The lies Republicans will tell in 2021
Opinion by
Columnist
Oct. 19, 2020 at 11:26 a.m. CDT
With
the election just two weeks away, President Trump trailing Joe Biden in the
polls by double digits and a Democratic takeover
of the Senate now looking more likely than not, everyone in Washington is
contemplating how they’ll react to a transfer of power.
For
Republicans, a few questions will become particularly urgent: How can we evade
responsibility for the damage Trump did to the country with our enthusiastic
support? How can we make Biden’s presidency a failure? How can we put ourselves
in a position to win back power in 2022 and 2024?
The
answer to those questions will be found in a series of lies the GOP will tell
the country, lies they are already previewing. Let’s understand them now, so we
can avoid being hoodwinked come next year. Here are a few:
We
never liked Trump anyway. Should Trump lose the election — and
especially if it’s a resounding loss that echoes down the ballot — even
Republicans representing conservative states and districts will want to avoid
the stench of failure that will surround Trump’s memory. So they’ll claim to
have been secret Trump opponents who went along only because they got some of
what they wanted (tax cuts, right-wing judges), while courageously standing up
to him … when no one was around to see it.
For
example, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, now facing a surprisingly tight reelection
race of his own, has been one of Trump’s most loyal supporters. But in an interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram,
he claimed that in private he has disagreed vigorously with the president on
multiple issues. Why did he keep it secret until now?
“I have
found that has allowed me to be much more effective, I believe, than to satisfy
those who say I ought to call him out or get into a public fight with him,”
Cornyn said, without actually providing evidence of how “effective” his
protestations have been.
The
idea that Cornyn has been fighting a noble yet silent fight against Trump
is laughable. But expect many other Republicans
to tell the same tale about their brave disagreements with the president.
The
deficit is bad again. This is one we’ve seen coming all along, because Republicans
follow a pattern as consistent as the rising and setting of the sun. When a
Republican president is in office, they cut taxes for the wealthy and increase
spending, increasing the deficit. When a Democrat takes office, they cry that
the deficit is a dire threat to America’s future and the only solution is
austerity policies that hamstring the economy and make that president less
popular.
As
former Trump acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said in a weird attack of
candor earlier this year, “My party is very
interested in deficits when there is a Democrat in the White House.” If Biden
becomes president, they’ll pretend to care deeply about deficits again.
Partisanship
is bad. This is a lie Republicans know they can wield because of the
naive but widespread idea that there are bipartisan solutions just waiting to
be had if lawmakers would sit down together and hash them out, when the truth
is that the two parties simply have fundamentally different agendas.
So
Republicans are able to execute a cynical two-step: First, they unite to
obstruct any effort by Democrats to pass meaningful legislation. Then they
claim it was necessary because the Democrats’ effort wasn’t “bipartisan.”
But there’s
nothing wrong with partisanship. If the public elects a Democratic
president and a Democratic Congress, it expects that they will pass the agenda
those Democrats ran on. That isn’t “partisanship,” it’s democracy. Which leads
us to …
Democracy
is tyranny. The GOP is now a minority party that has held power through
anti-democratic means, both those built into our system (the electoral college,
the way the Senate gives outsize power to small rural states) and those they
maintain and expand on an ongoing basis (gerrymandering, voter suppression).
Which
is why any attempt by Democrats to smooth the way to enact the agenda they won
the election with, and which is supported by most Americans, will be met with
cries of “Tyranny!” Eliminate the filibuster to allow the side with the most
votes to win when legislation is considered? Tyranny! Grant statehood to D.C.
and Puerto Rico so nearly 4 million Americans living
in them get meaningful representation? Power grab! Pass
legislation to make voter suppression harder and voting easier? Fraud!
Republicans
know when they make these preposterous arguments, the news media will help them
by deploying the double standards that constrain only Democrats.
Democrats,
but not Republicans, face the demand that every penny they want to spend be
offset by tax increases or spending cuts lest it increase the deficit.
Democrats find any suggestion that they’ll play procedural hardball greeted
with shock and condemnation, while Republicans manipulating the rules is taken
as just what we expect. (Look at all the discussion about the mere possibility
of expanding the Supreme Court.) Democrats are scolded if they don’t
seek Republican support for legislation, but nobody expects Republicans to do
the same.
But
here’s the thing about all these lies: We don’t have to take them
seriously. When Republicans start squawking about the deficit, we can
dismiss it out of hand. When they start crying about tyranny, we can remind
them that when you lose an election, the winning side takes power and does
things you oppose.
And
when they whine about Democrats using the rules to their advantage, we can tell
them that, if they don’t like it, just try to win the next election. But as a
minority party with a dwindling base, that’s going to be increasingly difficult
for Republicans to do.