Max Boot
Columnist
Yesterday at 2:35 p.m. EDT
At the beginning of 2020, when Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, it appeared that the Democratic Party might be veering to the left. At the beginning of 2021, when Republican leaders in both the House and Senate said former president Donald Trump bore responsibility for the assault on the Capitol, it appeared that the Republican Party might be returning to the center.
Neither of those possibilities has come to pass. Instead, what political scientists refer to as the “asymmetric polarization” of U.S. politics continues to intensify. Democrats are sticking to the sane center while Republicans go ever further to the right.
Last week, in a Democratic primary for a U.S. House seat in Ohio, the winner was Shontel Brown, a moderate endorsed by the party establishment. She defeated Nina Turner, an uber-progressive backed by Sanders who had compared voting for Joe Biden to eating half a bowl of excrement. In recent months, centrist Democrats also have won a special U.S. House election in Louisiana, the Democratic primary for mayor of New York and the Democratic primary for governor of Virginia.
This should be no surprise given that President Biden has 90 percent approval among Democrats, and he is hewing to the center. While he has thrown a few sops to the left (viz., a new eviction moratorium that probably won’t pass legal muster), he has not supported getting rid of the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation or other important bills. He has worked with moderate Senate Republicans to design a bipartisan infrastructure bill that lacks many of the spending programs liberals want. He has been tough on Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and China — and he has stood by Israel.
Biden has also refused to indulge in the kind of abrasive rhetoric that would thrill Democrats. It was only last week that he finally called out red-state governors who are stymieing efforts to fight covid-19. Even then, his words (“If you’re not going to help, at least get out of the way of people trying to do the right thing”) were mild compared with the kind of unhinged invective Trump employed — to the delight of the right.
Republicans continue to denounce Biden as a tool of the “radical left Democrat communist party,” but the charge isn’t sticking. His approval rating has fallen a bit, but it’s still over 50 percent — a level Trump never reached.
Yet the GOP remains Trump’s party. In one recent poll, 82 percent of registered Republicans said they had a favorable view of the twice-impeached ex-president. Trump’s fund-raising remains prodigious: His political action committees had amassed $102 million by the end of June. Even those Republicans, such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), who once accused Trump of responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack have come crawling back to him. Most Republicans in both houses opposed an investigation of the attack. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) was stripped of her leadership position because of her refusal to go along with the “big lie” that Trump won the election.
It’s still possible, as David Brooks argued in the New York Times, for bipartisan agreement on a few relatively uncontroversial bills, such as investing $250 billion in U.S. technology to counter China or even $550 billion in new infrastructure spending. New spending is always popular, especially if it’s not offset with tax hikes or spending cuts. But that doesn’t change the reality that on the most important issues — including immigration reform, global warming and voting rights — most Republicans are in no mood to compromise.
That’s hardly surprising given the far-right propaganda that Republican voters are getting from Fox “News” Channel and other sources they trust. Fox’s top host, Tucker Carlson, spent last week in Hungary extolling its autocratic leader, Viktor Orban. In Carlson’s upside-down world, Hungary is freer than the United States because Orban pursues an anti-immigrant agenda while crushing liberal dissent. This vile propaganda is poisoning the minds of millions.
Meanwhile, Republican governors of states such as Florida and Texas oppose vaccine mandates, mask mandates and other measures needed to stop a pandemic that is ravaging their states. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) even suggested using guns to stop inquiries about vaccination status. These Republicans are in thrall to a toxic libertarianism that insists people should have the freedom to spread a deadly plague.
It’s easy to describe the Republican lunge to the lunatic right but hard to know what to do about it. Biden is probably on the right path by trying to work with Republicans where he can, ducking the culture wars and keeping his language mild. Centrism got him into the White House and can keep him there. There is nothing more dangerous for our democracy than a Trump comeback. Biden needs to stay popular enough to prevent that from happening.
But occasional pieces of bipartisan legislation should not blind us to the ugly reality of today’s GOP. Journalists love the faux balance of suggesting that both parties are catering to hard-liners and ideologues. But that’s not really true. Only one party in the United States has gone to extremes.
