Benen's book is more important than the other three combined. But it will likely get lost in the noise surrounding the other three anyhow. He investigates an important phenomenon that has not received the attention it deserves. However, it is both too long and too short. Benen's thesis is that the modern GOP is all form and no substance. Or, as he puts it, "[t]he modern Republican Party has become a post-policy party".
What he means by this is that the modern GOP has abandoned any pretense of attempting to govern. Governance requires developing policies, convincing the public that these policies are good ones to the point where they become popular, implementing these policies, and finally studying the results and making appropriate adjustments.
Instead, the GOP has become a publicity and marketing operation whose sole objective is to get Republicans elected then keep them in office. They are not supposed to do anything once they get there. Except perhaps oppose Democratic initiatives, policies, and programs.
A policy free agenda has the advantage of shortcutting any argument that one or more of their policies may be flawed. The GOP can take potshots at Democratic policies sure in the knowledge that Democrats can't retaliate. Democrats literally have nothing to aim at. Republicans should pay a penalty for being "the empty slogan party" but they haven't so far.
I say the book is too long because Benen convincingly makes his case by the end of the first chapter, a chapter named "We're not great at this whole governing thing". Subsequent chapters just pile it on with additional detail. There is a distressing amount of detail.
Each chapter name is a direct quotation from an elected official, party member, operative, or supporter. All of them, it must be said, are Republicans. This is not sniping from the opposition. It's inside baseball. Here is a list of the quotations he uses as chapter titles:
- Manipulate the numbers and game the system.
- Even if it worked, I would oppose it.
- Extending the middle finger to the world.
- A series of hasty unplanned, unexamined decisions.
- The cruelty is the point.
- We stand by the numbers.
- Life and death in the culture wars.
- Governing by near-death experience.
- It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant.
- Bridging the "Wonk gap".
Any one chapter is convincing. All together, they are overwhelming. So that's the case for "too long". What's the case for "too short"?
Benen spends 99% of his time discussing the Obama/Trump era. He has very little to say about what came before. And he has almost nothing to say about the "why" of it. That's what I am going to spent the rest of this post on.
But before I leave Benen's book a word about the timing. The bulk of the book was obviously completed by late 2019. He spends almost no time, a page or two, on the, Ukraine quid pro quo, the impeachment, and the trial in the Senate that led to Trump's acquittal. He spends no time on the COVID-19 crisis. Although both incidents reinforce his thesis he already has more than enough material without either. On to what came before.
As I noted in a recent post (see http://sigma5.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-times-they-are-changin.html), the Republicans had a good run starting in about 1890 and continuing for the next 40 years. They identified themselves as the "business" party. And they applied business practices to governance. And that, they claimed, made them better at governance than the other party.
The idea of fiddle faddling around rather than putting your shoulder to the wheel and doing the hard boring business of governing well was anathema to them. Teddy Roosevelt was atypical only that he devoted even more energy than his compatriots to the business of governance. All of them worked hard to leave things in better shape than they found them. You can perhaps quibble with their policies. But they all believed in them and worked hard to implement them.
Their run was put to an end by FDR and the Great Depression. Hoover was a decent, kind, and caring man. He was also extremely competent and capable. But in spite of his efforts, and they were substantial, he failed. His failing was not the result of a lack of effort or intelligence. It was a failure caused by the Republican orthodoxy of the time.
Perhaps if he had been able to escape that box and be more creative, as FDR was, he might have been successful. But he wasn't, so he wasn't. And I want to take particular note of something. It did not take long for the standard suite of Republican policies of the time to become deeply unpopular with the general public.
FDR won four elections in a row, with Truman serving out the remainder of his last term. Then Truman won an additional term on his own. So Democrats had a 20 year run. Then Eisenhauer returned the White House to GOP control. He was a general with no connection to politics before he ran and won. He was also a moderate, "return to normalcy", kind of guy. He did not put much of a policy stamp on the GOP.
Then Nixon, a man long closely associated with the GOP, ran in '60 and lost to Kennedy. But 8 years later he won. Nixon was a classic "Policy wonk". He had definite ideas about what should be done, how it should be done, and why it should be done. He imposed a clear identity on the party, probably for the first time since the Hoover era.
