Perspective from the 19th Hole

AMERICA’S POLITICAL CHAOS:  WHO STARTED IT?  AND WHY IT MATTERS NOW   This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.   The question in the headline has bothered me for some time, if only because of my career dealing with government, both here in Salem, Oregon and in Washington, D.C.   When I worked in and around government, middle ground was possible.   Today, no longer.   The goal of many so-called political “leaders” is to sow discord and to win at all costs, without regard to pressing national and international problems, including the humanitarian tragedies in the Middle East and Ukraine.   So, I ask the question in the headline.   Tom Nichols, a staff writer for The Atlantic Magazine answered the other day in these words:   “Most of America’s current environment can be traced back to one moment:  The election of Donald Trump.  The bedlam continues and, to understand the stakes in 2024, imagine how different the world would look if he’d lost.”   That’s not a surprise to me, given the foment that drives Trump every day, most of which is of his own making.   Nichols adds that, while it’s not always not useful to look backward, reflecting on history can be a virtue.    In Nichols’ rear-view mirror:

“As I continue to watch the GOP flail about, I have been thinking about an alternate history of a United States where Donald Trump lost the 2016 election.

“I am convinced that the chaos now overtaking much of the American political system was not inevitable:  The source of our ongoing political disorder is because of a razor-thin victory in an election in 2016 decided by a relatively tiny number of voters.”

Nichols dates the intent to produce discord and chaos back to Newt Gingrich who, when he became U.S. House speaker, “proved that political nastiness was an effective campaign strategy.”

Further, unrelated to Nichols, Washington Post columnist George Will adds this salient fact about current events:

“After Trump was charged with 91 felony counts in four separate cases for allegedly mishandling classified information, obstructing justice, conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, and falsifying business records in connection to hush money paid to an adult-film star, the Republican Party seems more wedded to him than ever before.  Trump also faces an ongoing civil trial in New York over alleged business fraud by him and his company.

“Instead of voters turning on him because they are appalled by his behavior, fearful he would not be electable or exhausted by his perpetual drama, the indictments have boomeranged to his favor among Republicans.”

More from Nichols in The Atlantic:

“At the least, a Trump loss would have let other Republicans avoid sinking in the populist swamp.  Elise Stefanik might be a relentless political opportunist, but without Trump, she and other GOP leaders could have pronounced Trumpian extremism a failure and stayed in something like a center-right lane.

“On the Earth Where Trump Lost, Fox-addicted voters might still have sent irresponsible performance artists such as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz to Congress, but the institutional Republicans would have had every incentive to marginalize them.

“Had Trump lost, someone might even have bothered to read (and act on) the so-called Republican National Committee ‘autopsy’ of 2013, which argued that the future of the party relies on better appeals to immigrants, women, minorities, and young people.

“With Trump’s win, that kind of talk went out the window.  Instead, the Trump GOP chained itself to the votes of older white Americans — a declining population.  Republicans thus had to squeeze more votes out of a shrinking base, and the only way to do that was to build on Trump’s bond with his personality cult and defend him at all costs.

“Perhaps most important, a Trump loss would have prevented (or at least delayed) the normalization of violence and authoritarianism in American politics.  This is not to say that the Republicans would today be a healthy party, but Trump’s victory confirmed the surrender of the national GOP to a sociopathic autocrat.”

So, look back at Trump – or look at him now – and worry about the future of our country.

Footnote:  This blog makes even more sense as we see dislocation in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Republicans don’t know how to organize anything, including their own operation.