The guardian
Millions in the US do not feel through one of the political parties. My father is one of them
Like many people, my father feels politically homeless – unable to accept toxic Trumpism, but too conservative for the Democratic Party. ‘The Republican Party is in the midst of an identity crisis, brought about by a major shift in the demographics of the voters and a new generation of more radical and paranoid politicians. Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images A few days after the Capitol uprising, my father Jack sent an e-mail from his Lincoln, Kansas, home to his representative and senators in Congress. For some reason he was also busy with me doing these exchanges. There was a new email almost every day, and the tone fluctuated between begging, angry, confused, and frustrated. There were emails asking his senators to vote to accuse Trump, emails demanding that the allegations that the election was stolen be claimed, and emails trying to disrupt their twisted logic. One such email reads in part, ‘Your actions, and the actions of other Republicans like you, are destroying the Republican Party. Since I was a lifelong Republican, I hate what happened to the Lincoln and Reagan party and the ideals of the past, to see it diminished to a personality cult. “The politicians’ answers made it absolutely clear that no one takes my father’s criticism seriously. Kansas representative Tracey Mann sent a response to the form, saying “we must unite as a nation”, which presumably had to move on and forget the excessive misdeeds of the Trump administration and vote against accusation. When I asked my father if he had any expectation that his representatives would take responsibility for their involvement in the uprising (Roger Marshall, senator from Kansas, along with those who claimed there was fraud during the election), he said: ‘ No. Well … no. “My father’s frustration with the Republican Party has been building for years, but something seems to be breaking with him after the uprising. The uprising at the Capitol is, he believes, fueled by unscrupulous politicians who for four years cared more about power than the rule of law and who would rather have the country fall apart than rebuild. The Republican Party is in the midst of an identity crisis, brought about by a major shift in the demographics of the vote and a new generation of more radical and paranoid politicians. As the Democrats move away from their historic constituency to become the party of the urban, college-educated liberals instead, Republicans are drawn to the loyalty of the religious, the non-formally educated, and the countryside. The institutions that previously cultivated Republican voters – the university system and the work of white-collar workers – are now leading Americans to the political left, scrapping conservative leaders and thin tanks to figure out how to accommodate their new, more blue-collar base. Many Republican politicians clearly find it easier to appeal to their bosses’ fears and resentments than to provide working-class Americans with stability and resources. This has led to strange competitions, such as the Yale Law graduate and Republican Senator Josh Hawley, Missouri, considering themselves a populist man. The Bulwark podcast, which is one of the few conservative media my father still listens to, and which prides itself on its “civilian” discourse, has been watching this identity crisis daily. In his episode “Post-Impeachment GOP”, host Charlie Sykes describes the slow decline that apparently accelerated once Republican voters believed the lie that Trump’s re-election was stolen and their politicians refuse to deny or deny it. “The Republican Party is willing to look at other lies, racism, all the corruption and xenophobia, but now it is willing to look the other way. [on] violence, extremism and anti-democratic authoritarianism. My father Jack compares his alienation from the Republican Party to the rise of the recently deceased Rush Limbaugh. He listened to him for about a year in the 80s, first finding jokes about the hypocrisy of Democrats. But soon Rush’s tone changes. “He said outrageous things about people and then laughed – but then he started sounding like he really believed it. He no longer entertains; he was venomous. He was further ousted from Limbaugh, who exploded in popularity during the Clinton administration, due to his reliance on cheap misogyny and homophobic jokes. The Republican Party as a whole has followed a similar path – they have chosen war battles over ideological integrity, and a struggle against the institutions of family, religious freedom, strong communities and small businesses that the party considers valuable. This was especially evident in the politics of our home state of Kansas, which is often portrayed as a hard-line Conservative, but whose local politics are far more nuanced than outsiders see. It is worth remembering that the state has a strong local Democratic party, a history of far-left progressive politics, and that the current governor is Democrat Laura Kelly. But back in 2011, Sam Brownback was elected governor and decided to make the most radical tax cuts the state has ever seen. It reduced the budgets of hospitals, schools and other agencies, and it began to fall apart. Politicians defied Brownback, promising to raise taxes, something that was almost unheard of. The ‘Kansas experiment’, as it was called, revealed the emptiness of Republican rhetoric and their lack of new ideas beyond ‘tax cuts’. He was further cut off from Limbaugh by his reliance on cheap misogyny and homophobic jokes. Clearly, my father is not the only conservative feeling alienated from the Republican Party. Gerald Russello, editor of the Conservative culture journal University Bookman, reflected the sentiment. “The political conservatives you see on TV or in Congress are Trump clowns or old guys from the Reagan era who believe that the free market solves everything,” he told me recently. “Who’s talking to me? I can not identify myself with clownistic racists. It is not yet clear how widespread the fallout from Trumpism will be, but a greater number of Republicans are changing their official political commitment as Democrats, and there is talk of the possibility of forming a splinter party called the Integrity Party. (The founders of the Lincoln Project were involved in this idea before the organization was plagued by accusations of sexual harassment and bigger questions about its financial and political purpose.) Building a new political party into something that can achieve power and influence, is a long-term goal, but it would seek to give fiscal conservatives and social moderates a voice, occupying a center-right position, to the left of where Republicans currently sit. When I asked my dad if he could ever be persuaded to vote Democratic, he thought for a while. “I doubt it. I get this feeling from the Democrats: ‘We are from the government and we are here to help you’ which I do not like. I want to know how we can best resolve [a] problem instead of just throwing money at it. What he sees as problems – things like national debt and military spending – the Democrats apparently do not acknowledge, nor do the Republicans acknowledge what my father believes are disasters such as climate change and the broken health care system. But my father does not trust the ideas that the Democrats put forward to resolve these issues. Both my father and Russello expressed frustration over the Republicans claiming to be a family party while being allowed by a pandemic alone to suffer families. “Give the people money!” Russello said. “It’s not socialism – it’s an argument from the ’80s.” And he is worried about the future if the party continues to drop the primary case. ‘There is a great deal of conservatism with men and women in their twenties and thirties who have given up politics. They say, you do not know how bad it is for us. ‘The Republicans have little to offer, as small towns and the center of the country are allowed to degenerate into unemployment, de-industrialization and addiction, but these places are also the strongholds of the Republicans. For now, it seems unlikely that change will come from above. Conservatives are still intellectually reliant on thin tanks in Washington, which have been spreading the same ideas about the free market for decades. There are writers and intellectuals on the right who try to plan a course, but they are often drowned out by media personalities on Fox News and alt-right podcasts. Russello pointed out that after the media was so surprised by the Donald Trump election in 2016, many publications promised to go to these neglected regions and cover their concerns. Very little of the coverage materialized; there were few big splashy books about so-called ‘Trump land’ except, for example, strangers in their own country or Hillbilly Elegy. The focus has mostly remained on the more sensational side of Trumpism, such as the QAnon conspiracy and insurgents, and less on the prospects of the average conservative voter. As for my dad’s plans, he’s still involved with the local government, where he’s been serving for decades now. He recently repulsed an attempt by a committee to invite an imitator of Robert E Lee to the Lincoln Days celebrations in honor of the city’s name, pointing out that the general was a traitor who was happy that he was not hanged. And despite the lack of results, he still sends the emails. Another one went out this morning. Jessa Crispin is an American Guardian columnist