The Problematic Future of the Republican Party

US Politics After the 2016 Presidential Election

   I try to stop myself from reading the endless articles on the ongoing primary campaigns—mostly on the internet version of the NYTimes—but the best I can do is not actually finish reading all of them to their inordinate length. The prose tries (not too hard) to create suspense, though there really isn’t much of that. With Rubio on the ropes and cranky Cruz’s so-called conservatism limited in its appeal, Trump seems headed for the Republican nomination, even though the elders of that party want him like a hole in the head.

   Given where we are today, makes it likely that next November voters will have to choose between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

   Not ideal candidates—either of them, but as candidates for the presidency, the distance between them is huge. So, if my gut’s signal is right, that makes Hillary our next president. We could do better (in a world that ain’t) and we have done considerably worse.

   That puts the Democrats into the saddle, especially if they also capture the Senate. That’s at least possible, while a Democratic House majority is out of reach. Moreover, given the prevalence of gerrymandering, the Republicans will dominate the House for the foreseeable future.

   One conclusion to  this picture is that for the Democrats it will be politics as usual. But not at all “as usual” for the Republicans! The fact is, they will have to reinvent themselves with, in broad terms, two choices. One is to revert back to the long party tradition of moderate conservatism, coupled with a willingness to make deals, to compromise, to get the governing of the country done.

   The alternative crew that may snatch the leadership after the election of 2016 consists of what are misleadingly called conservatives, but are more correctly characterized as ideologues of the radical right. 

   If the first of these alternatives comes to be, we’re back to normal, with a two-party political system, the norm for the country for a long time. It extends the Montesquieu-recommended system of checks and balances beyond the tripartite governmental structure of executive, legislature, and judicial governmental departments to the dynamics of daily politics. This combination of branches of government has served the country well.

   If the second alternative emerges out of the 2016 Republican disarray, it is difficult to predict what would become a new norm, if a norm of any kind actually comes to be. Most likely that will not be as effective a structure as the two party system of most of the 20^th century. Comments?

Rereading this before posting it, makes me resolve to abstain, henceforth, from commenting on the primaries, except in the unlikely event that I have something to say that is not being said elsewhere.