s tight grip on the party and all the crazy ideas that came along with him.
What the Republican Party is now discovering is that many of their ideas are extremely unpopular when you don’t actually get to choose your voters via gerrymandering. For years, the religious-right have pounded the drum about abortion being murder, but again, nobody ever really took them serious because at the end of the day, abortion is simply just healthcare. A personal side note about myself is that I usually tend to get along better with women opposed to men. It’s anecdotal, but I know a good amount of women that have had abortions and strongly believe in a woman’s right to choose. One of the very first political things my non-political mother ever talked to me about was how abortion is healthcare and every woman deserves to have power over their own bodies. And then for some reason, she sent me to Catholic schools from Kindergarten through high school where they told me abortion was murder. Very confusing times growing up in a non-religious household while at the same time receiving an education by Catholic nuns, but I digress.
Being pro-life isn’t the only unpopular issue plaguing the Republican Party. They regularly describe members of the LGBTQ+ community as being p*dophiles. This particular argument has been around for centuries, but holds no real weight in reality. I assume this centuries-old argument is just a fear-mongering tactic by people who have no real understanding how human sexuality works.
Another very unpopular topic is January 6th and how a bunch of angry white people tried to overturn a free and fair election, while at the same time trying to kill Mike Pence. Ron DeSantis was particularly perturbed when January 6th was brought up and kept telling the amateur debate moderators that we need to focus on “January 1st, 2025 and not January 6th, 2021.” That date will certainly live in infamy for the rest of our nation’s history and Ron DeSantis is smart enough to know it. My favorite part of the debate was when the moderators asked if Mike Pence did the right thing in certifying the 2020 election. It’s literally impossible to rig a presidential election in this country because every single county in every single state in America has their own Board of Elections. The amount of collaboration that would need to occur to rig a presidential election in this country is impossible. So naturally, the Presidential hopefuls eventually all admitted that yes, Pence did the right thing and he actually didn’t deserve to be murdered by Q-Anon conspiracy theorists for doing his Constitutional duty. However, the Ohio native Vivek Ramaswamy made it known he was more than willing to pardon Trump if and when he becomes a convicted felon.
Source: Jim Stewartson, Twitter
At the end of the day, this is a political party that was once known as the party of law and order and the party of big business. However, overturning elections, banning all legal abortions and peddling racism/homophobia isn’t actually good for big business or promoting an image of law and order. It promotes an image of authoritarianism and amateurism. Which is why we’ve seen quite a giant shift in the corporatization of the Democratic Party. Corporations had to hedge their bets and they’re investing heavily into Democratic candidates. So here’s the prediction: Trump will completely destroy all of these mediocre candidates, none of whom will ever actually be president, and then Joe Biden will win in a landslide in 2024. Biden will easily win despite being fairly unpopular and inflation effecting the economy because here’s the thing about politics: most people don’t like bullies who are also criminals. Once Trump loses for a second time, the Republican Party will do some serious soul searching. If they ever want to win a national election again, they will finally have to admit that gay Americans deserve to be treated equally, they will need to begrudgingly accept that abortion is in fact healthcare and they’ll have to accept that overturning free and fair elections is actually treason. The far-right grip of the Republican Party will come to an end eventually, but the GOP will need some electoral losses to see the writing on the wall. Once Obama was elected in 2008, the Republicans knew their demise nationally was coming. That is why, instead of adapting, they gerrymandered everything they possibly could. As the old saying goes, all good things must come to an end. What we are currently witnessing is the downfall of the GOP dynasty which began in 2010; they had a heck of a run!