Trouble in Rightist Paradise
A "sign" of things to come?
Some prominent Republicans like Dick Armey, Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum have decided to endorse the Conservative Party candidate instead of the Republican candidate in a New York congressional race. Whether this is a precursor to a larger and broader trend of fracturing within the conservative movement remains to be seen, of course.
But one thing that is certain is that the Republican party is rapidly approaching a crossroads, with three possible alternatives: (1) it can continue to go down the route of big-government and big-money politics, maintaining its status as one side of the coin, with the Democrats occupying the other, (2) it can regroup and reorganize into a truly authentic opposition party, taking real stands on real issues rather than making endless meaningless platitudes, (3) most unlikely, it may just split into two new political parties—a moderate, compromise-oriented center-right party and a narrower, more rigid (but more passionate) far-right one.
Now history says the most likely outcome is that the Republican party will remain intact, and either temporarily (for 5 or 10 years) turn more conservative and authentic (i.e. truly different from the Democrats), or withstand this short term assault from the right flank and, by this time next year, wind up back to where it was under Bush—back to traditional power politics. I consider the more conservative lurch to be quite plausible simply because of the unprecedented and almost pathological expansion of debt and government spending under the current Democrats in power (to say nothing of their actual policy program, which is polarizing in and of itself), whereas in normal times the smart money would unequivocally be on the establishment party powerbrokers and the status quo.
All of this said, we should not forget a crucial part of the equation—Obama and the national Democratic leadership. They are (so far) terrible leaders, but they are not stupid. They might—emphasis on might—see the rising tide of the “right-wing fanatics” begin to enter the corridors of power, and decide to shift to a more moderate, compromising and inclusive course with the purpose of maintaining their hold on power. Of course, if Republicans gain any significant inroads in next year’s elections, this will happen automatically as the White House, like under Clinton, will need to compromise to get anything done.
Assuming the Democrats don’t take such a moderate course, it’s all eyes on the right next year. 2010 has the potential to be a major year for Republican politics. Then again, it might just be the year that never was. In that case, it’s back to business as usual.
MORE ARTICLES:
Comments are currently closed.