Here's
a sentence I never figured on writing: I agree with George W. Bush.
He may well be, as he fears, the last Republican President. After a
primary season historical in its tumult, easily the most chaotic
convention since 1968, and a smarmy conman, light on specifics and
posing as a strong man who can single-handily solve all our problems,
as its standard bearer, a real danger exists now that the Republican
Party will become a zombie party, the party of the living dead –
too weak to win the presidency but strong enough at the state level
and in the House to prevent Democrats from doing anything significant
for at least the next four years and perhaps longer.
Out
of the past 7 presidential elections, the Republican Party has only
won the popular vote twice, in 1988 and 2004. For Donald J. Trump to
win in 2016 so many things have to break right for him I'm doubtful
he can pull it off.
Today,
Nate Silver's 538 blog gives Trump a 39.7% chance of winning.
However, we're only a terrorist attack, a mass shooting, another
police assassination, and/or another Clinton scandal away from a
change in that trajectory. And how likely are one or more of the
above to happen? The way this year has gone, I'd say, pretty likely.
So
Trump certainly could win. No
reason exists for Democrats to be complacent. Hillary
Clinton's present standing in the polls is roughly the same as John
Kerry's in 2004, and we all remember President Kerry's moving
inaugural speech after he took the oath of office on January 20,
2005, don't we?
But
even if Clinton wins, the dysfunctional Republican Party, the party
of the living dead that cannot win a presidential contest, will still
have more than enough power to prevent a President Clinton or any
Democrat in almost every state from doing any of the people's
business till at least 2020 and perhaps beyond.
How
did we get into such a fine mess? After the shellacking Republicans
took in 2008, when Democrats picked up 21 seats in the House and 8 in
the Senate, the Republicans didn't give up. They got even.
As
recounted in Salon editor David Daley's Ratf**ked:
The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy,
soon after its 2008 defeat Republican strategist Chris Jankowski had
an epiphany when he noticed a simple fact. The next election in 2010
ended in a zero.
In
other words, 2010 would not be just any election. If Republicans won
at the state level, they would be in charge of redistricting. As
Karl Rove said, “He who controls redistricting
can
control Congress.” If
the Republicans could pull it off, they'd be the masters of their own
fate.
Republicans
could gerrymander U.S. House congressional districts and state
congressional districts to favor their party. Financed by dark money
by far right-wing billionaires wanting lower taxes and no regulations
and using a fraction of the money it costs to run a national
campaign, Jankowski and his allies were able to make amazing gains in
the midterm elections in 2010. It was a tsunami, “the biggest
midterm swing since 1938.” Republicans gained 63 seats in the U.S.
House, and, more importantly, won an astounding 680 new seats in
state legislatures across the country.
With
those victories and the help of a little computer program called
Maptitude, Republicans were able to redraw districts in such a way as
to give themselves overwhelming majorities even in blue states where
they lost the popular vote, like Pennsylvania and Ohio. In fact, the
congressional districts were drawn in such a way as to potentially
protect Republican incumbents, even in the case of a Democratic
landslide in a presidential election.
So
even if Clinton wins and, perhaps, wins big, the House will still,
more than likely, remain in Republican control. And not just
Republican control, control by Republicans whose main reelection
worries will be solely from their right-wing flank. All because of
redistricting, they will have no reason to compromise and every
reason not to.
The
Republican Party post-Trump could well be a party in chaos, nostalgic
for an imagined past, veering between white populist nationalism and
big business libertarianism – yet still powerful enough and with
plenty of what ex-Senator Phil Gramm called “the most reliable
friend you can have in American politics . . . ready
money”
to block anything Democrats want to get done.
Then,
of course, next will come the midterms of 2018, when a
proportionately older and whiter electorate – who will have been
steeping in anti-Hillary messages – will show up at the polls angry
and voting Republican. It's not difficult to see that Republican
gains in 2018 could be substantial.
As
Americans we face any number of incredible challenges that need to be
addressed – a decaying infrastructure, among the worst inequality
of any Western democracy, the shrinking of the middle class, the
hollowing out of our industrial base, a political system too
controlled by wealthy and secretive special interests – to name
only a few. Chances are that none of these problems, as great and as
important as they are, will be solved, even if Hillary wins big. So
beware, Beware the Coming Republican Zombie Apocalypse!