He acquired the nickname "tricky dick" because many thought him not very honest. But, at least in public, he rarely flat out lied. Instead he used the usual tricks to avoid answering questions. If forced to address the question, he would make a misleading statement. It appeared to say one thing while actually saying something else.
Ron Zeigler, his press secretary, became famous for the "non-denial denial". Instead of answering the question he would deflect with, for instance, "how can you even ask such a question?" He became famous for the creativity of his replies. Superficially, the reply appeared to be a direct and unambiguous response. In actuality, it was what we now call a deflection. He used the response to deflect the question into something that didn't have anything with what was originally asked.
When he did lie, Nixon new he was lying. He knew why he was lying. He knew what the truth was. And the lie furthered some political objective. He never lied by accident or to no purpose.
Nixon was eventually forced to resign. He was replaced by Ford. Ford came into office via an unusual path. Nixon's Vice President, Agnew, was forced to resign as the result of a scandal. He was replaced as Vice President by Ford, an amiable lightweight that everybody liked. Then Nixon was also forced to resign and Ford was promoted to the top job.
Ford is the only President we have ever had that was never elected to either the position of President or Vice President. When he lost the subsequent election any chance of him making a mark on the party was lost.
The next GOP President was Reagan. Reagan had accumulated a kind of a political philosophy. But it consisted of little more than a bunch of slogans that would fit on a fortune cookie. However, he was a two term Governor of California before he became President, so he knew how to put together a team.
He was the first of the modern "figurehead" presidents. He was the opposite of a wonk. He did not dive deeply into issues. He only worked a few hours per day choosing instead to delegate almost everything.
He knew that his strength was as a pitch man and that's where he put most of his energies. He focused on honing simple, compelling messages then pitching them to the public. He was very successful at this. He was popular for the entire time he was in office, and for a long time afterwards.
He did keep on top of the work his subordinates were doing. But, as long as they couched what they were doing in terms of supporting his simplistic notions, he let them get on with it without probing deeply enough to know what they were actually up to. As a result, the more cynical of his aides could actually do the opposite of what Reagan espoused.
The most egregious example of this was Iran/Contra. Another of Reagan's beliefs was "you don't provide arms to terrorists". But in a deal whose details I am not going to drag you through, Oliver North, a Machiavellian national security aide, did exactly that. When talking to Reagan he couched what he was doing in terms of another of Reagan's beliefs ("supporting freedom fighters" - actually anyone who claimed to be anti-communist). But that was only part of North's plan. The rest of his plan involved providing arms to terrorists, in this case, the Iranians. North simply lied about that part.
And this was part of a larger pattern. Reagan would often say one thing then do the opposite. His supporters were completely happy with this. At the time I sat down with a supporter and asked "what about this?" He replied "I like what he says", implicitly ignoring what was being done. So I then asked "what about that?" This time he responded "I like what he does" implicitly ignoring what was being said. If you can own both sides of an argument how can you fail to be popular?
Another thing Reagan pioneered was stocking the cabinet with wildly unqualified appointees. Typically you expect a cabinet head to be competent and to understand and support the role and mission of the department. For policy reasons it may sometimes be a good idea to put someone in who is competent but opposed to the current role and mission of the department. They can then apply their expertise to changing the mission or to diminishing the role the department plays.
Reagan went further, much further. He installed people who were generally incompetent. And they also lacked any kind of subject area expertise. They couldn't enhance the department with good management and improved policies and procedures because they were incompetent. They also couldn't change the direction of or reduce the role or effectiveness of a department, if that was the objective. Their general incompetence only allowed them to make a mess. Reagan didn't do this with all of his cabinet secretaries but he did it with several.
Reagan was replaced by Bush "41" when term limits prohibited him from running a third time. Bush could have been a wonk. He had a long and impressive resume of government work. But he had run against Reagan in '80. He was more qualified than Reagan in every way but he was thoroughly trounced anyhow.
