A Losing Strategy
My favorite cartoon after the 2022 midterm elections was Barry Blitt’s New Yorker cover of November 21st. It depicts a dejected elephant standing on a surf board aground on a beach. The predicted “red wave” of a Republican victory never happened. Instead, the Democrats lost a few seats in the House and retained control of the Senate – a feat not duplicated since FDR was president in 1934.
After such a defeat, you might expect a party to rethink its strategy. The Republicans did so in 2013, following Mitt Romney’s loss to President Obama, writing an “Autopsy Report.” However, it was largely ignored and President Trump’s 2016 signaled its death – Trump despised the report.
What about this time? Since most candidates who backed Trump’s “big lie” that he really won the 2022 presidential election lost, one might expect them to have lost ground. On the contrary. Ultra right-wing Republicans now sit on vital House committees, following Kevin McCarthy’s pyrrhic victory to become Speaker of the House. After 15 separate votes, McCarthy finally succeeded, but the price was very steep. He had to agree that a single member could ask for a vote to unseat him. He had to put hardline right wingers on important committees, like Intelligence and Judiciary. And he has had to support George Santos, a proven congenital liar, who faked his degrees, jobs, and expertise on his resume, including the “fact” that he was “Jew-ish” (he wasn’t). At the same time Santos omitted important facts, like his performances as a drag queen in Brazil. But McCarthy needs to back him, because his margin in the House is so low.
Meanwhile, what have the House Republicans done? They have asserted that they want to get rid of Social Security, Medicare, and the income tax, replacing it with a 30% sales tax. This would fall largely on the middle and lower classes. None of these policies is at all popular, except perhaps with the right-wing ultra-rich. Finally, they are now threatening to withhold raising the deficit. This involves not paying for monies already spent by the government. To do so would greatly affect the faith and credit of the United States of America and end payments like social security, Medicare, and the salaries of U.S. representatives.
Does all this constitute a winning strategy? I don’t think so and for the first and probably only time in my life, I find myself agreeing with Donald Trump, who urged his party not to cut social security, Medicare, or use the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip against the Democrats. President Biden has already declared he will not bargain over the deficit.
If the Republicans keep this up, and there’s no indication that they won’t, I predict it will be a major losing strategy for what once was the “Grand Old Party.” May it be so.