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      The Hole in the Center of American Politics

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      Republican politicians who don’t support Donald Trump have made starkly different choices over the last five years.Some, like Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, have tempered their criticism of the 45th president — opposing him at times, while accommodating him at others in service of their partisan objectives.A smaller coterie of others, like Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, have opposed Trump vigorously — in her case, voting to impeach him and helping lead the House investigation into his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021. On Thursday evening, Cheney will again take center stage as the Jan. 6 panel holds what is expected to be its final prime-time hearing of July.As Peter Baker writes, Cheney and her allies are betting that history’s judgment will eventually vindicate their choices, while insisting that her motives are not political.“I believe this is the most important thing I’ve ever done professionally,” Cheney told Baker in an interview, “and maybe the most important thing I ever do.”Thus far, however, the accommodationists have carried the day. McConnell worked closely with the Trump White House to stock the federal judiciary with more than 200 conservative judges, realizing a decades-long project that culminated with the hard-right transformation of the Supreme Court and the reversal of Roe v. Wade.Republicans are also poised to retake the House in November, and possibly the Senate, even though the official organs of the party have rallied behind Trump and, in the case of the Republican National Committee, helped pay his considerable legal bills.Is the center still vital?Still, Trump’s consolidation of the base of the Republican Party — the MAGA die-hards who wouldn’t blanch if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue, proverbially speaking — has left a vacuum at the center of American politics that both parties have jostled to fill.Democrats seized the middle in the 2018 midterms, retaking the House by focusing on kitchen-table issues like health care, while setting themselves up to win full control of Congress two years later. Republicans have countered this year by seizing on inflation and various cultural issues in an attempt to portray Democrats as out of the mainstream.One reason behind all this political volatility: College-educated suburban voters have bounced around from election to election, making that bloc a kind of no-man’s land between two entrenched camps.Vacuums like this always attract political entrepreneurs, and there has been a flourishing of activity aimed at these voters. On Politics has covered a lot of that new energy over the past few months, from new parties popping up to megadonor-backed independent ballot initiatives to cash-flush super PACs mucking around in Republican primaries.In previous years, groups with names like “No Labels” and “Third Way” have claimed the mantle of political centrism. But partisan voters have generally scoffed at those efforts, suspecting them of being Trojan horses for corporate donors. Other centrist initiatives, like the anti-communist, pro-labor group Americans for Democratic Action, faded in influence as their historical moment passed.David Greenberg, a historian of American politics at Rutgers University, said there was a “huge number of people who are disaffected from where the Democratic Party seems to be going,” along with the exhaustively documented and better organized never-Trump Republicans.But he noted that structural impediments like the Electoral College had made it difficult for third parties and other groups to establish themselves, even when voters seem sympathetic to their arguments.An illustration for the cover of Harper’s Weekly in 1912 portrayed Theodore Roosevelt, who ran for president under the banner of the “Bull Moose Party.”Getty ImagesOn occasion, charismatic figures like Theodore Roosevelt, who ran for president in 1912 under the banner of the “Bull Moose Party,” have tried to galvanize the middle of the electorate and run against both poles. More often, though, attempts to break Democrats’ and Republicans’ chokehold on the system have foundered owing to a lack of strong leaders.Greenberg marveled at the irony, too, that so many Americans now feel that the two major parties have been driven to appeal only to their respective bases.“If you really go back historically, it was thought that our two-party system itself was a bulwark against extremism,” he said — as opposed to multiparty systems in places like Weimar Germany that allowed radical groups to assume power without ever commanding a majority of voters.A Missouri compromiseOne of the more interesting centrist-y experiments out there is happening in Missouri, where a former Republican senator, John Danforth, is backing an independent candidate for Senate, John Wood. A former Danforth aide, Wood was most recently a prosecutor on the Jan. 6 panel.In an interview, Danforth said his goal was to provide an alternative to two major political parties that, in his view, have each gone off course in their own way.