The shame of Donald Trump, and all who supported him longer than they should have, may be the long-awaited opportunity for the Republican Party to purge its most intolerant and anti-democratic tendencies. Gridlock. Grandstanding. Gamesmanship. Pandering to racists, misogynists, and homophobes. Divisiveness. Hypocrisy.
Here are ways you can do better.
1. Give the District of Columbia a congressman. Birtherism, denying the legitimacy of our first non-white U.S. president transparently obvious racism every step of the way. It was so popular in the GOP that you made Trump your nominee. The GOP has been equally cynical, equally racist, in denying congressional representation to our mainland colony, the District of Columbia. DC has more population, and more people in the armed forces, than several states. Its residents pay more in federal tax than at least a dozen different states. Their people deserve a voice in government.
2. Stop being anti-science. I would welcome hearing the viewpoint “Global warming is real. It is caused by human activity. There will be winners and losers. This is manageable and our GOP plan is better than yours.” But do not call it a hoax. That’ a lie and you know it. Get the lies out of your arguments here, and you can practice that skill elsewhere.
3. Give every nominee a hearing. Refusing to hold any hearing on any nominee, simply because an election is coming, obstructs the constitutional right and duty of the sitting president to fill essential jobs by appointment. Scalia’s death was no strategic resignation of an aging liberal so Obama could pack the court his way. It was sort of vacancy the framers expected, with a constitutional requirement that the Senate review the President’s nominee.
4. End voter suppression. Trying to gain political advantage by disenfranchising large numbers of voters from the opposing party is immoral. It must end. If your policies, or simply a shortage of polling stations, lead to hours-long lines where poor people go to vote (on a Tuesday, a work day), you have an obligation to help fix it. Fight for your issues on the issues, not through a conspiracy to strip people of their right to vote.
5. End abusive gerrymandering. Deliberately packing as many minorities as possible into a small number of congressional districts, in order to amplify political power for (more conservative) white voters everywhere else, is anti-democratic and racist and wrong.
6. Recognize that the “Hastert Rule” is hyper-partisan and anti-democratic, and end it. The House GOP has been running this scheme, in which a bill can’t even come to a vote unless more than half of the GOP is in favor. Once a bill passes that test, bloc voting by the GOP pushes a bill through, untouched by any whiff of compromise or discourse with Democrats in the House of Representatives. One party only has been responsible for shut-down-the-government brinksmanship and rancor. Allow the whole of the House of Representatives to make law.
7. Put country ahead of party. The Republican-controlled Congress can strip money from the Veterans Administration, or the TSA, until long lines at hospitals or in airports make anger boil over at “the government”, meaning the Democrat in the White House. End the cynical practice of engineering government failure for the purpose of running as a Republican opposed to “Failed Government.”
8. Recognize structural racism, and overt racism where it occurs. This includes the cradle-to-jail pipeline. The outsized role of hereditary wealth in getting half a shot at success. Absurdly high interest rates for student loans. The overwhelming reliance on local property taxes to fund public schools, and the very real problems that cities have and suburbs don’t.
9. Turn your attention to economic predators: the Martin Shkrelis and Mylan Pharmaceuticals and Trump Universities and for-profit prisons and patent trolls and ambulance chasers and Wells Fargo Banks. Offer credible GOP solutions, not obstruction. Nixon campaigned on “Law and Order” before Trump did. It was a racist dog whistle then, and it is now. I’m a lot more scared by who might be looting our 401-Ks. Aren’t you?
10. Police the rhetoric of your own members. Argue GOP policy positions on their merits (such as they are), not through dog whistles, innuendo, and ad hominem attacks. Stand up to the NRA on background checks. No more Willie Horton ads, no bogus claims of “Death Panels,” no more delighting in the willful distortions of Fox News, no more tolerating Pat Buchanans, Sarah Palins and Donald Trumps in your midst.
I will still oppose you, probably, on policy after policy. But in places, we will agree. I will gladly discuss ideas for reform, such as replacing some revenue from payroll taxes on factory labor with a phased-in use of the Value-Added Tax (VAT). That change would help balance our trade, without the need to cripple trade.
Today, the Republican Party looks like a cynical conspiracy of the anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-non-Christian, anti-poor, anti-choice, anti-LGBT, anti-solar, anti-science, pro-coal, pro-oil, pro-mass-incarceration, pro-billionaire, and pro-massive-military spending. Maybe the GOP could become a “Party of Ideas.” I would like to see you try. And then you can explain “American Exceptionalism” to me. But first, you have a lot of work to do.