Reagan picked him to be his Vice President on what turned out to be the winning ticket. After two terms he was the obvious choice to move on up. And he won the '88 election. But he had learned his lesson. Reagan had won by being the anti-wonk. So Bush set out to eschew any wonkish behavior. He imported a man named John Sununu to tell him what to say and do. Then he said and did what he was told to do.
It worked well enough so that he secured his party's nomination to run for reelection in '92. But Clinton's one-two combination of being a wonk who could also politic with the best of them, and the fact that a lot of GOP true believers saw him as a phony, caused him to lose.
Eight years later the fight was between the super-wonk (Gore) and another figurehead type in Bush "43". Bush was not as good at being a pitch man as Reagan had been but he was good enough. Like Reagan, he won. This time around, he defeated the guy who was much more qualified than he was in the general election rather than in the primaries, but the principle remained the same. Substance was no match for style.
And, like Reagan, before running he had been the Governor of a big state, in this case, Texas. So, he had a team, which he put in place. This was not the only example of him following the Reagan playbook. He didn't work very hard. He focused on honing simple but effective messages then pitching them to the public.
He did keep a closer eye on what was going on than Reagan had. But in his biggest case of rampant deception, the runup to the Iraq War, he and his handlers were on the same page. He didn't get conned the way Reagan had been because he was in on the con from the beginning.
Bush was a combination of the worst of Nixon and Reagan. Both ran dishonest administrations. Bush was personally well liked, just like Reagan. Bush knew when he was lying, just like Nixon. But what's most important is that both Reagan and Bush were relatively popular. Both served two full terms.
But why was all this lying and deception going on? I trace it all the way back to Hoover. Hover gained office running on a platform that was generally popular. He could do what he was inclined to do without engaging in deception. The policies he had run on and his actual policies were the same. So, he could count on public support for them.
But all that had changed by the time he ran for reelection four years later. By then those very same policies were deeply unpopular. Being an honest man, Hoover did not change up his message. He still believed the same things and wasn't going to lie just to get reelected.
I don't think the GOP has ever completely recovered. Eisenhauer was popular but he was something of an interloper. He was not a true blue Republican to his bones. Nixon was but he had a personality that the public never really warmed to. When put up against a more likeable candidate with very similar policies (Kennedy), he lost. Eight years later he felt he had to resort to deception, to return to being "tricky dick", to win. He reverted to form and win he did.
The takeaway can be simply stated: "honesty loses - dishonesty wins". That was not how Reagan saw himself but that was how his administration actually governed. Bush "41" was a phony but he felt he had to be to win. And the evidence says he was correct.
Bush "43" showed himself to be very comfortable with dishonesty. And he too won. And let's not forget that he dispatched the wonk Kerry in '04 with little difficulty. McCain in '08 and Romney in '12 were standard issue reasonably honest politicians. They lost to the charismatic Obama. And that, of course, brings us to Trump.
In '16 GOP voters had a smorgasbord to choose from. They had total flakes in several flavors. They had a decent, honest, man in Kasich. They had a Bush in Jeb. And they had a crook, con man, and TV personality in Trump. By this time what more than 40 years of history told them was "if you want to back a winner, stay away from honesty and competence". And they did. They backed the least honest and least competent candidate against one of the most competent and honest people to ever run for President. And Trump won.
So that's the "what". How about the "why"? There is a trend that paralleled the political one. And we can go back to Reagan to see when it first came to prominence. In the interest of brevity I am going to skip over the complex and incestuous history of the relationship between the press and elected officials that preceded Reagan. Instead I am going to start with the situation as it was when Reagan assumed office.
Reagan was elected in the post-Watergate era. At that time the press had a skeptical attitude toward elected officials and especially the President. They did their usual thing during the campaign. And when the Reagan Administration came into office they initially continued to do it.
And, remember that Reagan frequently said one thing and did another. And he appointed all those incompetent cabinet secretaries. All this was reported and all of it was obviously true. But, instead of getting a lot of "good work" from the public, editors got a lot of "why are you picking on that nice man Mr. Reagan".
