This is my first post in a long time, and the first since defending my dissertation. I am glad to be back on here.
Four years ago, tomorrow, I made one of the biggest decisions of my life: I renounced my allegiance to the Republican Party. It was a rather agonizing day for me, especially being only ten days removed from casting what was, at the time, the proudest vote I had cast in my life; a vote in the Virginia Primary for Marco Rubio. I concluded, however, that Trump’s nomination was inevitable and that it would take the Republican Party down a path I could not follow. I never intended, at the time, for it to be a permanent decision, but it is looking more and more like I will be camping out in the political wilderness for a very long time.
What has happened between March 2016 and March 2020 has continuously shocked me to the core. The Republican Party, especially in the time since Donald Trump’s upset victory over Hillary Clinton, has become unrecognizable to me. Policy-wise, they have retained many of the features of the pre-Trump GOP, but they have reversed course on trade policy, gone berserk on immigration, embraced massive government spending, and embraced a foreign policy that has been completely ad hoc, reactionary, and devoid of guidance. But the bigger, and more important, changes have not been in the strictly policy-oriented realm, but rather to the very heart and foundation of the party. A party that I once believed was about limited government, freedom, and goodness in politics has become entirely devoted to Donald Trump, trolling the left, bringing down intellectuals, and trying to forestall the day when whites are no longer the majority force in American politics. It is clear that I have no place in what the GOP has become.
The most disheartening thing about the last four years, however, has been the extent to which the Republicans have embraced not only a demagogue, but demagoguery, itself. The mantra, “he fights!” has become more than just an excuse to vote for Trump; it has become the justification for anything Trump does. “Owning the libs,” as “Comfortably Smug” often does on Twitter is now one of the only two purposes of the Republican Party, the other being to defend the Religious Right in their overblown culture wars (as though America is the Roman Empire under Diocletian). The Republicans now believe principled statesmanship to be a characteristic of weak, mushy pushovers who are unwilling to do what needs to be done in order to win these exaggerated conflicts. It is a foolish and short-sighted view, but a dominant one among the Republicans, who believe that we are one election away from becoming the Soviet Union. It has also been disheartening to see Republican after Republican I once respected bend the knee Trump, such as (and this is only a partial list): Nikki Haley, Ben Sasse, Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik, Mia Love, Paul Ryan, Lindsey Graham, and on and on it goes. One thing they have taught me is to always trust that a politician will place his self-interest above everything else. I thought that each one of these figures would be instrumental in restraining Trump, but they have all fallen.
I do believe this year’s election is an important one; probably the most important one in which I have yet voted. But I do not believe it is important for the reasons Republicans do. I do not believe that it is the ultimate showdown between socialism and capitalism (especially now that Joe Biden appears to be well on his way to the nomination). I am heartened by the efforts of the Democratic Party to avoid making the same mistakes the GOP made four years ago, when certain candidates could not set aside their egos in an effort to defeat Trump. I believe this election is important because the future of America’s experiment with republican democracy has never before been this imperiled.
Donald Trump’s presidency has been an abject disaster. The economy he inherited has done well, in spite of this administration governing in perpetual crisis mode, whether because of scandals or some other crisis manufactured by the White House. The economy, however, is not how Trump’s presidency should be judged. It should be judged by the disastrous effects he has had on the foundations of our political system and the institutional prestige of his office. The last three years have seen America’s presidency descend into a never-ending circus with Trump as the Ringmaster. Between the endless turnover of his staff, the rage Tweeting at 3 in the morning, the usurpation of emergency powers, and Trump’s expressed desire to rule from the Oval Office with an iron fist, Trump’s presidency has operated exactly as I predicted it would: incompetent demagoguery.
As I stated four years ago when I left the Republican Party, Trump is exactly the sort of president the Founders feared the most when they created the office. He is a classic demagogue, in the sense that he believes himself to be the “voice of the People,” he disregards laws and guidelines that he believes are inhibiting his ability to act as the People’s Champion, he is willing to tear down institutions and obstacles that stand in his way, and he is ultimately interested in becoming a dictator. Theoretically, our system should have constrained his power. The Electoral College, if it operated as designed, would have consisted of wise individuals who would have recognized the threats he poses to our very system of governance and rejected him. Ironically, the College became the means by which he gained access to the White House, having significantly lost the popular vote in the general election.
