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In
2010 an explosion at a coal mine operated by Massey Energy killed 29
men. In 2015 Don Blankenship, the company’s former C.E.O., was sent to prison
for conspiring to violate mine safety standards. In 2018, Blankenship
appears to have a real chance at becoming the Republican candidate for
senator from West Virginia.
Blankenship is one of four Republicans with criminal convictions
running for office this year, several of whom may well win their
party’s nominations. And there is a much broader list of Republican
politicians facing credible accusations of huge ethical lapses who
nonetheless emerged victorious in G.O.P. primaries, ranging from Roy
Moore to, well, Donald Trump.
To be
sure, there have been plenty of crooked Democrats. But usually the
revelation of their crookedness ended their political careers. What’s
striking about today’s Republican landscape is that people who are
obvious crooks, con men or worse continue to attract strong support from
the party’s base. Moore narrowly lost in Alabama’s special election,
but he received 91 percent of the votes of self-identified Republicans.
And
Trump, although unprecedentedly unpopular for a president at this stage
of his term, continues to receive overwhelming support from the G.O.P.
base. Some Republican politicians have openly admitted
that this makes the party’s congressional wing unwilling to hold Trump
accountable for even the most spectacular malfeasance, up to and
including possible collusion with a hostile foreign power.
What’s
going on here? I don’t think it’s an accident that the modern G.O.P.
contains so many crooks and that these crooks seem to thrive in
intraparty politics. On the contrary, the success of people like
Blankenship — or Trump — was an inevitable consequence of the political
strategy Republicans have followed for decades. For the simple truth is
that ever since Reagan, Republicans have basically played a con game on
American voters.
Their sustained,
invariant agenda has been upward redistribution of income: cutting taxes
on the rich while weakening the social safety net. This agenda is
unpopular: Only a small minority of Americans wants to see tax cuts for the wealthy, and an even smaller minority
wants cuts to major social programs. Yet Republicans have won elections
partly by denying the reality of their policy agenda, but mainly by
posing as defenders of traditional social values — above all, that
greatest of American traditions, racism.
And
this sustained reliance on the big con has, over time, exerted a strong
selection effect both on the party’s leadership and on its base. G.O.P.
politicians tend disproportionately to be con men (and in some cases,
con women), because playing the party’s political game requires both a
willingness to and a talent for saying one thing while doing another.
And the party’s base consists disproportionately of the easily conned —
those who are easily fooled by claims that Those People are the problem
and don’t notice how much the true Republican agenda hurts them.
The
point is that Trumpism was more or less fated to happen. Trump’s crude
racism and blatant dishonesty are only exaggerated versions of what his
party has been selling for decades, while his substantive policy agenda —
slashing taxes on corporations and the wealthy, taking health care away
from lower-income families — is utterly orthodox.
Even
his protectionism is less of a departure from Republican norms than
people imagine. George W. Bush put tariffs on steel, while Reagan
limited imports of Japanese autos. Cutting taxes on the rich is a
fundamental G.O.P. principle; free trade isn’t.
Once you realize the extent to which Republican politics has been shaped by the big con, three implications follow.
First,
there will be no redemption from within. Principled, ethical
politicians won’t reclaim the party from the likes of Trump, because
they’re not what the base wants: The modern G.O.P. is no country for
honest men. Con artists will continue to rule until or unless the party
loses big, repeatedly, and spends years in the political wilderness.
Second, however, the party is indeed vulnerable, because there’s always the risk that voters will catch on to its con. Republican attacks on health care,
not lurid scandals, seem to have been the biggest factor behind
Democratic victories in special elections. And in November this backlash
could give Democrats not just one or both houses of Congress, but also
control of many state governments.
But what if it doesn’t? Here’s the third implication, which should scare you: The nature of the modern G.O.P.’s game gives it a bias against democracy. After all, one way to protect yourself against voters who figure out what you’re up to is to stop them from voting. Vote suppression and extreme gerrymandering are already key parts of Republican strategy, but what we’ve seen so far may be just the beginning.
And if you think that
G.O.P. leaders would balk at gross electoral manipulation, you haven’t
been paying attention. There used to be Republicans like that, but
they’ve been gone for a long time.
Follow me on Twitter (@PaulKrugman) and Facebook.
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