The Big GOP Conundrum

The writing is on the wall. If the Republican Party continues to define itself pretty much as a rural, “we’re against anything that Obama is for” party, there is an unraveling taking place too quickly for the GOP to survive as a viable national (vs local) force. The party of “no” may please heavily gerrymandered districts, where they have been structured to eliminate any meaningful competition from Democrats or urban values, but their approach clearly turns off national constituencies in droves. With American demographics going the “wrong way” for such increasingly obsolete white traditionalists, building a party on anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-abortion, anti-reasonable gun control over assault weapons, anti-anti-anti has become a vision of extreme exclusionary politics… unfortunately excluding the very pockets of statistical growth the GOP needs to survive.

Stopping government may play well for local redistricted venues, making sure the President cannot get his appointments in place to conduct normal business, but it is bad for business. While Wall Street requires volatility to make money, they do not like demands that undermine financial institutions as well as confidence in the systems within which they need to operate, policies that hammer trading values. They’ve embraced some serious concessions to social issues – to buy the conservative votes they need to reduce taxes and regulations under the guise of “violating the free market American economy” – although they really don’t care one way or another. It was a compact they had to make because they had too few votes by themselves to move the low tax/de-regulation needle. But the Tea Party has begun to cause some serious schisms with what’s good for the Street.

It’s strange that as the Supreme Court unleashed free-wheeling SuperPac spending under their 2010 Citizen Uniteddecision, the liberal universe expected that ultra-conservatives would take over the airways, dominating political messaging completely in favor of right wing causes. Indeed it started out that way, but as the Tea Party grew in power and stature, coopting the GOP and pushing moderates out the door in the 2012 election, literally stopping government at every chance they have been given, the right wing SuperPac spending began to dry up. The business community began to realize that social causes, collapsing government and rural values, were pretty much becoming the only policies the GOP stood for anymore. They also were witnessing how far the new right was out of touch with the growing majority of “new” America. SuperPac money began drying up, and corporate America was beginning to have extreme second thoughts about the Tea Party-dominated GOP.

“Scholars have proposed many reasons for the rise of the anti-government activists that are pulling the G.O.P. to the right, leaving it at odds with a business community used to compromising and seeking favors from government…  But what may be most surprising is how reluctant big business has been to put its money on the line. To put it mildly, if companies could purchase the Congress of their choice, it’s unlikely they would buy the gridlocked Congress we have. The seemingly inexorable rise of political partisans — mainly on the right, but on the left, too — suggests that corporate money may be playing a much smaller role in the political process than expected…

“Three years [after Citizens United], however, these fears have not quite materialized. Money is flowing to elections like never before. The 2012 elections cost some $6.3 billion, $1 billion more than the 2008 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group that researches money and politics. Independent spending by outside groups on campaign advertisements and the like topped $1 billion last year.

“Corporate America, however, accounted for a comparative trickle. Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford University, points out in a recent working paper that companies openly spent about $75 million from their treasuries on federal elections last year… Even if all the hidden money funneled into campaigns through private 501(c) organizations had come from businesses — unlikely given the contributions by noncorporate groups like Planned Parenthood and the N.R.A. — corporate spending would not reach $400 million, still a small share of the total.” New York Times, September 3^rd. Their money has shifted, instead, to direct efforts to influence day-to-day legislation: lobbying.  

So until the United States as whole fades away, there is a moderate, fiscally conservative GOP constituency that is no longer represented by the Republican Party. Unwilling to step into the conservative “Blue Dog” segment of the Democratic Party, these relative moderates have no voice in American elections. But there is a realignment breeze beginning to blow, one that may actually force the moderates to leave the GOP and form a new “independent” middle. This new “middle” – folks like NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg – would be very well supported with big corporate bucks. The Tea Party would then control a non-essential minority, unable to stop government or ply their ways except in the most isolated rural parts of America.

As demographics continue to change, as the young simply move to their newer, updated social values, the Tea Party GOP would simple fade away… and the new GOP might rise from those ashes. What is absolutely fascinating is how successful the Tea Party has convinced itself that it will prevail in this sea of change. They will upset the apple cart for a while… until the next group puts it up again and restocks the apple supply.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it is indeed interesting how so many people believe that they can stop change… and in doing so, they would be the first group in history to do so!