In office, we should have expected Congress to restrain him, but the Founders never counted on congressional parties becoming this subservient to the president (they actually feared the opposite: that a legislative President would become a creature of the legislature). As such, despite deserving impeachment more than any other president in American history, except Richard Nixon, Trump survived, with only 2 Republicans willing to challenge him (one of which had become an independent before impeachment, anyway). To add insult to injury, Trump completely thumbed his nose at everyone following his acquittal by trolling the American public with a video clip that promoted the idea of an eternal Trump dynasty, set to the “The Hall of the Mountain King.” Trump made it clear, at that point, that he no longer feared any checks against his power and would troll the American people with propaganda that was profoundly un-American. And even when Trump engaged in one of the most blatant usurpations of power in American history by reallocating Congressionally-appropriated funds for the Pentagon to his border wall project, most Republicans backed him. He now feels free to interfere in judicial proceedings, uses pardons to reward loyalty, and is openly vindictive towards good public servants who blow the whistle. Even during a crisis, Trump cannot stay focused on his actual job, as he seems to believe his real job is managing public relations and polling numbers. Everything I predicted about his attitudes towards governance has proven true.
I, therefore, tremble at the thought of a second Trump term. If Trump wins reelection, it will validate, in his mind, everything he has done, and he will feel freed to up the ante even more. Lacking the ability to be reelected, and seemingly-bolstered by a vote of approval from the American people, he will amp up his efforts to dismantle institutions that stand in his way, and he will tighten his grip on the Republican Party and any other levers of power that he can. The circus will not only continue, but will be amplified tenfold, as Trump basks in the glory of a second victory. Republicans in Congress, who are already terrified of him, will be complete and utter slaves to his will, and the cult of personality will only become more entrenched. This is not a battle of policy; it is a battle to preserve republican governance from a president and a party that seek to replace it with autocracy. Four years of demagoguery is enough. We have to stop him. And the Republican Party needs to suffer a crippling defeat in order to have a chance of returning to sanity and being competitive in the long-run.
I am glad I made the agonizing decision to leave the GOP four years ago. Despite being a Ph.D. student at the time, I still did not appreciate just how tinted the lenses of partisanship truly are. Leaving the GOP allowed me to see a dark underbelly to the party that I simply refused to believe was there. As a party member, I was in denial about the power of racism in the contemporary GOP, and the exaggerations of the Religious Right in their culture wars. And I never realized just how Machiavellian the party was in pursuit of power; how the ends always justified the means, and this idea that the GOP is the party of any kind of values was nonsense. I still believe, of course, that many Republicans and conservatives have the right intentions when it comes to most things, but leaving the party removed some rather large blinders from my life, when it came to my former party. As lonely as being in the political wilderness can seem sometimes, I feel like I have become wiser and it has allowed me to keep a clear conscience, while the GOP continues down its path of insanity.
Four years ago, tomorrow, I made one of the biggest decisions of my life: I renounced my allegiance to the Republican Party. It was a rather agonizing day for me, especially being only ten days removed from casting what was, at the time, the proudest vote I had cast in my life; a vote in the Virginia Primary for Marco Rubio. I concluded, however, that Trump’s nomination was inevitable and that it would take the Republican Party down a path I could not follow. I never intended, at the time, for it to be a permanent decision, but it is looking more and more like I will be camping out in the political wilderness for a very long time.
What has happened between March 2016 and March 2020 has continuously shocked me to the core. The Republican Party, especially in the time since Donald Trump’s upset victory over Hillary Clinton, has become unrecognizable to me. Policy-wise, they have retained many of the features of the pre-Trump GOP, but they have reversed course on trade policy, gone berserk on immigration, embraced massive government spending, and embraced a foreign policy that has been completely ad hoc, reactionary, and devoid of guidance. But the bigger, and more important, changes have not been in the strictly policy-oriented realm, but rather to the very heart and foundation of the party. A party that I once believed was about limited government, freedom, and goodness in politics has become entirely devoted to Donald Trump, trolling the left, bringing down intellectuals, and trying to forestall the day when whites are no longer the majority force in American politics. It is clear that I have no place in what the GOP has become.
The most disheartening thing about the last four years, however, has been the extent to which the Republicans have embraced not only a demagogue, but demagoguery, itself. The mantra, “he fights!” has become more than just an excuse to vote for Trump; it has become the justification for anything Trump does. “Owning the libs,” as “Comfortably Smug” often does on Twitter is now one of the only two purposes of the Republican Party, the other being to defend the Religious Right in their overblown culture wars (as though America is the Roman Empire under Diocletian). The Republicans now believe principled statesmanship to be a characteristic of weak, mushy pushovers who are unwilling to do what needs to be done in order to win these exaggerated conflicts. It is a foolish and short-sighted view, but a dominant one among the Republicans, who believe that we are one election away from becoming the Soviet Union. It has also been disheartening to see Republican after Republican I once respected bend the knee Trump, such as (and this is only a partial list): Nikki Haley, Ben Sasse, Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik, Mia Love, Paul Ryan, Lindsey Graham, and on and on it goes. One thing they have taught me is to always trust that a politician will place his self-interest above everything else. I thought that each one of these figures would be instrumental in restraining Trump, but they have all fallen.
