The Revenge of the RINOs

Henry Olsen, writing on National Review Online, put out the best analysis of the recent midterm election I have seen. The most fascinating thing about it is that he wrote it before the election. I don’t know that Olsen nailed it exactly, but he seems to have been pretty close.

In short, he said that the only way Republicans are going “to create a durable majority that will prevent decades of Democratic rule is to combine all the animals in one menagerie: RINOs and TIGRs and the traditional Republican elephants.” He points out that the RINOs (Republican’s in Name Only) , the Trumpers (he calls them TIGRs–Trump Is Great Republicans), the Country Clubers, the Free Marketers, and the Social Conservatives (though he doesn’t break them up quite this way) are all minorities within the Republican coalition and none of them has been able to gain a majority—and that is not likely to change. So we will have to join and work together to overcome what has been since 1992 or so a Democratic majority at the national level. I tend to agree with him.

Now, before someone calls me a squish, let me say a few things. It is essentially true that at the presidential level the Democrats have held the majority since 1992. If not for the electoral college, we’d likely be heading into our 27th year of Democrat administrations. On the other hand, of course, Congress and the states have looked very different, with Republicans often holding sway. So we have to account for that. Still, without the presidency—and the courts, a shifting Congress and shifting states make it unlikely that conservatives can win the battle long term.

There was a time when the governing Republican coalition Olsen speaks of kinda, sorta worked. Not with all of the outcomes I’d prefer, but it seemed to have possibilities. Reagan accomplished a fair amount and Congress has at times done the right thing. But I’d suggest that RINOs and Main Street Republicans have gotten fed up with the TIGRs and the Tea Party types before them and, supported by Big Business, kinda left the Grand Old Party’s coalition.

With the loss of the House, it is possible that the Grand Old Party coalition might become functional again. The RINOs and the Main Streeters will have to bend a bit, but so will free-market conservatives and TIGRs. But this new coalition will only provide outcomes conservatives can live with if we and others in our part of the coalition continue to point to the possibilities achievable through liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise. And often make a fuss while doing so.

In other words, if conservatives want to get Repubicans back on track, we will ahve to cooperate, but not compromise.

Right now, I’d say the two biggest obstacles to making the coalition approach work are local governments and corporate cronyism. Because both have generally abandoned the GOP coalition and pretty much refuse to work with the conservative/Trump end of the coalition. Which means we conservatives are going to have to focus most of our fussing in those areas. And we are going to have to convince the RINOs and the Main Streeters that they are better off with us than they are with Big Business.

Now it could be that they come to the conclusion that they are betetr off without us. If that is the case, I think it spells the end of the Republican Party. I could actually think of worse things that could happen, but I’m willing to give the GOP one more try–even a four-year transition (which is how long it took when the Whigs died out and the Republicans took their place) to a new party to replace Republicans could get pretty messy for liberty.

I think we’ll find out a lot of the future of the GOP based on how the House Republicans deal with the Nancy Pelosi-led House. They’ll have to do more, though, than spend the next two years acting like conservatives just to turn back into RINOs when they get back into power.

Here is the conclusion to Olsen’s article:

Winston Churchill is reputed to have remarked that Americans will always do the right thing, but only after they have exhausted all the alternatives. So I think it is with the Republican party. The only opportunity to create a durable majority that will prevent decades of Democratic rule is to combine all the animals in one menagerie: RINOs and TIGRs and the traditional Republican elephants.

One could say this is impossible, that the differences among chardonnay-sipping Californians, Bud-slurping Wisconsinites, Scotch-swilling businessmen, and teetotaling Baptists are too great to bridge. But I know it can be done because it has been done, by Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Look at polls or maps from Reagan’s presidency and you will find all four groups living in harmony with one another. You will also find Reagan doing much better with Mexican and Asian immigrants than today’s GOP does. That coalition only held for twelve years before Democrats began to poach our animals off the preserve, but that coalition saved America and the world.

Reagan inspired millions with his oratory, but the secret to his success is found in one short paragraph. It is found on his gravestone because it is his epitaph, and I believe he chose it because it encapsulates his core principles. It reads, “I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.”

The last clause is the most important. The GOP has been a minority for 86 years. And it will remain so as long as the GOP implicitly tells Americans that one group is better than another, whether that group is businesspeople, whites, evangelical Christians, or liberty-lovers. Americans intrinsically believe that there is worth and purpose in each and every life, and they want a government that believes that too.

So take heart. Republicans may take a beating on Tuesday, but they have taken worse beatings before and bounced back. So long as there is life there is hope. And to steal the words of one of our great adversaries, “the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”