Dying of a Theory, Socialcon Edition

This should be a very winnable year for the Republicans. Hillary has more baggage the hold of the Titanic, and her campaign is careening towards many icebergs to boot: the email fiasco in particular metastasizes daily, with her spokes-drones daily cast in the role of Nixon’s Ron Ziegler, intoning that one previous explanation after another is no longer operative. Waiting in the wings are a socialist loon, Bernie Sanders, and a hair-plugged political lifer loon, Slow Joe Biden. Nominating a non-insane person would result in a near shoe-in for the Republicans.

But that would be too easy. There is a group of single issue ideologues, mainly social conservatives, whose insistence on ideological purity could doom us to further years of a Democrat in the White House. The glee of these people at the resignation of John Boehner as Speaker of the House illustrates the mindset, and the problem. These are people the Republicans can’t win without (because they tend to stay at home with their panties in a bunch if they don’t get their way) but can’t win with (because they alienate people who might be inclined to favor Republicans on other issues, such as fiscal matters, defense, taxes, immigration, and Obamacare).

I am hardly a Boehner enthusiast (or a McConnell one either). He has been uninspiring, and Obama has outmaneuvered him time and again. But I recognize that Boehner is in a difficult position, especially given the media imbalance between Democrats (and the Obama administration especially) and Republicans. But that too is symptomatic of the baleful effects of social conservatives: they provide an unending stream of bulletin board material for the media. If those who have rebelled against Boehner get their wish, and have one of their own supplant him in the leadership, the media-and Obama, and Hillary-will get their wish too.

Think about that. Right now Obama and the rest of the Democrats are probably buying popcorn by the gross to munch while watching the Republicans commit ritual suicide. They probably can’t believe their luck in the draw of political enemies.

Politics is the art of the possible. Consider the example of Lincoln, much reviled in his time, and revealingly much reviled today by many of those who were baying for Boehner’s scalp. The radicals and the ultras were scathing in their criticism of Lincoln for his temporizing on the issues of slavery, and eventually Reconstruction. But if Lincoln had run on the Radical Republican platform in 1864, he would have not been re-elected, and the South would likely have prevailed in seceding, or negotiated a return to the Union on terms that preserved slavery: either way, the slavery that the Radicals so hated would have endured. If  he had run on an avowedly abolitionist platform in 1860, he would not have been elected, and again, the result would have been years of continued bondage.

Lincoln attempted to keep together a fractious coalition in a period of unequaled political stress. He made compromises that drove the radicals wild. But their preferred path was impossible. Indulging them would have driven the bulk of the country into the arms of the reactionaries. The abolitionist/radical nightmare would have continued unabated had they won the internecine Republican  civil war within  a Civil War.

That’s the way it is in a democracy, and in any political system, really. The electorate is a constraint. The tension of leadership is to lead-that is, not merely to capitulate to popular whims-while not getting so far out in front that the electorate rejects you.

The vast bulk of the electorate is not about to join the socialcons in a kamikaze charge, especially on social issues like abortion or even immigration. But by insisting on ideological purity on these issues, these people will empower the left, which will move the country further away from the socialcons’ desired state of affairs, not closer.

To invoke Lincoln’s Civil War antagonist, Jefferson Davis, who said that the Confederacy’s epitaph should be “Died of a Theory”: the ideological and theological theories being advanced by the Rigid Right will will kill any Republican chances at the presidency in 2016, and likely beyond.

The beyond part is realistic, and particularly disturbing. It is realistic because there are many examples of ideological purists putting their dominance of a party and forcing its adherence to their ideology over electoral success. You have to look no further for an example than the UK, where in the aftermath of a stunning electoral defeat, the Labour Party decided not to understand and accommodate the majority. Instead, it indulged its inner Bolshevik, and elected as leader a hardcore leftist (Jeremy Corbyn) who would have been extreme in the 20s, or the pre-Thatcher 70s. Those who are left can take smug comfort in their purity, and are indeed reveling in their intra-party triumph, but shouldn’t be planning on moving into 10 Downing Street anytime soon.

Those who are pushing Trump (though it is beyond me how any social conservative could seriously consider him a fellow traveler), or Cruz, or Huckabee, and who will sit out the election if a Rubio, Fiorina, or Bush are nominated better place a high value on making sure that their purity of theory and ideology is unsullied by compromise, for that’s all that they will have to console them. Politically and legally the country will move further away from them, not closer, because they will extend the Democrats’ hold on the White House.

The perfect is the enemy of the good, especially in politics. The problem is, some people are too self-righteous to figure that out.