Columnist
Yesterday at 2:35 p.m. EDT
At the beginning of 2020, when Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, it appeared that the Democratic Party might be veering to the left. At the beginning of 2021, when Republican leaders in both the House and Senate said former president Donald Trump bore responsibility for the assault on the Capitol, it appeared that the Republican Party might be returning to the center.
Neither of those possibilities has come to pass. Instead, what political scientists refer to as the “asymmetric polarization” of U.S. politics continues to intensify. Democrats are sticking to the sane center while Republicans go ever further to the right.
Last week, in a Democratic primary for a U.S. House seat in Ohio, the winner was Shontel Brown, a moderate endorsed by the party establishment. She defeated Nina Turner, an uber-progressive backed by Sanders who had compared voting for Joe Biden to eating half a bowl of excrement. In recent months, centrist Democrats also have won a special U.S. House election in Louisiana, the Democratic primary for mayor of New York and the Democratic primary for governor of Virginia.
This should be no surprise given that President Biden has 90 percent approval among Democrats, and he is hewing to the center. While he has thrown a few sops to the left (viz., a new eviction moratorium that probably won’t pass legal muster), he has not supported getting rid of the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation or other important bills. He has worked with moderate Senate Republicans to design a bipartisan infrastructure bill that lacks many of the spending programs liberals want. He has been tough on Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and China — and he has stood by Israel.
Biden has also refused to indulge in the kind of abrasive rhetoric that would thrill Democrats. It was only last week that he finally called out red-state governors who are stymieing efforts to fight covid-19. Even then, his words (“If you’re not going to help, at least get out of the way of people trying to do the right thing”) were mild compared with the kind of unhinged invective Trump employed — to the delight of the right.
Republicans continue to denounce Biden as a tool of the “radical left Democrat communist party,” but the charge isn’t sticking. His approval rating has fallen a bit, but it’s still over 50 percent — a level Trump never reached.
Yet the GOP remains Trump’s party. In one recent poll, 82 percent of registered Republicans said they had a favorable view of the twice-impeached ex-president. Trump’s fund-raising remains prodigious: His political action committees had amassed $102 million by the end of June. Even those Republicans, such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), who once accused Trump of responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack have come crawling back to him. Most Republicans in both houses opposed an investigation of the attack. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) was stripped of her leadership position because of her refusal to go along with the “big lie” that Trump won the election.
It’s still possible, as David Brooks argued in the New York Times, for bipartisan agreement on a few relatively uncontroversial bills, such as investing $250 billion in U.S. technology to counter China or even $550 billion in new infrastructure spending. New spending is always popular, especially if it’s not offset with tax hikes or spending cuts. But that doesn’t change the reality that on the most important issues — including immigration reform, global warming and voting rights — most Republicans are in no mood to compromise.
That’s hardly surprising given the far-right propaganda that Republican voters are getting from Fox “News” Channel and other sources they trust. Fox’s top host, Tucker Carlson, spent last week in Hungary extolling its autocratic leader, Viktor Orban. In Carlson’s upside-down world, Hungary is freer than the United States because Orban pursues an anti-immigrant agenda while crushing liberal dissent. This vile propaganda is poisoning the minds of millions.
Meanwhile, Republican governors of states such as Florida and Texas oppose vaccine mandates, mask mandates and other measures needed to stop a pandemic that is ravaging their states. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) even suggested using guns to stop inquiries about vaccination status. These Republicans are in thrall to a toxic libertarianism that insists people should have the freedom to spread a deadly plague.
It’s easy to describe the Republican lunge to the lunatic right but hard to know what to do about it. Biden is probably on the right path by trying to work with Republicans where he can, ducking the culture wars and keeping his language mild. Centrism got him into the White House and can keep him there. There is nothing more dangerous for our democracy than a Trump comeback. Biden needs to stay popular enough to prevent that from happening.
But occasional pieces of bipartisan legislation should not blind us to the ugly reality of today’s GOP. Journalists love the faux balance of suggesting that both parties are catering to hard-liners and ideologues. But that’s not really true. Only one party in the United States has gone to extremes.
