There are currently two clown shows — sorry, but let’s be
honest — going on in the Republican Party. One is the intraparty fighting that
seems extremely likely to cause a government shutdown a few days from now. The
other is the fight over who will come a distant second to Donald Trump in the
presidential primaries.
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There are many strange aspects to both shows. But here’s the
one that has long puzzled me: Everyone says that with the rise of MAGA, the GOP
has been taken over by populists. So why is the Republican Party’s economic
ideology so elitist and anti-populist?
Listen to the rhetoric of the people making Kevin McCarthy
look like a fool or of the presidential candidates, and it’s full of attacks on
elites — but also of promises to cut taxes for the rich and slash government
spending that benefits the working class. For example, Nikki Haley — who is
making a credible bid to be Trump’s also-ran, given Ron DeSantis’ implosion —
is calling for big cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
As I write this, McCarthy is reportedly trying to appease
MAGA dissidents with a temporary funding bill that would cut nonmilitary
discretionary spending outside Veterans Affairs by 27% — meaning savage cuts to
things like the administration of Social Security (as opposed to the benefits
themselves).
The thing is, such proposals are deeply unpopular. It’s true
that Americans tell pollsters that the government spends too much, but if you
ask them about specific types of spending, the only area on which they say we
spend too much is foreign aid, which is a trivial part of the budget. Oh, and
most Americans still support aid to Ukraine.
So there would seem to be an opening for politicians who are
right wing on social issues like immigration and wokeness but are also
genuinely populist in their spending priorities. Such politicians exist in
other countries. For example, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose
party has deep links to the nation’s fascist past, ran last year on a platform
calling for earlier retirement for some workers and increases in minimum
pensions and child benefits.
So why aren’t there such figures in the GOP? To be fair,
during the 2016 campaign Trump sometimes sounded as if he might turn his back
on Republican economic orthodoxy, but once in office he pursued the usual
agenda of tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy combined with benefit cuts
for the rest.
Part of the answer may lie in the American right’s general
mindset, which valorizes harshness, not empathy. People who are drawn to MAGA
tend to imagine that solving society’s problems should involve punishing
people, not helping them.
Also, we shouldn’t underestimate the power of ignorance:
MAGA politicians, who generally disdain any kind of expertise, may not have any
clear idea of what the federal government does and where tax dollars go.
Finally, there’s the Clarence Thomas factor.
What I mean is that part of the explanation for the absence
of genuine Republican populists may involve the gravitational pull of big
money, which is both broader and subtler than the way it’s often portrayed.
If the accusations against Sen. Robert Menendez are true —
and it’s not looking good — old-fashioned bribery, payments to politicians in
exchange for favors, hasn’t gone away. But it’s probably not shaping party
ideology.
Campaign contributions, on the other hand, definitely do
shape ideology; DeSantis was touted as a rival to Trump because he got a lot of
support from big donors who believed he would serve their interests and had
real political skills. (Being rich doesn’t necessarily come with good judgment.)
But there’s a sort of gray area that doesn’t involve
outright bribes in the sense of money given in return for specific actions but
nonetheless involves a form of soft corruption. For the fact is that public
figures whom the very rich see as being on their side can reap considerable
personal rewards from their positions.
Recent revelations about Thomas show how this works.
ProPublica reports that he has received many favors from ultrawealthy
conservatives, notably lavish free vacations. These reports are shocking
because we don’t expect such behavior from a Supreme Court justice, and Thomas
may have violated the law by failing to disclose these gifts. But does anyone
doubt that many politicians who favor tax cuts for the rich and reduced
benefits for the working class, even as they rail against elites, receive
similar favors?
And the hermetic information space of the American right
surely facilitates this soft corruption. Suggestions of improper influence on
right-wing officials and politicians won’t get much coverage on Fox News,
except possibly for claims that they’re the victims of a liberal smear
campaign.
Now, I don’t know how important these different factors are
to the fact that America’s “populists” are anything but populist in practice.
But we do need to ask why people who denounce elites somehow always manage to
avoid targeting corporations not named Disney and billionaires not named George
Soros.
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