“The problem is not just in Trump or the Republican Party,” Danforth said, though he said he was disturbed that Republicans were attacking the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and of court cases ratifying the results.“But on the other hand,” he added, “we have identity politics, we have the cancel culture. We have the whole sort of presentation of America as oppressors and victims. And that’s not healthy, either.”“The whole point of this campaign is: We have to heal the country,” Danforth said.A consummate Republican insider, Danforth grew up in elite circles in St. Louis and attended Princeton University and Yale Law School, where he also picked up a master’s degree in divinity. After a stint in corporate law, he was elected state attorney general, then became a senator at the dawn of the slow Republican takeover of Missouri politics.At a time when politicians tend to find more success by railing against Washington elites, Danforth, 85, is an unapologetic defender of the old ways of doing business. He was especially offended by the storming of the Capitol, an event that led him to break with Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri politician he mentored and helped usher into office in 2018.Supporting Hawley, Danforth told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch after the freshman lawmaker greeted the Capitol mob with a raised fist on Jan. 6, was “the worst mistake I ever made in my life.”And while Danforth professed optimism about Wood’s chances, which most Missouri political analysts rate as poor, he said he felt compelled to try.“We are not a corrupt system,” he said. “We are not a system that people should attack, either in the Capitol Building or by this take-up-arms view of politics. That’s why I’m doing this. I have to do it. You know, I just feel that I must.”What to readAfter evading the coronavirus for more than two years, President Biden tested positive, the White House announced on Thursday. My colleagues in Washington have more on his condition. Vice President Kamala Harris tested negative.In Opinion, eight columnists for The New York Times explain what they got wrong, and reflect on why they changed their minds.Mallory McMorrow, the state senator in Michigan whose April speech denouncing Republicans’ “groomer” attacks earned her a national following on the left, has become a powerful fund-raiser for her fellow Democrats.— BlakeIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Biden and the Democrats Are on the Verge of … Something

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      A Secret Service agent gestures as Marine One takes off.Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesGail Collins: Hey, Bret, the holiday season is almost upon us — if you presume we start off with Halloween, which is one of my favorites. Are you going to be dressing up as any famous person for parties?Bret Stephens: Well, I once went to a Halloween bash dressed as Picasso’s Blue Period — I’ll leave the details of the costume to your imagination — but that was in high school. I guess I could go as Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” assuming you showed up as Kevin McCarthy.I’m referring, of course, to the House minority leader’s latest effort to make Liz Cheney’s life as unpleasant as possible.Gail: Yeah, the House Republicans are certainly going out of their way to try to torture her. I guess they’re shocked by her desire to actually investigate the folks who tried to attack the nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6. Who’d have thought a member of their party would be so picky?Now she’s got a Trump-backed primary challenger. What do you think her prospects for political survival are at this point?Bret: My knowledge of Wyoming politics is, um, not great. But I’m guessing that Cheney’s re-election chances aren’t great, either. I think that, at best, she can lay down a marker for the future, proving that at least some Republicans refused to participate in the cult of Il Duce wannabes. Good for her, but what America really needs is another party that stands for classically liberal values like free speech, free markets and free societies.Gail: Bret, are you talking about a … third party? That would certainly give us opportunities for a lot of vigorous arguing.Bret: Well, the third party I have in mind would probably do more to split Republicans than Democrats, so maybe you might warm to it. I just want to wrest a remnant of thoughtful conservatism out of the maw of Trumpism. The alternative is that Donald Trump and his minions become the default every time Democrats stumble.Gail: People need to feel they’re voting for the best real option, not just registering their alienation. The problem with third parties is that terrible accidents can happen. Ralph Nader’s run in 2000 took the election away from Al Gore and gave it to George W. Bush. Which was not his intention, although possibly something you appreciated.Bret: Just as you no doubt appreciated Ross Perot taking a few million votes from George H.W. Bush in 1992.In the meantime, Gail, how are you feeling about the leaner Joe Biden — the one who looks like he went on the budgetary equivalent of the Jenny Craig diet by shedding about $1.6 trillion?Gail: About Bidenism-lite — you mean the new Sinema-Manchin version? I can see how Biden had to do something to get those two onboard, but