Early 20th century humorist Will Rogers liked to say, “I am a member of no organized political party: I’m a Democrat.” I suspect there are more than a few Republican voters who could make the same remark about the chaos currently consuming their own party.
In the wake this week of the Republican primary voters having chosen Donald Trump as their standard-bearer for 2016, various Republicans of national consequence have removed themselves from consideration for the vice-presidency with the desperation of horses fleeing a barn fire. Given the dysfunctional state of their party, I can’t say I blame them.
While some of my progressive friends are watching the Republican disintegration with large helpings of schadenfreude with a side of popcorn, I find myself becoming increasingly concerned that governing the country at large is becoming dangerously difficult.
It is worth mentioning that divided government (one party controlling one or more houses of Congress, and the other having the presidency) hasn’t always been this unworkable. I can think of examples that obtained during my own life. I’ve mentioned before in this space that I started my voting life as a reliable Republican voter (was I ever that young?), casting my first-ever presidential vote for Ronald Reagan, about a month after my 18th birthday in 1980. Reagan won in a landslide, and the Republicans gained a majority in the Senate that year for the first time in decades, but the House remained in Democratic hands, as it would for the next 14 years.
While Reagan had his share of conflicts with the Democratic House, things settled pretty quickly into a reliable ritual. Reagan’s policy people would send over a proposed budget, and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill would declare it “dead on arrival.” Both sides would then sit down and reason together, and after several rounds of give-and-take, a compromise would be reached and passed, and President Reagan would sign it. Neither side got anywhere close to everything it wanted, but the good of the country was given a higher priority than being ideologically pure. The behavior of the more conservative faction of the Republican caucus in the House has stood in stark contrast to that receding era of comparative comity and pragmatism. As conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks said in a column recently:
“ (T)his new Republican faction regards the messy business of politics as soiled and impure. Compromise is corruption. Inconvenient facts are ignored. Countrymen with different views are regarded as aliens. Political identity became a sort of ethnic identity, and any compromise was regarded as a blood betrayal.”
While there is some of this on the left as well, I think Brooks is right to single out the Republicans for approbation. There is something almost nihilistic about the refusal to compromise by the self-described “Freedom Caucus.”
In his previously mentioned column, Brooks gave a decent definition of Conservatism:
“By traditional definitions, conservatism stands for intellectual humility, a belief in steady, incremental change, a preference for reform rather than revolution, a respect for hierarchy, precedence, balance and order, and a tone of voice that is prudent, measured and responsible. Conservatives of this disposition can be dull, but they know how to nurture and run institutions. They also see the nation as one organic whole. Citizens may fall into different classes and political factions, but they are still joined by chains of affection that command ultimate loyalty and love.”
Brooks then contrasted that with what he describes as the “radicalism” of the current Republican Party:
“All of this has been overturned in dangerous parts of the Republican Party. Over the past 30 years, or at least since Rush Limbaugh came on the scene, the Republican rhetorical tone has grown ever more bombastic, hyperbolic and imbalanced. Public figures are prisoners of their own prose styles, and Republicans from Newt Gingrich through Ben Carson have become addicted to a crisis mentality. Civilization was always on the brink of collapse. Every setback, like the passage of Obamacare, became the ruination of the republic. Comparisons to Nazi Germany became a staple.
“This produced a radical mindset. Conservatives started talking about the Reagan ‘revolution,’ the Gingrich “revolution.” Among people too ill educated to understand the different spheres, political practitioners adopted the mental habits of the entrepreneur. Everything had to be transformational and disruptive. Hierarchy and authority were equated with injustice. Self-expression became more valued than self-restraint and coalition building.”
My own view is that the United States actually needs a functioning opposition party, for the health of its polity. I hope the Republicans can restore themselves to something resembling reasonable opponents. The early indications are that Donald Trump will go down to a historic defeat in November, and may well drag a significant fraction of down-ballot Republicans down with him. Many project that Democrats may well take back the Senate for the first time in 6 years, and control of the House of Representatives may even be within their reach.
If this does come to pass, I hope that the Republican Party uses that opportunity to do some deep soul-searching about who and what they will represent going forward.

Matt Talbot is a writer and poet, as well as an old Benicia hand.

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