I do believe this year’s election is an important one; probably the most important one in which I have yet voted. But I do not believe it is important for the reasons Republicans do. I do not believe that it is the ultimate showdown between socialism and capitalism (especially now that Joe Biden appears to be well on his way to the nomination). I am heartened by the efforts of the Democratic Party to avoid making the same mistakes the GOP made four years ago, when certain candidates could not set aside their egos in an effort to defeat Trump. I believe this election is important because the future of America’s experiment with republican democracy has never before been this imperiled.
Donald Trump’s presidency has been an abject disaster. The economy he inherited has done well, in spite of this administration governing in perpetual crisis mode, whether because of scandals or some other crisis manufactured by the White House. The economy, however, is not how Trump’s presidency should be judged. It should be judged by the disastrous effects he has had on the foundations of our political system and the institutional prestige of his office. The last three years have seen America’s presidency descend into a never-ending circus with Trump as the Ringmaster. Between the endless turnover of his staff, the rage Tweeting at 3 in the morning, the usurpation of emergency powers, and Trump’s expressed desire to rule from the Oval Office with an iron fist, Trump’s presidency has operated exactly as I predicted it would: incompetent demagoguery.
As I stated four years ago when I left the Republican Party, Trump is exactly the sort of president the Founders feared the most when they created the office. He is a classic demagogue, in the sense that he believes himself to be the “voice of the People,” he disregards laws and guidelines that he believes are inhibiting his ability to act as the People’s Champion, he is willing to tear down institutions and obstacles that stand in his way, and he is ultimately interested in becoming a dictator. Theoretically, our system should have constrained his power. The Electoral College, if it operated as designed, would have consisted of wise individuals who would have recognized the threats he poses to our very system of governance and rejected him. Ironically, the College became the means by which he gained access to the White House, having significantly lost the popular vote in the general election.
In office, we should have expected Congress to restrain him, but the Founders never counted on congressional parties becoming this subservient to the president (they actually feared the opposite: that a legislative President would become a creature of the legislature). As such, despite deserving impeachment more than any other president in American history, except Richard Nixon, Trump survived, with only 2 Republicans willing to challenge him (one of which had become an independent before impeachment, anyway). To add insult to injury, Trump completely thumbed his nose at everyone following his acquittal by trolling the American public with a video clip that promoted the idea of an eternal Trump dynasty, set to the “The Hall of the Mountain King.” Trump made it clear, at that point, that he no longer feared any checks against his power and would troll the American people with propaganda that was profoundly un-American. And even when Trump engaged in one of the most blatant usurpations of power in American history by reallocating Congressionally-appropriated funds for the Pentagon to his border wall project, most Republicans backed him. He now feels free to interfere in judicial proceedings, uses pardons to reward loyalty, and is openly vindictive towards good public servants who blow the whistle. Even during a crisis, Trump cannot stay focused on his actual job, as he seems to believe his real job is managing public relations and polling numbers. Everything I predicted about his attitudes towards governance has proven true.
I, therefore, tremble at the thought of a second Trump term. If Trump wins reelection, it will validate, in his mind, everything he has done, and he will feel freed to up the ante even more. Lacking the ability to be reelected, and seemingly-bolstered by a vote of approval from the American people, he will amp up his efforts to dismantle institutions that stand in his way, and he will tighten his grip on the Republican Party and any other levers of power that he can. The circus will not only continue, but will be amplified tenfold, as Trump basks in the glory of a second victory. Republicans in Congress, who are already terrified of him, will be complete and utter slaves to his will, and the cult of personality will only become more entrenched. This is not a battle of policy; it is a battle to preserve republican governance from a president and a party that seek to replace it with autocracy. Four years of demagoguery is enough. We have to stop him. And the Republican Party needs to suffer a crippling defeat in order to have a chance of returning to sanity and being competitive in the long-run.
I am glad I made the agonizing decision to leave the GOP four years ago. Despite being a Ph.D. student at the time, I still did not appreciate just how tinted the lenses of partisanship truly are. Leaving the GOP allowed me to see a dark underbelly to the party that I simply refused to believe was there. As a party member, I was in denial about the power of racism in the contemporary GOP, and the exaggerations of the Religious Right in their culture wars. And I never realized just how Machiavellian the party was in pursuit of power; how the ends always justified the means, and this idea that the GOP is the party of any kind of values was nonsense. I still believe, of course, that many Republicans and conservatives have the right intentions when it comes to most things, but leaving the party removed some rather large blinders from my life, when it came to my former party. As lonely as being in the political wilderness can seem sometimes, I feel like I have become wiser and it has allowed me to keep a clear conscience, while the GOP continues down its path of insanity.
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