The humorist, Will Rogers, once famously said, “I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”
I kept thinking of that comment this year as I watched the national Democratic Party leaders struggle and fail to find simple rallying issues for the 2018 midterm elections. Of course, the biggest issue is Trump, and that might be enough. It should be. But it wasn’t in 2016. Further, the party leaders have failed to arrive at a simple way to state Trumpism as the issue.
On the other hand, there is the supremely organized Republican Party. Though they are being led perilously by Trumpism, they are using Trump to get their political things done.
To look at the organization of the Republicans, I point to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. They grab and sometimes create the Republican/Conservatives message and run with it. They practice the advice of the Republican message consultant, Frank Luntz, who says,
There’s a simple rule: You say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and then again and again and again and again, and about the time that you’re absolutely sick of saying it is about the time that your target audience has heard it for the first time.
And I would add, by then it is part of your audience’s knowledge. Of course, it works best when you are not campaigning. By then the ideas are set. Please tell the Democrats.
A key feature of the organization of the Republicans is Grover Norquist’s invitation-only Wednesday morning meetings in Washington. This is the place for Republicans to brainstorm, swap intelligence, and see and be seen.
Over 100 people attend, including the powers who run the federal government—Congresspersons, lobbyists, senior White House and Senate staffers, industry-group leaders, and right-wing policy wonks. President George W. Bush required at least one of his cabinet officers attend each meeting.
These meetings, which started in 1993, have a common vision: an America in which the rich will be taxed at rates no higher than the poor, where capital is freed from government constraints, where government services are turned over to the free market, where the minimum wage is repealed, unions are made irrelevant, and law-abiding citizens can pack handguns in every state and town.
These meetings may be the reason Republicans stay on message. Through the years Norquist, the guy who pushes the no-tax-increase pledge, has spread his weekly meetings process to 48 States. By the way, 209 Republican members of the House of Representatives and 44 Republican Senators have signed the pledge.
And then there is the Federalist Society, an organization of conservatives who push the so-called originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Through the past 2-3 decades, they have successfully managed to produce conservative and ultra conservative justices for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Interestingly, Judge Brett Kavanaugh was not on their list of approved potential candidates for the Supreme Court provided to Donald Trump in 2016. But that’s another story.
On top of all this right-wing fire power, these groups collaborate in setting the stage and pushing their interests. A recent example is the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. It is clear that there was a concerted effort to get Justice Kennedy to follow through on his retirement thoughts this year so that President Trump could choose a conservative (read right-winger) for his replacement.
On the other hand, there was no such effort by Democrats to get the sometimes ailing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire while Obama was in office so that he could choose a liberal to replace her. Now there is the danger that Trump might have the honor of replacing her.
Without the tragedy of Trump, our political war is a one-sided fight—the organized Republicans versus the unorganized Democrats.