The Reagan Administration saw a lot of turnover in the press, both at the working press level and at the executive level. It was financially advantageous (good for circulation and ratings) to go easy on the Reagan Administration. The old "give 'em hell" bunch were replaced by people who took a softer approach.
As the '80s morphed into the '90s a complete change in approach took place in all levels of the press. My recollection is that previously there had been a lot of issues oriented coverage, "Here's what's in this or that bill" or "here's what the experts say is the likely result of this or that policy" was replaced by horserace coverage, "so and so is up/down in the polls" or "so and so is or is not catching on with this or that sector of the electorate".
That's how the '92 campaign was covered. Clinton was better at the "charm" side of politics than Bush "41". Since charm got a lot of coverage, he benefited. Of course, he was just as adept at the policy wonk stuff. He was famous for his lists: "three aspects of this", "for reasons for that", etc. But, other than noting the "wonk" aspect of his personality, the press didn't dive into the substance.
Clinton won. In '96 he was up against an extremely accomplished opponent in Dole. But by '96 Dole had already lost out to far less accomplished opponents in previous primary cycles. By '96 I think it made him bitter. That diminished his effectiveness. And ,in the end, he became yet another reason for GOP voters to shun honest competent people.
I think this abandoning of substance for the ephemeral, who's up and who's down, is bad for democracy. And I have been especially bitter about how the press in general, and the New York Times in particular, covered the '16 Presidential race. The NYT sets the agenda for a lot of the rest of the press. If the NYT thinks something is important, everybody follows.
In '16, the NYT thought the Clinton emails were important. They weren't. The NYT was the hometown paper for Trump. They had been covering him for decades. By '16 they should have known exactly who he was and made sure the public got thoroughly acquainted with him. But they didn't. They did few, if any, deep investigative pieces on him in the way they went after the emails. So, in a real sense, Trump got to skate.
But look at the record I have laid about above. The GOP has been moving in Trump's direction since 1980, or even earlier. Reagan styled himself "the champion of the middle class". But it was the Reagan Administration that began the hollowing out of support for the middle class. This was obvious by a couple of years into his term. Yet blue collar union workers, then a pillar of the middle class, moved from the Democratic party to the GOP because they bought what Reagan was selling them.
Republicans have continued their successful assault on blue collar union jobs in manufacturing ever since. Yet these blue collar union types have stuck with the GOP through thick and thin. Even if you grant that the press has been doing a terrible job, and they have been a good deal of the time, these people should have been able to figure out what was going on. The same logic applies to senior citizens and the GOP's sustained assault on Social Security and Medicare.
The GOP has been lying to their base consistently since Reagan. Trump has made no real secret that he is, and always has been, a pathological liar. But GOP voters are all "we're with the liar". And, if winning is your only measure, it makes sense. If the GOP puts up a liar, at least for the top slot on the ticket, they win. If they put up a reasonably honest person, they lose.
I think I understand where the GOP is coming from. The last time their political philosophy was popular with the majority of voters was in the late 1920s. Back then people had good reason to believe that supporting businesses and a business way of thinking would trickle down in a way that benefited the general public.
But I think that since then, for the most part, a solid majority no longer believes in trickle down economics. So, if your basic philosophy is unpopular, what do you do? An obvious answer is "change your philosophy to one that is more popular". For whatever reason., the GOP has chosen not to do that. Instead, they have gone with "lie about it". It is hard to govern if the only thing you are any good at is lying.
The GOP attitude is somewhat understandable. But the real question is "why do voters think it is a good idea to support liars?" I don't know why. But they do. Something like 40% of the electorate is happy to support a complete liar like Trump.
That means that if the GOP can pick up another ten or fifteen percent, they can win. Or, if they can game the system using gerrymandering and voter suppression, two tactics that their base is completely fine with, then maybe they only need an additional six or eight percent to win.
The GOP base has been comfortable being lied to for more than two generations. I would like to blame the press but I find that I no longer can. They can and should do better. But the problem lies elsewhere.
COVID-19 is literally a "life or death" proposition. This business of depending on liars and con men does not work in such an environment. COVID-19 may shake the faith of this large group of people who support liars and crooks. Or not. We'll see.
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