"Anarchy in the GOP: The End of Authority in the Republican Party"

Anarchy in the GOP: The End of Authority in the Republican Party

by Peter Beinart at the Atlantic

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/06/mutiny-in-the-gop-the-end-of-authority-in-the-republican-party/372654/

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The bigger reason the parties have switched cultures has to do with their perception of the future. Grassroots Democrats certainly get frustrated with their leaders, who they consider too cautious and too beholden to Wall Street. And were an unusually compelling candidate like Elizabeth Warren to run, many would rally behind her against the Clintonite establishment. But these anti-authoritarian impulses are held in check by a greater optimism about the direction of the country. Over the last few years, a younger, more tolerant, Democratic-leaning generation has helped elect the country’s first African-American president, helped make gay marriage mainstream and may soon help elect America’s first female president. As a result, although Democrats may be upset that Obama can’t pass immigration reform, they’re inclined to believe that because of demographic change, another Democratic president will soon get another chance.

Republican activists are more pessimistic. Even with a Republican president, they grouse, government kept growing. And unless something drastic changes, it will only get worse. When grassroots Democrats look at the growing percentage of Latinos, African Americans, and young people, they see a growing constituency for tolerance and social justice. When grassroots Republicans do, they see a growing constituency of takers, who want to turn America away from its exceptional nature.

It’s because Republican activists are more fearful of the future that they demand politicians willing to take extraordinary, Ted Cruz-like measures to reverse history’s course. Conservatives like Cantor, who accommodate themselves to demographic trends by supporting citizenship for some undocumented immigrants, must therefore be replaced with politicians who will stand militantly on principle.

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Like National Review at its founding in 1955, the GOP base “stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.” And, in this case, the people who have no patience are the very people Republicans must win if they are ever to hold the presidency again.




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