Is the Republican Party in Crisis?

After every change in power, members of the losing party tend to wring their hands and ask one another, "Is there no hope for this country?" What they really mean is, "Is our party sunk this time...for good?" Despite many ups and downs, the Democratic and Republican parties have proven to be most resilient political parties and both have bounced back from humbling defeats in the past. Their longevity has been closely tied with their willingness to change their platform in response to changing times. Few Democrats advocate for Free Silver these days and few Republicans would call themselves non-interventionists. If history is our guide, in all likelihood the Republicans will survive their electoral losses in 2006 and 2008. However, parties do sometimes fizzle out of existence, and I think there are two major threats to the Republicans' long-term future.

The Achilles' heel for the Republicans is their insincerity. George W. Bush promised a humble foreign policy and delivered two wars. Virtually every Republican plays lip service to the idea of smaller government but while in power they have tended to expand the federal government. Somehow or other they've gotten the idea that fiscal conservatism just means lower taxes -- as long as you lower taxes, it doesn't matter if you spend more or accumulate huge deficits. Genuine fiscal conservatives, though, want the government to not just earn less but also to spend less; they recognize that an indebted nation is just as in danger of bankruptcy as an indebted company or individual but that the consequences of a national bankruptcy tend to be far worse and affect millions of people. While fiscal conservatives are unlikely to become Democrats, they will find it increasingly difficult to support Republicans who continually say one thing and deliver another. As I see it, sooner or later the Republicans will have to make a choice. Do they stand for smaller government even if that might damage America's ability to intervene politically and militarily in her interests worldwide? Are they willing to make the hard choices -- yes, even the politically damaging ones in the short-term -- that restoring the country's fiscal fitness will require? I don't think the Republicans can count on the votes of fiscal conservatives permanently...rhetoric can only go so far when it is not backed up by policy.

The Republicans' second great weakness is demographics. A century ago, the Democratic Party, particularly in the South, was THE racist party. That's simply what they were...the Republicans were the party of Lincoln, after all. Chameleons as always, the parties changed sides in the Civil Rights Era. The Republican Party welcomed former Democrat segregationists like Storm Thurmond into their midst. Republicans cynically pursued the Southern Strategy which sought to capitalize on lingering racist attitudes among whites at the expense of the black vote. Nowadays, racist rhetoric from national politicians is exceedingly rare, but the damage has been done. The Republicans still get the majority of the white vote, but the Democrats are heavily favored amongst blacks and to a lesser extent among Hispanics yet still get a big chunk of the white vote themselves. For the Republicans to change this now will be difficult because they are simply not trusted by minority voters. Frankly, why would they be? You can't embrace Storm Thurmond one day and then pretend it all didn't happen the next...it'll probably take at least another generation for Republican flirtations with racists to be forgotten. Meanwhile, the Democrats are going to fiercely try to defend the minority vote. The crazy thing is that minorities that don't necessarily approve of Democratic policies will still vote for Democrats simply because they don't feel they can trust Republicans. The Republicans are continually losing votes from fiscal conservatives, from pro-lifers, from tax cutting advocates, from supporters of the War on Terror, and from other groups whose interests they claim to represent simply because of the party's past racial strategies. As I see it, this is the most dangerous long-term threat to the Republican Party and it could very well lead to the formation of new conservative parties that don't carry the race-related baggage of the GOP.

An alternative possibility is that the Republican Party will be reformed from within. That's essentially what libertarian-leaning Republicans are trying to do. Peter Schiff and Rand Paul are both Republicans campaigning for Senate seats in 2010, Schiff in Connecticut and Paul in Kentucky. I find their candidacies interesting because they spend most of their time talking about economics and don't mind getting specific about how they hope to cut costs. Schiff's take on America's wars is devastatingly to the point: We can't afford them any longer. Eschewing moral and foreign policy arguments, Schiff rarely takes his eyes off the bottom line. Even those who support the War on Terror in theory have to admit it's been an expensive affair in practice. How well Schiff and Paul will do provides a good window into the attitudes of the electorate: if the voters really are bothered by the debt, by the bailouts, and by general fiscal irresponsibility, they'll do well and the whole party may start taking fiscal conservatism more seriously. On the other hand, if they bomb, that suggests Republican voters are still concerned more with other things than they are with fiscal matters which may make fiscal conservatives more inclined to jump ship rather than keep fighting for representation within the party.