the idea that Joe Manchin, servant of the coal industry, was dictating compromises on climate change, and the utterly compromised Kyrsten Sinema was torpedoing tax rate increases for corporations and the wealthy, is deeply depressing.Bret: The good news from your point of view is that the downsized plan appears to keep universal preschool education and national child care. The good news from my point of view is that it costs less and corporate taxes may not be raised. Democrats may also come to appreciate that getting rid of some of the climate provisions to force companies to move to clean energy sources may not be the worst thing, politically speaking, when energy prices are already going up, up, up.Gail: Well, politically speaking, you do have a point about the climate provisions’ chances. We’ll survive, but it’s going to leave future generations stuck with the weather that comes with global warming.Bret: There’s no good climate solution unless China and India step up. The best thing the United States can probably do right now is invest more in natural gas, which is much cleaner than coal and much more reliable than wind or solar.On the whole, I think the slimmed-down Biden package thing could be a winner all around. Here I return to my basic principle that the No. 1 priority is to keep Trump from ever returning to the White House, which first requires some legislative victories that are popular with the public.Gail: It’s a wonder what Trump has done to rational Republicans. If I’d showed you the Biden agenda 10 years ago, don’t imagine you’d have seen it as something you’d be rooting for in 2021.Bret: The things I never imagined a decade ago that I’d someday be rooting for could probably fill a book, starting with my vote for Hillary Clinton. Also didn’t imagine I’d be agreeing with a dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor while worrying about a Supreme Court over-dominated by conservative justices.Gail: Do you think that Texas abortion law is going to last long? I’m hoping the Supreme Court, even in its current conservative condition, is going to be appalled by the part that has the general public doing the enforcement. Via do-it-yourself lawsuits against the abortion providers and anyone who helps them, down to drivers who bring the patients to clinics.I hear this kind of thing is a new conservative trend. Care to explain?Bret: There are two abortion laws at issue here. There’s the case out of Texas, regarding Senate Bill 8, which bans virtually all abortions after six weeks or so and delegates enforcement to private citizens rather than state officials. The bill was written that way because it was an attempt to get around judicial review, which typically requires a state official to be a defendant.Gail: I keep envisioning folks running into family planning clinics screaming “citizen’s arrest!”Bret: The court made a bad mistake by failing twice to enjoin the Texas law. But I’m betting it will still overturn it because the alternative is a license to vigilantes everywhere to deny people their constitutional rights, which could also include “conservative” rights like the right to bear arms — in a blue state.But then there’s another abortion case out of Mississippi, based on a law banning most abortions after 15 weeks. That’s a more clear challenge to Roe v. Wade, and it’s the one we should be really thinking about.Gail: You know, Texas politicians are great at doing spectacularly awful things that make headlines. But meanwhile, Mississippi always seems to be able to be much worse without anybody noticing.Bret: The conservatives on the court will do themselves and their cause irreparable harm if they uphold the Mississippi law and overturn Roe. There will be a renewed push to pack the court with new justices. It will turn access to abortion into a real force for Democrats in purple states and help them in the midterms. It will probably push Stephen Breyer to retire now to ensure he can be succeeded by a liberal justice. It will do a lot to help the Democratic ticket in 2024. And it will push Congress to seek legislative means to curb the court’s authority.Overturning Roe might wind up being conservatism’s biggest Pyrrhic victory since Richard Nixon’s re-election.Gail: Hey, we’ve been agreeing for a while now. Let’s get back to Biden. How did you like his town hall the other night?Bret: I felt like I was holding my breath half the time, hoping he’d be able to complete his sentences. Most of the time he did. But some of the lapses — like declaring that it was U.S. policy to come to Taiwan’s defense in case of attack, when it isn’t — were disturbing because they’re potentially so consequential.Gail: He did seem a bit lost toward the beginning, standing there with his fists clenched — he looked as if he was holding invisible ski poles. And he’s never going to be a wowser as a public speaker.But for the most part his answers all made sense, he was personable with the crowd, and, given the crazy scene he’s dealing with in Washington, I thought overall he made a good impression.Bret: The line that I keep hearing from people who have known Biden over the years is that he’s “lost a step.” The same could probably have been said about Ronald Reagan in his second term, and he still managed to have real successes, like comprehensive immigration