Republicans, it is time to take back your party
By Ben Bright August 29, 2020
Over the past year much has been discussed about the Democratic Party and its supposed move to the left, with several progressive candidates enjoying much support during the presidential campaign. Even though the term “progressive” has rarely been used to describe Joe Biden, that discussion has not died down with his nomination as the Democratic candidate for president. With Biden, the Democrats have selected a much more centrist candidate compared to many of the others with whom he shared a debate stage earlier this year.
In contrast, the Republican Party rarely receives critiquing for its long-term, but much more pronounced, move to the right. Over the past 40 years the Republican Party has seen itself continually move more conservative, beginning in the 1980s with President Reagan and culminating with the Donald Trump presidency. One of the most-known examples of this ultra-conservatism is the Tea Party, which formed shortly after Barack Obama was elected president. The Tea Party, backed by billionaire brothers Charles and the late David Koch, purported to believe in lower taxes, lower government spending and a reduction in the national debt. Trump had great support by the Tea Party in his bid for the presidency in 2015, backed by his fellow billionaires who would have much to gain by a Trump victory.
And the billionaires did gain. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, billionaires have increased their wealth by 10.6% during the Trump presidency. At the same time, regular household wealth has remained relatively the same. Is this what Washington County voters envisioned happening when they helped elect Trump in 2016? The highly touted Trump tax cuts in 2017 claimed to help working families, but instead the disparity between the rich and the middle class has only grown. This is not part of the core beliefs held by most Republicans, who believe that if you work hard and “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” you will earn a good living and be able to support your family. This ideal is not being held to at the highest levels of the Republican Party, as the economic policies it implements actually go against the best interests of the vast majority of party followers.
Most Republicans also support strict adherence to our Constitution, but this is also at odds with the actions of the current president. Trump has targeted Muslims on numerous occasions and threatened to sue the press for libel for stories that he disagrees with. Religion and free speech are both protected under the First Amendment. In the most glaring example of his callousness toward the Constitution, Trump, through the U.S. Senate, has pushed through hundreds of judicial nominees to federal courts, including two for the Supreme Court. While this is within his right as president, the flagrant loading of the courts with highly conservative judges is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they created our system of government. The judicial branch was meant to be a check and balance against both the executive and legislative branches, not beholden to the party in power. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No. 78, “And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from the Judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments...” Judges must be non-partisan in their duties, but the Republican Party is hoping this will not be the case.
Most importantly Republicans stand for family values. This has never been more disregarded. We have a president who has had multiple extramarital affairs. Numerous campaign staffers and high-level associates have been arrested for reasons too numerous to count, including the recent arrest of longtime associate and former White House strategist Steve Bannon, who is accused of embezzling over $1 million from a fundraising campaign for a border wall with Mexico. But most glaringly, nearly 2,000 families have been torn apart due to the administration’s zero-tolerance border policies. This alone should be a deal-breaker for many Republican loyalists, but instead it brought out accusations that it started under President Obama. Yes, in 2014 Obama faced a crisis at the border, with a huge increase in families attempting to cross from Mexico. However, under Obama, the policy was to only separate families in special circumstances, such as adult family members carrying drugs into the country. But this was a rare occurrence, and families were rarely separated. Now, when border crossings are actually at a historic low (which began dropping before Trump took office as the global economy recovered), separating all families is standard practice. This practice, and the actions of Trump and his associates, are not indicative of “family values.”
Republican-elected officials at the highest levels are seeing how the Republican Party is being torn from its roots and are taking a stand. At the RNC Convention last week, very few Republican members of Congress or governors spoke. Normally, this would be a time for them to receive face time on national television to help their current, or future, campaigns. Many are distancing themselves from Trump. Just before the convention, over two dozen former Republican members of Congress announced they were supporting Biden. This includes longtime former Pennsylvania congressman Charlie Dent, who represented the 15th Congressional District from 2005 until 2018. A year ago he wrote, “It is long past time for the Republican Party to have a serious intervention and family discussion about this moment. We must plan for the future and figure out how we’ll reconstruct the party of Lincoln amid this mindless wreckage.”
The Republican Party has a rich and storied history. The “Party of Lincoln” freed the slaves and brought about reconstruction after the Civil War. Under Republican President Eisenhower, troops were sent to Little Rock, Ark., to impose racial desegregation on schools. The Environmental Protection Agency was established under Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan has been credited for ending the Cold War. But in recent times, the leadership has forgotten the party’s ideals.
Republicans, it is time to take your party back, but to do so you will need to pull your party back from the far right. It will not be easy and will require new leaders who are willing to hold true to the party’s core values: fiscal responsibility, small government, constitutionalism, and family values.
Ben Bright is chairman of the Washington County Democratic Committee.
