As the American political system continues to be shaken by the debt ceiling limit stalemate, one thing is evident: the lack of powerful moderates — or even moderates — in the Republican Party. A Boston Globe article provides further evidence and insight. Parts of it:
The Republican Party has, in fact, moved away from its moderate wing in recent years, according to national polls, resulting in a growing chasm between its political leaders and a significant group of disenchanted voters. Republican lawmakers have increasingly aligned themselves with their expanding conservative base – the party’s loudest, most active voices that helped propel GOP candidates backed by the Tea Party movement into the House in the 2010 primaries and general election.
Self-described moderates, who made up nearly a third of the Republican Party a decade ago, now represent less than a quarter of Republicans, according to new Gallup findings to be released Friday. Meanwhile, the percentage of Republicans who call themselves conservative has risen to a high of 72 percent, up from 62 percent in 2002.“The base of the party right now is the Tea Party, frankly,’’ said Trey Grayson, former secretary of state of Kentucky who now directs the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School after losing in the 2010 US Senate GOP primary against Tea Party candidate Rand Paul. “Those are the folks who are the most active, the loudest, who go to town hall meetings, call members of Congress, and show up at political barbecues, and they’re pulling the party to the right.’’
And all of this has had an impact on American political discussion, debate and (here comes that “dirty” word to some) compromise:
The shift, and resulting polarization between right-leaning Republicans and increasingly liberal Democrats, bodes ill for constructive discourse and effective governance, say political scientists. The far right has so vilified Obama that for Republican congressmen to even negotiate with the White House is seen as treason by many Republicans, said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University.
The split in the GOP is especially pronounced now in party members’ disagreement on reducing the deficit. While polls show that many Republican voters support a combination of program cuts and tax increases, that is not true when it comes to the most conservative segment of the party.
The Globe story notes something I have mentioned here often: a chunk of independent voters are former Republican moderates who feel their party either left them or that they were in effect booted from their old party:
Many disaffected moderates have shifted their party registration to independent and dropped out of the political scene, said Connie Morella, a moderate Republican and former Maryland congresswoman who led a study group at the Harvard Institute of Politics on the endangered moderate.
And current Republican leaders, many of whom have pledged not to raise taxes, are beholden to the increasingly right-wing electorate that swept them into office; more moderate members have been defeated in the primaries.
“Moderates were an endangered species, and now it’s just about an extinct species,’’ said Morella, a Somerville native. “Republican leaders feel they need to be loyal to their party because there could be repercussions if they are not. They are afraid it might be held against them in the next election, and that’s a really difficult kind of prison to be in.’’
The Republican Party’s swing to the right has been in the making for 30 years as social conservatives joined traditional fiscal conservatives during the Reagan era, political scientists say.
And some would say that if this process isn’t complete it’s close to complete. To be sure, the party has rebranded itself.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.