The GOP in US Politics: Where Do Old White Elephants go?

63 per cent of the over-60 white vote qualifies for that distinction. But off to die in the elephants' graveyeard? Wishful thinking – or needless fear, as the case may be. Early Republican despair at the loss of the presidential election was slightly excessive, as if their side had been the more likely winner. Many leading Republicans now call for party reform (see, e.g., William Saletan, Washington Post, November 18). Here is a transatlantic view of the outcome of November 6, 2012.

I doubt the GOP will go into reform. The loss was by no means that serious, and the party core is too entrenched. In particular, the closeness of the race reveals the continuing strength of the Republicans and the depth of the division in the country – very much one of culture – between Obama's voters and Romney's. Obama's win was only by 50.66 per cent to 47.69 per cent. A 3 per cent loss for Romney is hardly a landslide for Obama, only just enough to be a convincing victory. Then, of course, the House of Representatives remains solidly Republican and in control of the all-important budget.

Many Republican bloggers suggest ways in which the Republicans can make themselves more attractive to younger voters in the future. Go for the gay vote (which evidently was a significant help to Obama); court the immigrants, pursue the women's vote. Such ideas may make theoretical sense, but I don't think these groups are likely to be more favored by the GOP in the future than they have been until now, unless there is a GOP candidate who personally embodies such values. At most there might be a female candidate - in the Palin mode? Hardly a winning card. Condoleezza Rice? Not unthinkable, but a long shot for the nomination in a party that still hides a lot of racism. Other types of off-the-beaten-track Republican candidates seem unlikely to me.

As for religion and abortion, one cannot shift the GOP stance on questions like these without undermining core Republican convictions. All told, it seems that when the Republicans score, they do so less on issues than on basic ideology and appealing to people's aspirations to be rich some day. As many have already pointed out, if this had been only the party of the rich it would hardly have had a chance to win this election. In sum, my guess is that GOP reform is not going to happen.

There is another reason why I think so. The present mode of inside GOP politics is (to my guess) more in tune with the Tea Party people and the huge jungle of lopsided right-wing media reporting than any reformed party platform is likely to be. The Republican Party had a dominant elite in the 1950s and -60s that was intellectual and moderate in its leanings. It is pretty clear that this former moderate Republican consensus at the top was broken gradually during the two decades before 1980. What I believe happened was that a widespread set of fundamentalist populist views started simmering up from the Republican small-town and countryside communities, first to the state level - most prominently in California with Governor Ronald Reagan during the 1970s, then moving on with Reagan to the national level. This is no research finding, just a collection of personal impressions.

I remember being very surprised during my first year in the US (1961-62) to encounter the fundamentalist Republican views typical of my small, friendly Iowa host town. My surprise was due to their fairly uniform and rigid views on «socialism» («socialized medicine» especially) and religion, which to me seemed very different from the impressions I had had of the public image of Eisenhower Republicans at the national level. Then, two years later, along came Barry Goldwater, the Arizona fundamentalist representing the Republicans opposite Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 presidential elections. The controversy within the Republican party over the Goldwater candidacy and his poor showing was immense. Such primitive views, one gathered, were not to be launched again by the GOP in a nation-wide campaign.

Also indicative of the moderate stance at this time was the fact that the term «conservative» was not in use in Republican US politics, except by the curious phenomenon William Buckley, who showed up in the talk shows in the late 1960s. He turned out to be much before his time (though many of us then thought the opposite). And true enough, Nixon won in 1968 with a much more subdued Republican message than Goldwater four years before. Not until 1980 did the small-town, Goldwater brand of conservative Republicanism reappear, this time making a smashing success. The personality of Ronald Reagan was of course very much part of the reason for this success.*

Since then, the fundamentalist base has ruled the GOP. Demographic change is eroding it, but it is still very much alive. Just look at the states Romney won. There is still plenty of space between the coasts for Republican fundamentalism. 

One reason why Republicans might also look to the future with some confidence at this time could be that the midterms of 2014 are not so far away. The Five-Thirtyeight Blog of the New York Times gives figures (November 18) from US mid-term elections since 1946. These simple statistics show convincingly that the President's party – Republican or Democrat – almost always loses the House of Representatives in the subsequent mid-terms. Good news for the GOP, uncertainty for the US as a whole.

Clearheaded leadership is required not just from the President, but also from those who oppose him and hold the key to a sensible way out of the jam they have all been in for too long. Even we on the outside are getting tired and dismayed by the long trend of fundamentalism in US politics, which is distracting the country from playing constructively in world politics. 

Fortunately, good sense won at least the top post in this election. And it is reassuring to learn along the way that there are still people around who call themselves «liberal Republicans» - and who voted for Obama.

* See also "How the Republicans Got that Way" by Sam Tanenhaus, New York Review of Books, May 24, 2012.