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OCTOBER 19, 2023
On the Prospect website
* Anatol Lieven on the perils of holding out for a complete victory
in Ukraine
* Stephen Noonoo on the career challenges of former schoolteachers
* David Dayen on Ken Buck's antitrust opposition
to Jim Jordan
Meyerson on TAP
Why Republicans Are Stuck
On the similarities between uniting nihilists and herding cats
In what sense are today's Republicans still a political party?
Parties, after all, are premised on sharing some commonalities, be they
beliefs or interests. Today's House Republicans, however, have few
beliefs that can be stated aloud to a general audience, and an abundance
of inherently divergent interests.
For many of the Freedom Caucus members, their interests are
self-promotion through the performative outrageousness that the
party's base has been conditioned to applaud by both Donald Trump and
Rupert Murdoch. As to their beliefs, their philosophy of government and
governance, well, that's at best a secondary concern.
In his 16 years in Congress, for instance, Speaker wannabe Jim Jordan
has never authored a bill that was enacted into law (which is an
absurdly low bar to clear, since all you have to do is author a bill
that names a post office after somebody). Or, for another instance,
consider what the party as a whole did at its 2020 national
convention-or, more accurately, what it didn't do. It didn't pass,
or even consider, a platform. Platform, schmatform. Who needs policies?
If most Republicans believe in anything at all, it seems to be the
transactional narcissism of Donald Trump, which apparently gratifies his
followers by enabling them to identify with his hate-suffused words and
actions against people and forces that they hate, too.
I suppose that doesn't fit the narrow definition of nihilism, but
operationally, that fits it to a tee. Among many Republican electeds, it
obviates any need to use government to positively address public
concerns; and it permits them to focus instead on performative, and more
than performative, rage (see: Ron DeSantis et al.). Adding to all of
this is the Republicans' growing awareness that many of their core
beliefs on issues like affordable health care, unions, the minimum wage,
and abortion are wildly unpopular. They can't exactly repudiate those
beliefs, but given the way that Trump and Murdoch have narrowed the
bounds of Republican discourse, they can go through a typical workday or
Fox News interview without having to discuss them at all.
There have been two instances in American history where major national
political parties fell apart. Both the Whigs and the Democrats in the
years preceding the Civil War failed to reconcile their Northern and
Southern wings on the issue of slavery's expansion. The Whigs simply
went out of business, with most of their Northern members joining the
new Republican Party, while the Democrats split into two camps that each
nominated a presidential candidate of their own in 1860, enabling the
Republicans (guy named Lincoln) to win that election.
Nothing so clean or neat or, in a sense, rational divides the House
Republican delegation today. Instead, it's home to just enough
Jordan-Trump-Murdoch nihilists and just enough
**anti**-Jordan-Trump-Murdoch nihilists to paralyze it. It's by no
means clear that there's
**any** House Republican whom his or her fellow House Republicans can
unite behind to elect as Speaker. Dysfunction like this, mixing the
ostensibly doctrinal with the personal, often besets small political or
religious sects (Trotskyists, evangelical storefront churches, etc.),
but previously has not afflicted a major American political party.
Until the advent of today's Republicans. It would be funny if nihilism
weren't a major precondition for and component of fascism.
~ HAROLD MEYERSON
Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter
[link removed]
The Perilous Pursuit of Complete Victory in Ukraine
U.S. policymakers should listen to Gen. Clausewitz, not Gen. MacArthur.
BY ANATOL LIEVEN
The Journey of Teachers Who Leave the Profession
Many are burned out by attacks on public education. But they struggle to
find employers willing to take a chance on someone with only classroom
experience. BY STEPHEN NOONOO
Ken Buck Gets His Revenge on Jim Jordan
Don't mess with the anti-monopoly reformers. BY DAVID DAYEN
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