reform, a major tax reform, better ties with the Soviet Union and the “Tear Down This Wall” speech in 1987, just two years before the Berlin Wall fell.Biden’s performance is still much preferable to Trump’s, who kept his step but lost his mind. Even so, it worries me. Voters notice, even if much of the press is too polite to mention it.Gail: Reagan’s second term was really scary. If Biden runs again, we’ll all have good reason to debate whether he’s too age-limited. But right now, he seems to be well in control, even if you don’t like all his policy choices.Love your Trump line, by the way.Bret: Thank you. And that reminds me: Please be sure to read The Times’s Book Review section celebrating its 125 birthday. My favorite feature is a sampling of letters to the editor, including one reader’s criticism of Henry James’s prose: “By bad,” the reader wrote, “I mean unnatural, impossible, overdrawn as to the characters, and written in a style which is positively irritating.”Gives me hope, Gail.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Trump 2.0 Looks an Awful Lot Like Trump 2020

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe conversationTrump 2.0 Looks an Awful Lot Like Trump 2020Are we really going to do this again?Gail Collins and Ms. Collins and Mr. Stephens are opinion columnists. They converse every week.March 1, 2021Credit…Mark Peterson for The New York TimesBret Stephens: I don’t know about you, Gail, but watching Donald Trump’s speech at the CPAC conference in Orlando brought to mind that Michael Corleone line: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” Here we were, barely a month into the Biden presidency, thinking we could finally put one American disaster behind us and have normal arguments about normal subjects, and now we may be staring at the worst sequel of all time.The idea of another Trump presidential run is worse than “The Godfather Part III.” It’s “Dumb and Dumberer” meets “Friday the 13th Part VIII.”Gail Collins: Well, he made it very clear he’s planning on a “triumphant return to the White House.” If you folks want to save the Republican Party, you’re going to have to take him on.Bret: I’ve always wanted to write a musical called “The Mitt and I.”Gail: Seeing Trump so clearly gearing up for another presidential run brought me back to an ongoing argument we’ve been having. Third parties. Am I to understand you’re a fan?Bret: I’m not a fan of third parties that have no hope of winning elections and mainly serve as vanity projects for the likes of Ross Perot or Ralph Nader. And I’m obviously not a fan of extremist parties, whether they are of the George Wallace or Henry Wallace varieties.On the other hand, I’d be a fan of a right-of-center party that can replace the current Republican Party, one that believes in the virtues of small government and personal responsibility without being nativist and nasty.Gail: A lovely idea, but it’s not going to work. Nobody’s ever made it work. We’ve already seen an exodus of moderates and sane conservatives from the Republican Party, leaving it even loopier. And Trump is threatening to start a third party of his own, or at least he was, which would split things even more.Feel free to daydream about the perfect, sane, moderate alternative Republican Party, Bret, but no chance.Bret: Well, Abe Lincoln made it work by building a party on the wreckage of the Whigs.Gail: Not going to interject that it took a civil war …Bret: And there’s a political moment here. Gallup released a poll two weeks ago showing that 62 percent of Americans believe that “parties do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed.” Among self-identified Republicans, the number was a notch higher: 63 percent. I think you are underestimating the number of people who feel they’ve been abandoned by a Republican Party that became a whacked-out cult of personality under Trump. What’s missing isn’t an agenda; it’s a galvanizing personality to lead a new movement.Gail: Which galvanizing personality do you have in mind — Mitt Romney?Bret: Given what happened to the G.O.P., I bet you sometimes wish he’d won back in 2012.Gail: Um, no. But let’s look at now. Reforming the current Republican Party would mean a million grass-roots battles to retake the base. Understandable that people would just prefer to start a new movement — much less nasty infighting. Just sincere get-togethers of like-minded people, holding barbecues and giving interviews to folks like us who are desperate to think this could work.But you could never create a massive 50-state party structure, with enough voters willing to make the very large decision of abandoning the party they’ve identified with forever. More

