This Just In – The Republican Party is dead. Among the many symptoms of its last twitches came the news this past week that the GOP will not participate in the 2024 Presidential Debate Commission. That’s it. Time of death: April, 2022.
The national “leaders” of what used to be the Republican Party are withdrawing from the commission for one reason only – the former guy said so.
Throw this on the pile of discrediting behavior (including the very substantial number of high-level GOP officials who actively participated in trying to overthrow the federal government). There are too many examples to list here, but withdrawing from the nonpartisan commission that gives us presidential debates waves a great big flag that screams: “We’re not a political party of ideas any longer. We just do what this guy tells us to do.”
Thanks to NY Times reporting, we know that many GOP officials have nothing but contempt for the former guy in private and thought he would disappear. When he didn’t, they returned to their knees and have done nothing to block his return, serving up their legitimacy as a sacrifice to their dear leader and flagrantly lying to the public about their contempt (stated only in private).
It helps no one for one party to be so completely rudderless.
The only answer to this problem, it seems to me, is to outline genuinely conservative positions on the issues of the day. As a one-time Republican (yes, Chapel Hill, it’s true) I offer these broad principles — for the sake of the nation.
First Five Policy Arguments for a New American Conservative Party
1) Marriage Equality – Yes
This one is probably the easiest, so let’s start off with it. To be conservative is to believe in a minimal role for government. That is, the federal government shouldn’t lead social policy or be in the business of inventing “special rights.” True! So, strip this down to the country’s declaration document – the one that told old King George we are endowed by our creator with INALIENABLE rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. There it is, right there. The pursuit of happiness and liberty. These rights cannot be taken from us without due process and no one can identify a due process of law that denies marriage to any class of people.
(Loving v. Virginia) Chief Justice Warren: Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.
Conservatives respect the law. LET IT GO.
2) Climate Change/Environmental Protection – Yes
Again, this one’s easy. Pick up a book if you need to or Google “Teddy Roosevelt.” He’s one of your own. To be conservative is to seek to minimize the expense of resources, natural and otherwise. Protecting the land, air and water is an obvious expression of these principles. Beyond this, your religious right supporters should be happy to accept that you are protecting the land that God made, rather than drilling, strip mining and fracking your way to your next election. Smart, efficient use of natural resources and responsible stewardship of our investments in clean energy is a conservative course. It isn’t trendy or the work of any “fringe” group to ask what today’s policy decisions will do to Americans born in the next decade, who will die after 2100. Lincoln thought that way about us when it came to slavery. You can do that, too.
3) Reproductive Rights – Yes
This one’s a little counter-intuitive, but yes, the GOP loves to talk about the constitution as a near-sacred document. Well, that document clearly states that the rights of Americans convey those BORN in the U.S. or naturalized. No one WANTS an abortion. Until you can speak credibly about the need for responsible women (and men) to have easy access to many forms of birth control, NO ONE WILL LISTEN TO YOU. This is the world you’re in. Adapt. Accept.
Your “My body, my choice” beliefs leaked out into the public domain during COVID. Take a position on protecting the right of responsible adults to access safe, effective birth control. That will prevent more abortions than anything you’ve done to date. Stop being sucked into the idea that reversing Roe vs. Wade is the answer to stopping abortion. It’s not.
That answer is found in preventing unwanted pregnancies.
But you’ll have to accept something – consenting, responsible adults want to have sex outside of marriage. As conservatives, you should be interested in protecting children from predators, and protecting the rights of consenting adults to be left alone. Remember your roots — LIBERTY, PURSUIT of HAPPINESS. Keep the government off our backs — especially when we’re home alone in our bedrooms.
4) Public Education Reform – Yes
As a means of providing good stewardship of the taxpayers dollars, conservatives should stand strong for public schools that are properly and equitably funded. That means throwing OUT the property tax model for funding public schools. Create a commission to reinvent the funding model that will deliver the same quality in Bumpkin, Idaho as it does in Beverly Hills, California. Have students and educators design a pilot program. Experiment, document, learn. Education is the one area that should be expected to reinvent itself. That’s the business of education.
We need a lean, hungry clicking-on-all-cylinders workforce – its lack is a national competitive disadvantage affecting trade and security.
5) Single Payer National Healthcare – Yes
Seriously, this is so simple. Follow the money. If you were inventing the healthcare system today, using all the data and experience from the last 50 years, single payer is what you’d invent. It is by far the most cost effective to the nation (regardless of source). Conservatives want efficiency, fairness, even outcomes and proper stewardship of dollars. With doctors on salaries and outcomes driving the treatment process, prevention can get more resources (because it delivers better results) and the use of data-driven programs to target high-risk patients (for diabetes, hypertension compliance and prevention, for example) will be the easy and obvious path to a healthier, more effective workforce. This could be paired with raising the social security retirement age to 70 (in 25 years) because it can reasonably be expected to positively affect life expectancy and quality of life.
Next week: The next five policy arguments for a legitimate American Conservative Party.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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