After Jonathan Bernstein (“The Long, Slow Destruction of the U.S. Government”) lists disheartening examples from Thursday of ways the Trump administration is “destroying the U.S. government,” and briefly reviews previous misdeeds, he aptly sums things up in the quote of the day:
“… [T]here’s nothing systematic about any of what’s happening here. No plan. No strategy. No effort to separate the worthwhile from the worthless. It’s just basically random attacks on random pieces of the government. It will take years to recover from. In some ways, perhaps the nation will never recover.
As with the failure to fill positions with confirmed presidential nominees, it’s always possible that some of this will lead to very visible catastrophic failure. But what’s more likely is just an erosion of the capacity of the nation. We won’t necessarily be able to connect the dots when things go wrong, but there will be effects, and they are likely to stretch out into the future.”
Yeah. I take his point. Trump’s notable weaknesses as an executive and every personality flaw are at play — so the actions appear random and senseless.
My first thought (I guess it’s an obsession) is: Where are the responsible leaders of the Republican Party? We hear a murmur here and there, regarding this or that action, or this resignation, or that nomination, or the failure to nominate … but the debacle continues unabated.
These guys are just going along for the ride. As long as they can lower taxes for the GOP donor class, gut regulation across the board, and stack the courts with ideologues — what’s not to like?
But this moment’s reflection provides the insight on the grand plan at work. From Ronald Reagan’s “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem,” to Grover Norquist’s “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub,” through Newt Gingrich’s deliberate campaign to undermine public trust in our governing institutions and Mitch McConnell’s embrace of dysfunction and implacable opposition to bipartisan policy making, movement conservatism has been committed to a long term strategy of diminishing the size and scope and stature of government.
If government becomes less effective, less responsive, less capable — so be it. If the capacity of government and the reservoir of public trust disintegrate — so be it.
The Republican Party is in thrall of an ideology. Conservative doctrine hasn’t changed much since the country put Reagan in the White House. Movement conservatives purged the liberals and moderates from the GOP. Then they went after the pragmatists. They have beaten back reliance on science, empirical evidence, and a rational process of making policy when these conflicted with conservative doctrine (as they must from time to time). And, more recently, they have been willing to shame or oust Republicans who have resisted the authoritarian impulses, the sowing of racial and ethnic discord, the affection for dictators, the self-dealing, the chaos, and much else that Donald Trump has ushered in.
Most Republicans in office have chosen to go along to get along — so long as it doesn’t threaten their next bid for reelection. Does that count as a plan?
One might object that conservative ideology, circa 1980, didn’t entail stupidity or overreach or hate. That wasn’t the plan. Perhaps not.
But conservative true believers from the beginning demanded fidelity to the one true cause (as they defined it). And over the past four decades, as the movement has advanced and grown more powerful, they have become relentlessly more rapacious, less open to accommodation of their political foes, and unalterably opposed to dissenting voices. We have reached a point where collateral damage to democratic institutions, to the country’s economy, and to the public welfare warrants no more than a shrug, if preserving these things stands in the way of conservative victories.
There may be a point at which a substantial number of Republican office holders choose to step back from inevitable devotion to (what passes for) conservatism. There may be a point where principle or patriotism, where the Constitution or a diverse body politic, or where a fundamental sense of right and wrong trumps conformity to conservative dogma (as mediated by Fox News, et al.).
Thus far, there are few signs that this day is imminent. Instead, we have the plan, the system, the strategy of the conservative movement: fidelity, come what may, to an intractable ideology. Start down this path and, even when things turn stupid and ugly, there’s no way out of the cul de sac.
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