David Brooks Analyzes the GOP

and in the process starts agreeing with Thomas Friedman and me.  But his words are more eloquent and his thought process clearer than mine.  Which is why he gets the big bucks for punditry.

"Since Goldwater/Reagan, the GOP has been governed by a free-market, anti-government philosophy.  But over the ensuing decades new problems have emerged.  First, the economy has gotten crueler.  Technology is displacing workers and globalization is dampening wages.  Second, the social structure has atomized and frayed, especially among the less educated.  Third, demography is shifting."

"Orthodox Republicans, see no positive role for government, have no affirmative agenda to help people deal with these new problems.  Occasionally, some conservative policy mavens have proposed such an agenda - anti-poverty programs, human capital policies, wage subsidies and the like - but the proposals were killed, usually in the House, by the anti-government crowd."

The 1980's anti-government orthodoxy still has many followers; Ted Cruz is the extreme embodiment of this tendency.  But it has grown increasingly rigid, unresponsive and obsolete."

"Along comes Donald Trump offering to replace it and change the nature of the GOP.  He tramples all over the anti-government ideology of modern Republicanism.  He would replace the free-market orthodoxy with authoritarian nationalism."

"He offers to use government on behalf of the American working class, but in negative and defensive ways:  to build walls, to close trade, to ban outsiders, to smash enemies.  According to him, America's problems aren't caused by deep structural shifts.  They're caused by morons and parasites......"

"If the GOP is going to survive as a decent and viable national party, it can't cling to the fading orthodoxy Cruz represents.  But it can't shift to ugly Trumpism, either.  It has to find a third alternative:  limited but energetic use of the government to expand mobility and widen openness and opportunity.  That is what Kasich, Rubio and Paul Ryan and others are stumbling toward."


I would add, on the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders represents a similar set of policies to Donald Trump and Hillary is stumbling toward a moderate balanced set of policies with somewhat more energetic use of government than Paul Ryan.

Link to Brooks column