By now, Americans are probably tired of hearing about the recent presidential election and its surprising result. But there is still something I must say that I had been saying for months prior. I, a registered Republican voter, wanted the Republicans to lose this year.
At first, such a statement sounds shocking. Why would a Republican want his own party to lose not only the White House, but also Congress? The answer is much less surprising: I have some huge problems with the Grand Old Party, problems that I had hoped would be addressed following the “inevitable” defeat in November.
The first of these problems is race-related. I believe in equality of opportunity (though not necessarily outcome) and equal justice under law. Although I generally support voter ID laws, the cost of defending them in court and the firestorm they generate makes them no longer worth the political capital. If anything, voter ID laws only guarantee that minorities will vote Democratic. We also need to figure out how to purge the racists who vote Republican; all they’re doing is making the rest of the party look bad.
The next is related to social conservativism. During the 80s, the rise of the “religious right” provided a new source of votes for the Republicans. However, that source of votes soon hijacked the party to further its own end. Now the Republican Party has to deal with both criticism from the left that it’s “too conservative and full of religious nutjobs” and criticism from the religious right that it’s “not conservative enough”. The GOP will need to quit pandering to the religious right if it wants any long-term viability; they’re already going to vote Republican and any further campaigning to them is simply preaching to the choir.
Climate change is one of the biggest criticisms of today’s Republican Party. We all know that it is real and that it is a danger. I just have a gut feeling that many Republicans don’t want to admit that addressing it might damage the economy. Back in the 70s, when environmental protection laws were absolutely necessary, the storm of new environmental regulations made it extremely difficult to start and/or maintain a small business due to the huge compliance costs. I get that we don’t want to kill our economy, but we’d probably get a lot less criticism from admitting that we want to protect businesses than we would from trying to deny climate change.
Finally, we need to figure out how to get better candidates in the future. Donald Trump has severely damaged the Republican Party’s brand (even though he won) and has almost guaranteed that the party will lose in the midterm elections two years from now. We need a system to prevent demagogues from hijacking the party and destroying its brand. This year, the Republican National Committee was powerless to stop Trump from winning the nomination and forcing the party to follow his own agenda.
All of these problems threaten to damage or destroy the Republican Party in the long run. Had we lost, it would nearly be guaranteed that the party would address them. Unfortunately, Trump’s victory will likely embolden the party brass. If these problems are not addressed soon, there could be dire consequences in 2018 and 2020. I want to be a Republican. I want to be conservative. I want America to be great. But the direction that the Republican Party has taken is making it very difficult for me to identify with the party.
