'Turn toward nihilism': How 'radicals' and extremists poisoned the Republican brand — a long time ago

04 August 2022

Back in the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon famously complained that Republican candidates felt pressured to go arch-conservative in GOP primaries only to turn around and run as fast as they could to the center during the general election. Nixon was considered arch-conservative in his day, yet he hated conservative purity tests.

Looking back on Nixon’s comments in 2022, the ironic part is that Nixon and so many of the fellow conservatives he debated in GOP primaries during the 1960s and 1970s would be slammed as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) by the MAGA Republicans of today.

Back in 1970 or 1975, Republicans didn’t fear they would be run out of the party if they criticized the far-right John Birch Society; William F. Buckley, in fact, was adamant about keeping the Bircher conspiracy theorists out of the pages of his National Review. But the Republican primaries of 2022 are full of MAGA candidates who insist that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming aren't aligned with the Republican party.

Extremism within the GOP is the focus of two opinion columns published by the Washington Post in early August: one by Dana Milbank and the other by conservative Henry Olsen. Milbank’s column is actually an excerpt from his new book, “The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party,” which has an August 9 release date on Amazon. Many Never Trump conservatives and Blue Dog Democrats believe that the GOP took a very dark turn when Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, but as Milbank sees it, the GOP was overrun with extremists long before that.

Milbank argues that the GOP took a much nastier turn in 1994, when the combative Newt Gingrich replaced Bob Michel as GOP leader in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Bob Michel, the unfailingly genial leader of the House Republican minority for the previous 14 years, had ushered Ronald Reagan’s agenda through the House,” Milbank recalls. “But he was being forced into retirement by a rising bomb thrower who threatened to oust Michel as GOP leader if he didn’t quit…. Newt Gingrich had almost nothing in common with the man he shoved aside. Michel was a portrait of civility and decency, a World War II combat veteran who knew that his political opponents were not his enemies and that politics was the art of compromise. Gingrich, by contrast, rose to prominence by forcing the resignation of a Democratic speaker of the House on what began as mostly false allegations, by smearing another Democratic speaker with personal innuendo, and by routinely thwarting Michel’s attempts to negotiate with Democrats…. The rise of Gingrich and his shock troops set the nation on a course toward the ruinous politics of today.”

Milbank continues, “Much has been made of the ensuing polarization in our politics, and it’s true that moderates are a vanishing breed. But the problem isn’t primarily polarization. The problem is that one of our two major political parties has ceased good-faith participation in the democratic process. Of course, there are instances of violence, disinformation, racism and corruption among Democrats and the political left, but the scale isn’t at all comparable. Only one party fomented a bloody insurrection and even after that voted in large numbers — 139 House Republicans, a two-thirds majority — to overturn the will of the voters in the 2020 election.”

According to Milbank, other factors that “sped” the GOP’s “turn toward nihilism” included “the ascent of conservative talk radio, followed by the triumph of Fox News, followed by the advent of social media.”

“Combined, they created a media environment that allows Republican politicians and their voters to seal themselves in an echo chamber of ‘alternative facts,’” Milbank explains. “Globally, south-to-north migration has ignited nationalist movements around the world and created a new era of autocrats. The disappearance of the Greatest Generation, tempered by war, brought to power a new generation of culture warriors…. It is crucial to understand that Donald Trump didn’t create this noxious environment. He isn’t some hideous, orange Venus emerging from the half-shell. Rather, he is a brilliant opportunist; he saw the direction the Republican Party was taking and the appetites it was stoking.”

Meanwhile, Olsen, in his August 3 column, makes it clear that he would much rather see conservatives running the federal government than liberals. But he fears that the GOP’s “radicals” are undermining the party’s chances of enjoying a “potentially momentous midterm win” in 2022.

Discussing the results of GOP primary elections held on Tuesday, August 2, Olsen observes, “Republicans would like the midterm elections to be a referendum on the Democrats. But that won’t be easy to pull off, as Tuesday’s primary outcomes show…. Republicans in Missouri avoided a disaster when they rejected disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens and nominated State Attorney General Eric Schmitt. Two GOP House members from Washington State who voted to impeach Donald Trump also appear to have survived Trump-backed challenges, saving both seats for the party. Elsewhere, however, primary voters’ rashness has led to some risky nominees.”

Olsen continues, “Arizona’s entire Republican ticket will likely be composed of candidates who have endorsed, to varying degrees, Trump’s election lies. While the governor’s race remains uncalled, current leader Kari Lake is so steeped in election conspiracy theories that she was calling her own primary race’s legitimacy into question before the vote were even tallied. The state party’s nominees for U.S. Senate, secretary of state and attorney general have also embraced the false stolen election narrative. Republican leaders have asked the party to move on and look to the future. That’s not going to happen in Arizona, giving Democrats a massive opening in the purple state.”

Olsen notes that in Arizona, Republican gubernatorial candidate Lake “is so steeped in election conspiracy theories that she was calling her own primary race’s legitimacy into question before the vote were even tallied” — while in Michigan, gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon “recently said that she opposed abortion even in cases of rape or incest.

“(President Joe) Biden’s effort to placate progressives and push for radical change is why Republicans are on the cusp of a potentially momentous midterm win,” Olsen argues. “It would be more than ironic if the GOP’s own radicals throw that opportunity away.”

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