How coronavirus revealed Republicans' disinterest in governing

JOHN WOOLLEY: Every four years since the Republican Party’s establishment in 1854, the party has drafted and adopted a policy platform to outline their governing plan. With the reelection bid of President Donald Trump, that streak has ended.

In a resolution released by the Republican National Committee (RNC) on August 23, the GOP will forego drafting a new platform in favor of “reassert[ing] the Party’s strong support for President Donald Trump and his Administration.” The move, however vague and unprecedented it may be, also represents a larger shift in the Republican Party that has gained traction over the past decade: the exodus of the technocrat. Ignited by the populist Tea Party movement and solidified by Trump’s election in 2016, the GOP as an institution has positioned itself not as an organization interested in governing, but as a cultural statement against social change.

During the first two years of Trump’s presidency, when the GOP controlled both chambers of Congress, the only major piece of legislation passed was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 — legislation which was widely criticized for primarily benefiting only the wealthiest Americans, while adding a projected $1.9 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. The inability of the GOP to organize its members around any other major legislative package — including five attempts to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act with essentially no alternative plan — is evidence of either a lack of interest in governing or lack of vision of what the party itself stands for. The GOP appears to have no concrete policy goals beyond dismantling existing policy. 

Now, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the consequence of that lack of policy interest is made apparent. The executive branch has all but given up on trying to implement any sort of federal response strategy. Senate Republicans, when presented with a $3.4 trillion House Democratic stimulus plan in May, took until July 27 to announce their own proposal of cutting unemployment benefits from $600 to $200 per week. The nearly three-month delay, caused by infighting within Senate GOP ranks over whether the federal government should continue financial stimulus at all, demonstrates how despite being in charge, the Republican Party still operates as though it is the minority party.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) strategizes like he leads the opposition — obstructing as much legislation as possible by blocking Senate floor votes on hundreds of bills, even since before the pandemic began. Meanwhile, the majority leader was unable to rally his caucus around almost any major substantive bill during the first two years of President Trump’s term. With months still in control of most levers of power in the federal government, GOP officials appear to have resigned to wait out the election, leaving an intellectual vacuum to be filled only by the moment-to-moment whims of the party’s leader. The result of that resignation is our current moment — a nation rocked by pandemic, mired by cynicism, and treading water only through disjointed and cash-strapped state and local responses. 

This comes down to philosophical differences between the major parties. Where the Democratic Party is anchored in debating policy systems — it is a party concerned with managing health care, financial regulation, renewable energy, and other concrete policy structures — the GOP is instead unified in its opposition to forces of change in America. Those forces can be policy related (as health care and stimulus fights have demonstrated), but those which are typically only manifest in reaction to preexisting Democratic proposals. More often, they exist outside of the legislative realm. Debates about speech, attitudes toward symbols, and reactions toward diversity and rapid cultural change are not policy proposals, nor do they result in legislation. Yet, they occupy the center of attention in much of modern conservative discourse. President Trump went as far as to declare a “culture war” against anti-Confederate speech, even while his “war against the Chinese virus” went almost entirely unfought. 

This is also evidenced in the parties’ attitudes toward expertise in general. Pew Research Center found in a 2017 national survey that 58% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents believe that colleges and universities have a negative effect on the country. Just this May, the center found a 22 point gap between Democrats and Republicans when asked about their trust in medical scientists. 

This devaluing of expertise among conservative voters rises up through the highest levels of government. Not only does the sentiment push away the technocrats and policy experts responsible for crafting a party’s legislative ideas, but it also leads to the appointment of inexperienced and unqualified people to fill important roles across the federal government. The Trump Administration has been particularly guilty of this — forcing out career ambassadors, intelligence officers, and other experts in favor of donors and loyalists. 

As a result, when asked to respond to a crisis on the fly, the Republican Party struggles and fails to do so. It is both skeptical of technocratic expertise and instinctively ready to fight against the organized, federal responses it is supposed to lead in times of crisis. More so, it is predisposed to fight against the mobilization efforts from any governmental bodies they do not control — simply because they are part of the cultural opposition. In other words, they do not have the policy expertise or interest to adequately respond to crisis, yet staunchly oppose any alternative attempts at resolving the problem. 

This brings us to today, where the modern GOP has shed any need to articulate what it, as an over 150 year old political institution, actually stands for or wants to achieve. In response to the Democratic Party’s 91 page-long policy platform, the GOP provided voters a one page resolution, void of a single policy or philosophy of governance. Instead, the RNC is simply content with pointing its finger at a reactionary and vaguely authoritarian White House, abdicating itself of governing responsibility, yet asking voters to let it govern all the same.

John Woolley is a reporter, musician, and executive editor for On the Record. He is a junior and studies government and journalism in the College.