Discomfort with my Partisanship

David Hilfiker

I am sometimes uncomfortable with my attacks on the Republican Party since I don’t “balance” it with attacks on the Democrats.  Since some of you may have a similar discomfort, I want to reiterate some things I’ve said before to justify my posts to myself and to you.  From the beginning, I have intended this blog to assess the existential threats to our democracy, and I have wanted to be fair to people of any political persuasion.  Until last year, I tried to be bipartisan in my critiques of the Democrats and Republicans.  But the Republican attacks on the fundamental requirements of a functioning democracy have gotten so far out of line (see my last post) that it feels irresponsible to maintain a false equivalence between the two parties.  

It wasn’t always so.  Ten years ago, a liberal friend wanted to listen in on my conversation with her conservative, Republican brother about what we each believed about justice for the poor and oppressed.  After so many years watching Republicans attack government social programs, I doubted he would share my concern for the poor.  But I was quite wrong.  We were both concerned about justice and alleviating poverty, but — believing that government programs had too often interfered with the wellbeing of the poor — he had very different ideas about how to get there.  We had a good discussion.  I disagreed strongly with his opinions and reasoning, but we shared that deep value of justice for the poor.  We both had something to learn from each other.  We could respect one another.

Daniel Ziblatt and Stephen Levitsky warn against the danger to democracy in

the breakdown of "mutual toleration" and respect for the political legitimacy of the opposition. This tolerance involves accepting the results of a free and fair election where the opposition has won, in contrast with advocacy for overthrow or spurious complaints about the election mechanism. The authors also assert the importance of respecting the opinions of those who come to legitimately different political opinions, in contrast to attacking the patriotism of any who disagree, or warning that if they come to power they will destroy the country.

A functioning democracy requires people who are committed to the same basic goals — the good of the entire country; inclusion; concern for the poor, oppressed and excluded; peaceful political dialog; treating the other side as opponents, not enemies; and so on.  We must agree on these basic goals even though we may have radically different, perhaps competing, opinions about how to realize them.  

Last year the Republican Party, however, did not publish a platform, a list of goals, viewpoints, and the things they believed in.  Rather, they defined themselves on the basis of their loyalty to Donald Trump, a person (as Sally Quinn as written) 

who has bragged about grabbing women’s private parts; who has mocked a disabled reporter; has called journalists “scum,” “phony” and “the lowest form of humanity”; who has falsely claimed that his predecessor was not born in America; who has demeaned a war hero by saying he preferred people who were not captured; who has insulting names for his Republican primary opponents and called his female opponent in the general election “a nasty woman”?

And, I would add, who has rejected the fundamental commitment to fair elections.  For the Republican Party the only “platform” is loyalty to the former president.  What is there — for the Democrat committed to bipartisanship — to agree on and respect?  Trump has no discernible commitment to democracy.  By refusing to dissociate itself from him, the Republican Party has demonstrated that it also has no commitment to democracy.  Their fundamental policy goal appears to be to disenfranchise people who might vote against them.  How does one engage in democratic dialog with a party that rejects the fundamentals of democracy?  The Republican Party, as now constituted, has no rightful place in a democracy.  Attacking that party is not partisanship; it is a simple commitment to democratic values.

It is important to emphasize that I am not dismissing the people in this country who identify as Republicans … or even all their leaders: Seven Republican senators voted for Trump’s impeachment after the January 6 insurrection.  Three Republicans, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and, to a lesser extent, Mitt Romney, have continued to tell the truth about Trump and their party.  All of the previous conservative Washington Post columnists — such as Michael Gerson, George Will and arch-conservative Charles Krauthammer (before he died), as well as New York Times columnist David Brooks — have condemned the Trump-dominated Republican Party.  

Despite the many polls (for instance, this Ipsos poll) showing that over half of Republican voters still think that Trump is the legitimate president, I will also not believe that most of the Republican rank-and-file share Trump’s anti-democratic values.  Rather, they have been carried along by the radical-right media, such as Fox, and the social media echo chambers to believe that he is the protector of their values.  For instance, they could believe that voting should not be suppressed but would favor new restrictive laws because they have been led to believe the illusion that they are necessary to prevent fraud.  Indeed, given our extraordinary geographic polarization, they may not have been exposed to an honest version of the truth.

So, I don’t need to feel uncomfortable with or apologize for my attacks on the Republican Party.  The party has no part in true American politics.  I will not become a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, but I will continue to tell the truth. Truth-telling voices are perhaps the greatest of our democracy’s needs.