Who now will challenge the rising tide of right-wing populism?
House Majority Leader Eric Canton’s shocking defeat sends two important messages to the Republican establishment, neither of which is chiefly about immigration.
First, today’s rightwing populism is just as hostile to Big Money as it is to Big Government. Lest we forget, the tea party was spawned during the late economic crisis, during which millions of Americans not only lost their jobs, but also saw the value of their houses and retirement funds take a sickening plunge. Despite several years of “recovery,” the specter of downward mobility still haunts the conservative base.
The race’s improbable victor, college professor Dave Brat, excoriated Cantor as a creature of Wall Street, K Street, and big business lobbies in Washington. He called the outcome a victory for ordinary people over monied interests. “Dollars don’t vote,” he told delirious supporters last night. Cantor poured about $5 million into his campaign, while Brat had just two paid staffers and spent a measly $77,000.
It’s true that Brat frequently assailed Canton as squishy on “amnesty” for illegal aliens. And it’s likely the Majority Leader’s downfall will scare many Republicans away from efforts to reform immigration this year. But as John Judis points out, Brat actually accused Cantor of siding with big businesses’ quest for “cheap labor” at the expense of “cheap wages” for native residents of Virginia’s Seventh District.
In short, Republican attempts to deflect populist rage from powerful economic actors to big, bad government aren’t working. The intra-party feud between a populist and libertarian grass roots and a plutocrat-friendly establishment is nowhere near over – it’s intensifying.
Here’s the second message from Cantor’s upset: GOP leaders will have to confront the populists on ideological, not just electoral, grounds.
As has been the case with other tea party primary victories, Brat’s win puts what should be a safe Republican District in play. That’s why the GOP establishment is working hard to deny populist upstarts money and endorsements. Brat’s success suggests that’s not enough. At some point, party leaders will have to challenge the hard right’s attempts to impose ideological litmus tests on GOP candidates.
The question is, who is to define the Republican agenda? Will it be elected leaders who actually govern in the party’s name? Or will it be a tacit alliance of populists abetted opportunistically by professional fund-raisers with an agenda – the Club for Growth, the Senate Conservative Fund, etc.? The latter are intensely oppositional and have little interest in compromise or governing. And that’s a big problem for Republicans.
In our two-party democracy, neither can afford doctrinal purity. They have to assemble broad, heterogeneous coalitions to win elections. The populists’ demands are alienating minorities, women and the young and narrowing the GOP coalition. This has created a huge structural disadvantage in presidential elections, and could eventually trickle down-ballot and cost Republicans control of their Congressional bastion.
Cantor seems to have understood that. With an eye on succeeding John Boehner as House Speaker, he was encouraging efforts by “reform conservatives” to develop a positive governing agenda for the GOP. That probably was his undoing.
If someone as intrinsically conservative as Eric Cantor can be cast as a closet compromiser and traitor to the cause, then Republicans really are in danger of being engulfed, and politically marginalized, by the extremists in their midst.
Will any GOP leader stand up to them?
This blog post is cross-posted from Republic 3.0.