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      Should NeverTrump Conservatives Form A New Party?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyShould NeverTrump Conservatives Form A New Party?In the wake of Trump’s electoral defeat and political survival, principled Republicans must offer their own vision for America.Mr. McMullin, a former C.I.A. operations officer, was chief policy director for the House Republican Conference. In 2016, he resigned to run for president as an independent candidate.Dec. 15, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Tom Brenner for The New York TimesDonald Trump’s refusal to accept his electoral defeat is alarming, but unsurprising. It is Mr. Trump’s character to reject even reality itself when it conflicts with his ego. More alarming is the long list of state and national Republican leaders cravenly falling in line behind his desperate efforts to topple American democracy.On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected a Texas lawsuit to overturn the election, a legal challenge that was as frivolous as it was anti-constitutional. Yet more than 60 percent of House Republicans signed a supporting brief, joining 18 Republican attorneys general who filed their own and embracing entirely the unreality of Trumpism by lending their names to undoing an election that put them in office.These were not just fringe elements. The minority leader Kevin McCarthy and the whip Steve Scalise signed their names, as did the incoming ranking member for the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Some, such as Kevin Brady, Bill Flores and Ann Wagner, were Republicans who the NeverTrump movement once hoped would break with the president once we made him an electoral loser.That they instead clung to his mad king strategy, like sailors lashed to the mast of a sinking ship, proves that the majority of the party has, at least for the foreseeable future, forsaken democracy. Even though Trump has been defeated, there is still no home for Republicans committed to representative government, truth and the rule of law, nor is one likely to emerge anytime soon.So what’s next for Republicans who reject their party’s attempts to incinerate the Constitution in the service of one man’s authoritarian power grabs? Where is our home now?The answer is that we must further develop an intellectual and political home, for now, outside of any party. From there, we can continue working with other Americans to defeat Trump’s heirs, help offer unifying leadership to the country and, if the GOP continues on its current path, launch a party to challenge it directly.Although we hoped that defeating Trump would start to right the Republican ship, our efforts over the last four years have not been in vain. We defeated and removed immoral and dishonorable Republicans like Roy Moore, Dana Rohrabacher, Steve King and Martha McSally. We turned out to ensure that Democrats nominated a unifying leader who a majority of voters could support. And we were a key part of the coalition that defeated Trump himself.But the NeverTrump movement has mostly been inward looking thus far. It emerged to defeat Mr. Trump and defend foundational principles such as self-government, liberty and justice, sovereignty, pluralistic society, the sanctity of all life, decency and objective truth.But to turn back Trump’s dangerous ideology, which has survived his defeat, and move America forward, we must build on these ideals and look beyond ourselves.We must now offer our own vision for the country capable of uniting more Republicans, Democrats and independents to advance solutions to the immense challenges we face. Because Trumpism will be on the ballot again, in 2022 and 2024.It should start with unyielding commitment to the equality and liberty of all, and then to facts, reason and knowledge. It should champion democracy and its improvement and cherish life in all its phases. It should promote personal responsibility, limited government and government’s vital role for the common good. It should advance for justice to all, and uphold the personal and religious freedom of a diverse people. It should expand economic opportunity, rejecting cronyism and protectionism, while defending innovators and workers from theft and predatory practices abroad. It should recognize immigration as a vital national asset and universal access to quality health care, public and private, a national obligation. It should imagine new methods of learning and work. It should be decent, ethical and loyal to the Constitution.If the coalition that defeated Trump and elected President-elect Joe Biden, of which we are a part, fails now to lead the nation past the coronavirus pandemic, widespread job losses and economic instability, social division and injustice, inaccessible health care, fiscal shortfalls and disinformation, we will invite a resurgence of Trumpism and even more formidable illiberalism in the future.Soon, we may field and promote our own slate of candidates running on either party’s ticket or as independents, but under our ideological banner. To advance this vision and support these candidates, we should further develop the infrastructure we’ve created over the last four years: including data firms, messaging platforms, research capabilities and grass roots networks.Eventually, we will have to make a decision: Will we return to a Republican Party liberated of fear, corruption and authoritarianism, or will we attempt to replace it with a new conservative alternative? Our hope is that we can still help foment a broad rejection of extremism inside the GOP. But our immediate task is to build our home for either eventuality, and to continue the fight for liberty, equality and truth.Evan McMullin is a former C.I.A. operations officer, former chief policy director of the House Republican Conference and was an independent candidate for president in 2016.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More