How Antipathy Has Fueled - and Will Doom - the Republican Party

I attended a political lecture given by William Galston tonight here at the University of Houston.  Dr. Galston is a former public policy advisor to former President Bill Clinton and a noted progressive.

In one of his responses in the question-and-answering session after the lecture, he mentioned about the feelings of public antipathy, especially amongst the blue collar sector, that now harbor a resentment towards government and social programs. Moreover, he also noted that in the past half century, Americans have went from "trusting government too much" to "not trusting government at all".  He later answered another question after the question-and-answering session about the Tea Party, noting that the Tea Party movement was largely fueled by antipathy and antipathy can go a long way in carrying a political message.

Throughout history it has been proven that antipathy fueled movements may last as long as desired but don't really yield the results desired. The two most recent antipathy movements -- the Tea Party Movement and Occupy Wall Street -- are largely still ongoing in spirit, yet neither movement had a concrete agenda that could lead to significant, implemented change. Considering this post is about the Republican Party, I'll make a comment on the Tea Party: yes, I'm well aware that they talked about being anti-tax, anti-social programs, robust fiscal restraint, and anti-government -- but the Tea Party has yet to accomplish anything relatively significant, except to become the most vocal sect of a political party since the Dixiecrats of the mid 20th century.

Three antipathy movements are fueling Republican discourse at the moment: the relationship between government and the economy, which runs Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich's engines; the relationship between government and society, which powers Rick Santorum's campaign; and an overall disgust with the government, which pushes Ron Paul along. What these movements are causing is deep rifts within the GOP.  Granted, I'm well aware that all four candidates have somewhat put out plans to "get America back on track". The only issue is that while all four candidates have plans that undoubtedly address what is pissing people off at the moment, none of them are adequately sustainable.

Because of these antipathy movements, all four candidates are guilty of fostering unrealistic viewpoints of how the current issues facing the United States can be and should be resolved. In addition, all four candidates are dangerously guilty of promoting what they can and their policies can actually do about it.

Here's the reality: technological advancement, coupled with globalization, has increased competition for labor. Wages have stagnated because there's more people competing for jobs -- this time on a global scale. Wealth, increasingly, is transitioning from property to financial capital. Health care is expensive because of how medicine is practiced. The fiscal woes facing various states and governments is less about spending and more about inadequate revenue. The tax system has issues not because people are paying too much in taxes but because the current tax code keeps getting structured to shrink the paying tax base. American values are not on the decline; Americans are becoming more aware that if someone's personal choice does not affect them directly, then their rights shouldn't be infringed on. There's no such thing as a war against religion, but a realization that government is to be religiously neutral.

However, all four candidates are playing on antipathy felt by their constituencies. That should be expected and that is indeed part of -- for a lack of a better word -- "good" campaigning. As a consequence, especially with Ron Paul appealing to younger voters and voters that generally lean to the center-left, the Republican Party has diversified and within that diversification, each bloc of voters is pissed about something different and the aims of every bloc of voters are not universal.

Of course, the idea is that the unifying goal should be to vote President Obama out of office -- the underbelly of that is whatever candidate that wins the nomination will be clueless as to how to properly address and properly accept this new Republican diversity. If you need evidence: there's a reason why the Republican Party didn't accept Romney's moderate position and forced the former Massachusetts governor to project himself as a conservative; there's a reason why the Republican Party rejected the Internet-based and youth movement fueled by Paul's candidacy; and there's a reason why the GOP is still desperate to find the next Reagan, even entertaining candidates that have had ethics issues (Gingrich) and was embarrassed in their last election (Santorum in 2006).  As much as the Republican Party and their supporters do not want to admit it -- there's actually more to getting the incumbent out of office. You should have seen that lesson learned with George Bush in 2004 for the Democrats.

So of course, the antipathy streak will continue on in the Republican Party, considering that the schism is inevitable and that schism will end up giving Obama a second term. It will eventually doom the Republican Party. In truth, it dooms any aspiration that the political party has -- either sooner or later.