Yes. *Sigh.* They're back. How did that happen and what does it mean? If you read the newspaper or watch TV you'll likely hear many variations from Democrats, Republicans, and pundits, of how the Republican Party rose from the dead like Lazarus, but most will ignore the innermost truth. The truth lies in the first statement above on George W. Bush's role in destroying the Republican Party. When Bush left office every facet of American life had turned toward the negative under his tenure, with the entire financial foundation of the country collapsing in the final months of his presidency. In a depressing way, his two terms were something like a work of art given what he was able to achieve. Record level deficits, wars with no discernable purpose, the hurricane Katrina debacle and much more, all capped by an economic collapse just as he was packing his things into boxes in the White House. What's significant is that he was able to achieve these things mostly because of the hard line support for him within his party. At no pivotal point in his presidency was there a Republican defection, of any size, from the policies he pursued. Hence, during 2008 as Barack Obama campaigned across the country, in the minds of the American people Bush was going down, and the Republican Party was going with him. And down they went. After procuring enough gains in the 2006 midterm elections to take control of both Houses of congress, in 2008 the Democrats added to their congressional majorities and successfully sent Barack Obama to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The public's anger with the Republican Party had proven to stretch so far that the Republican nominee for president, John McCain, found it difficult to secure the votes of people who considered themselves staunch Republicans. In fact the only place where the Republican candidate received more votes in the 2008 election than the 2004 election was the South. The entire rest of America was leaving the Republican Party to the former confederate states of the South. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party. To the point—and this is key—that even Republicans (everywhere but the South), didn't want to be part of it anymore.
When President Obama assumed office he did so with a substantially weakened Republican Party and an extensively strained United States, particularly as it pertained to the economy. It is hard to remember, but during the first weeks of Obama's presidency the American economy wasn't in freefall, it was motionless. The entire system had frozen and the American economy lay motionless and without a pulse. GM had just announced it would be going out of business, threatening the entire supply chain of the American auto industry. That meant that not only would GM go under, but so too would the small companies that manufactured auto parts for GM, the family dealerships, any company remotely connected to the American auto industry; if that were to happen after construction across the country had halted, small banks across the country were folding daily, and the real estate market was a disaster, unemployment would spiral out of control. Demand had already completely halted between the period Obama was elected and the day he was sworn in, causing the economic freeze. Suffice to say everything was a mess and the new American president would have to take wildly unpopular yet emergency actions just days into his presidency. Obama had received 53% of the vote and the remaining Republicans in congress appeared to be little more than decorations in Washington, D.C., given their standing with the public. Regardless, Obama, a political neophyte who's experience in the world's most combative political environment was lacking, truly believed that given the unprecedented crisis he had inherited it would be best if he legislatively moved cautiously forward with a modicum if not respectable amount of Republican support. It just wasn't the time for political gamesmanship. Besides, George W. Bush had already destroyed the Republican Party, and it seemed unlikely conservatives would pick a fight with the newly elected president, given their own problems. At least that's how it looked from where he sat.
From within the Republican bunker it was clear to party loyalist that the young Democratic president wasn't aware how bad the situation was for them. While President Obama saw weakened Republicans in bad standing with Middle America from which he could draw the slightest support for the emergency measures he would need to immediately take, Republicans knew that in fact they'd lost their base. It wasn't that Middle America was abandoning Republicans. Conservative, red-state, right-wing, Americans were. When Clinton beat Dole in '96, Republicans had lost Middle America. But George W. Bush had destroyed the Republican Party, and it was losing life-long Republicans. For the loyalist it was simple. The red-state and right wing had voted for Republicans in three straight presidential elections, nearly ten years, and had nothing to show for it. From the 2000 election when staunch Republicans no doubt voted for Bush, across 2004 when they supported his reelection, to 2008 when they voted for McCain, there's nothing those voters got for their votes. Their lives weren't improved by Bush's presidency or his policies despite the fact that they'd voted for him. In fact they were likely made worse. If they voted for McCain in 2008, well, he lost. Three election. Three votes. Nothing to show for it. Consistent Republican voters, people who would never vote for a Democrat. Consistent Republican voters who tend to be traditional, conservative white Americans, had been politically disenfranchised across a decade—now Obama had just been elected handily, receiving only 43% of the vote from white Americans, and obviously less from staunchly conservative white Americans. What Republicans fully understood, that Obama didn't get, was that George W. Bush had DESTROYED the Republican Party and unleashed traditional, conservative, typically white, Americans (the white picket fence crowd) into the political wild with no place to go. The Bear was out of its cage. Under no circumstances could they support Obama or any Democrat, but continued support for Republicans would be crazy after the previous ten years. In early 2009 as Barack Obama moved his things into the White House, Republicans weren't concerned about him or the economic disaster that was increasing across the country. if they didn't fight the defection that was occurring within their party there wouldn't be anymore Republican Party, as disenfranchised conservatives moved to start a third party. Republicans were in the midst of their own crisis, and it required them to take their own emergency action.
Obama needed to solve three immediate problems when he became president that would mostly incur public anger regardless of how he did it: prevent or allow the collapse of GM, allow/prevent the continued freeze in economic demand, do something/nothing about the disastrous housing market. The President prevented the collapse of GM through a government bailout, passed a $700 Billion stimulus bill to create economic demand, and provided provisions within the stimulus bill to allow consumers to renegotiate their foreclosed mortgages. All three required government action, and conservatives everywhere opposed all three. Elected Republicans, forced to chase after their base, opposed all three as well. But it's the stimulus bill and the last decision, allowing consumers to renegotiate their mortgages, that allowed for conservative and rightwing Americans to begin the process of biting their teeth and rejoining the Republican Party. It started with changing the name. This rant by Rick Sentelli on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is pointed to by Tea Partiers across America today as the pivotal moment when they joined the Tea Party. It tells you everything you need to know about how the Republican Party began to suture its wounds. The irony? Months after Republican president Bush bailed out the banks on Wall Street to the tune of $900 billion, Rick Santelli is able to stand on the floor of the futures exchange on CNBC railing about the new Democratic presidents days old plan to allow regular Americans to renegotiate mortgages? The irony? That we're finding out today two years after the financial collapse that the big banks have been processing foreclosures they haven't even looked at. That irony? It's lost on Tea Party Republicans. The white picket fence crowd. Mostly because they were looking for a pivotal moment to credibly oppose the Democratic president, the fact that it occurred 30 days into his presidency they view as Obama's fault. Santelli's rant clearly came from the financial industry which was extremely uninterested in renegotiating consumer's mortgages. The willingness of conservative, red-state Americans—who found themselves politically disenfranchised and economically uncertain—to get behind it under the guise of the Tea Party, demonstrated to Republican officials that the only way to save the Party was to operate in complete and total opposition to President Obama. To adopt an emergency strategy that completely ignored the peril that existed for America as a country, and focused purely on collecting the scattered pieces of the Republican Party that George W. Bush destroyed. What they had to do next was a crazy, kamikaze like string of behavior. A "break glass in case of emergency" approach, that they aimed solely at the millions of Americans who threatened to start new conservative, rightwing party. Only the nuclear option would bring ultra conservative America back in from the wilderness, safely under the Republican umbrella. The first step involved Republicans finally conceding that George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party.
Tomorrow: How The Republican Party went from defeatism in the early days of Obama to success in the 2010 midterms.
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