Washington Post columnist Henry Olsen is, most of the time, a deceitful, propaganda-spewing Republican hack, but when he writes about what his party needs to do to succeed, he's capable of being sincere. Today's column, headlined "Liz Truss’s Resignation Is a Warning for Republicans," genuinely expresses a fear of GOP failure. Olsen writes:
Republicans should take note of [Truss's] mistakes if they want to avoid a similar debacle after the midterms and in 2024.
Truss’s first mistake was to push a radical economic agenda she did not campaign on.... She had promised some modest tax reductions and offered rhetorical backing for deregulation. But those were far short of the sweeping tax cuts she and her chancellor of the exchequer unveiled in their now-infamous mini-budget proposed in late September.
Failing to prepare public opinion for her proposals meant there was no widespread support for them in any segment of British society. Conservative MPs who championed fiscal stability were gobsmacked at the prospect of widening deficits as far as the eye could see. The broader public backed more spending and taxation, not less....
Republicans are at risk of making the same mistake if they retake control of Congress.... Using the national debt limit next year as leverage to force significant spending cuts, including to Social Security and Medicare, as has recently been rumored, would be as politically disastrous for the GOP as Truss’s supply-side tax cuts were for the Tories.
I wish I believed this.
If Republicans propose massive tax cuts for the rich, there'll be absolutely no resistance within their party. And while ordinary Americans will object to debt blackmail while it's going on, they'll forget about it as soon as the crisis is over. They might be so outraged at efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare that they'll force the GOP to back off, but the GOP's poll numbers will never drop as low as the Tories' have -- the Conservatives are now 36 points behind Labour -- and the Republicans will recover quickly, probably by ginning up outrage over trans teenagers and allegedly rampant crime in cities their voters never visit. This always works for them.
Olsen worries about 2024:
Republicans need to pick a 2024 nominee who has both intellectual depth and genuine courage. Former president Donald Trump has neither. He might sound like a fighter, but he regularly pulled back from his agenda under pressure from his staff.
Well, this time he's going to pick a staff that's entirely like-minded -- i.e., batshit crazy -- so that won't be a problem.
He also publicly excoriated Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whom he will need to pass whatever agenda he comes up with.
Yes, but McConnell will back Trump wholeheartedly if he's the nominee, and will be completely transactional with him if he becomes president again. Their relationship will be fine.
Trump also shares Truss’s lack of serious engagement with ideas.... You can’t change the nation’s course if you don’t have an idea for where it should be going.
Trump obviously falls short in this area, but his future staffers have plenty of solid ideas about where the country should be going. (The short answer is Hungary.) They'll know what to do, I'm sorry to say.
In a way, I'm jealous of the U.K. The GOP hasn't seen the Tories' current level of disgrace since approximately 1964. I don't expect the Republicans will fall that far again in my lifetime.
Posted with permission from No More Mr. Nice Blog
