Big GOP Midterm Win Makes Case for Reform
In my latest column for The Week, I argue that a big November win only strengthens the case for reforming the Republican Party.
Slate's Dave Weigel called last week with a tough question: People such as Ross Douthat, Reihan Salam, David Brooks and myself, he pointed out, have urged Republicans to modernize their message and broaden their appeal. Republicans, of course, have mostly ignored us. Despite that, the GOP is nevertheless poised to win a grand political landslide next month. "Umm..." Weigel asked, "weren’t you guys totally wrong?”
Obviously, it’s not impossible that I am, indeed, totally wrong. Or that the Tea Party is right, and America is ready to embrace a fusion of libertarian economics, cultural resentment and coded racial messaging. Perhaps it’s possible to balance the budget while leaving Medicare as is, cutting taxes and fighting two wars.
However, two broad concerns drove me onto the deviationist path that has vexed so many of my conservative friends. And both of these worries will have to be resolved before I swallow my tea.
The first concern is political. The conservative movement in which I have spent my life has been narrowing since the 1990s. It has drawn more and more of its support from a smaller and smaller slice of the nation: white people who did not finish college, especially those who are older and those who are male.
Has that changed? It will be very interesting to see which voters of the less than 40 percent of the electorate likely to turn out in November actually show up at the polls. If 2010 proves that Republicans can win big among rich whites aged 65 and over, well, we knew that already.
But that won’t fix the problem of the dwindling appeal of Republicans to the under-55s, to those who make less than $100,000, to non-whites, non-churchgoers, women and the unmarried. And all those voters will be coming out to play two years from now—and in larger and larger numbers in the elections to come.
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