By Robert Reich
I’m writing to you today to announce the death of the Republican Party. It is no longer a living, vital, animate organization.
It died in 2016. RIP.
It has been replaced by warring tribes:
Evangelicals opposed to abortion, gay
marriage, and science.
Libertarians opposed to any government
constraint on private behavior.
Market fundamentalists convinced the
“free market” can do no wrong.
Corporate and Wall Street titans
seeking bailouts, subsidies, special tax loopholes, and other forms of crony
capitalism.
Billionaires craving even more of the
nation’s wealth than they already own.
And white working-class Trumpoids who love Donald. and are becoming
convinced the greatest threats to their well-being are Muslims, blacks, and
Mexicans.
Each of these tribes has its own separate political
organization, its own distinct sources of campaign funding, its own unique
ideology – and its own candidate.
What’s left is a lifeless shell called the Republican Party. But
the Grand Old Party inside the shell is no more.
I, for one, regret its passing. Our nation needs political parties to connect up different groups of Americans, sift through prospective candidates, deliberate over priorities, identify common principles, and forge a platform.
The Republican Party used to do these things. Sometimes it did
them easily, as when it came together behind William McKinley and Teddy
Roosevelt in 1900, Calvin Coolidge in 1924, and Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Sometimes it did them with difficulty, as when it strained to
choose Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Barry Goldwater in 1964, and Mitt Romney in
2012.
But there was always enough of a Republican Party to do these
important tasks – to span the divides, give force and expression to a set
of core beliefs, and come up with a candidate around whom Party regulars
could enthusiastically rally.
No longer. And that’s a huge problem for the rest of us.
Without a Republican Party, nothing stands between us and a
veritable Star Wars barroom of self-proclaimed wanna-be’s.
Without a Party, anyone runs who’s able to raise (or
already possesses) the requisite money – even if he happens to be
a pathological narcissist who has never before held public office, even if
he’s a knave detested by all his Republican colleagues.
Without a Republican Party, it’s just us and them. And one of
them could even become the next President of the United States.
ROBERT B. REICH is Chancellor’s Professor of
Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at
the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in
the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten
most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written
fourteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock, “The Work of
Nations," and "Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent,
"Saving Capitalism." He is also a founding editor of the American
Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary,
INEQUALITY FOR ALL.
