The two-party system was long central to America’s civic structure. Developing outside (and unforeseen by) the Constitution, but becoming integral to our democracy. With each party having differing visions for how things should be, yet agreeing on the basic values defining America; just disagreeing on how to realize them. While recognizing this as an honorable competition of ideas, each side having legitimacy.
That’s all broken now.
Republicans, with the most apocalyptic rhetoric, screech about Democrats destroying America. “You won’t have a country any more,” rants Trump. In reality Democrats remain a standard old-fashioned political party, almost stodgy even, while it’s Republicans who’ve gone haywire, breaking radically from that centuries-old model. Republicans hate Democrats based on lies; Democrats hate the Republicans’ reality.
Hence there’s talk of needing to restore a proper two-party system, like we used to have. Because what we’ve got now is civically toxic and just not working. That talk envisions a revamp really on the Republican side, a reversion to “traditional” Republicanism, level-headed and responsible. As if that conventional party is in hibernation, waiting for winter’s end, to come back out into sunshine. Trumpism being just a passing aberration. A temporary madness.
Actually, the GOP long had a top layer of serious public-spirited people, with thoughtful classically conservative principles; and a bottom layer of benighted primitivist yahoos tolerated for their needed votes. That party was riding a tiger, and finally got eaten. Its Liz Cheneys have been excommunicated. Already viewed as traitors, she and many like her endorsing Harris seals their banishment. One can’t conceive of a repentant GOP welcoming them back.
It’s true that many high-ranking Republicans, despite knowing the truth, embrace the MAGA lunacy just for the sake of personal political survival. Cowering in terror lest Trump destroy them with a word (which he’s done). And, the theory goes, once he’s gone, they’ll be freed to return to normal. Though meantime one might ponder the price they’re paying, in their souls, for their cupidity. But then too, many seem to have actually drunk the Kool-Aid. So powerful is the Trumpist mind-warp. Spout lies long enough, you can come to believe them.
Then there’s that now ascendant bottom layer, the rank-and-file base of ordinary Republican voters. No cynical opportunism explains their pathology. Overwhelmingly they’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. With “drunk” being all too apt a word.
And it’s hard to see them getting sober in the morning. You don’t go overnight from “The world’s on fire!” to, well, maybe it’s okay.
Remember how some imagined President Biden might restore normalcy? Anodyne, colorless Joe — soon deemed by Republicans a monster from Hell. And previously, that a Black president could herald a post-racial nirvana? Our current malady has roots in Obama backlash. So how about a president not only non-white, but female? You thought Republicans were unhinged before?
Yet might four successive election losses (let’s hope!) cause some soul-searching and recalibration? That would be expected for a normal political party. (Like Britain’s Labourites, who ditched their far-left albatross and then won a huge majority.) But again the MAGA party is no normal one. Much more like a religious cult. Which, when its doomsday predictions prove wrong, just invents excuses and reschedules the date.
Indeed, most Republicans won’t believe they really lost. The lie that Democrats win by cheating has for years now been pounded into their brains. Another supposedly “stolen election” will make them even more disaffected and crazy.
And Trump himself of course won’t disappear. He will “not go gentle into that good night,” but “rage, rage.” You might think America would finally grow weary of that, and turn the page. Indeed a factor if he does lose. Yet crime still sells newspapers; he’ll remain much in our faces.
And even Trump gone from the scene wouldn’t change the big picture. What he set in motion is larger than just him and, even if defeated in 2024, will remain a powerful political force. That surely some other evil people — slicker and seemingly more plausible (Vance? DeSantis?) — will strive to exploit for themselves.
We’re far from writing “The End” to this story.
