In his well-crafted and rhetorically- packed opinion (“John Boehner can get the job done,” Jan. 23), Michael Lucchese argued that, among other things, Tea Partiers and moderate Republicans have the same goals, the actions of Tea Party members are obstructive and unnecessary, and that Tea Partiers are foolish to believe that there is no difference between moderate Republicans and Democrats. To quote Lucchese: “I find that attitude naïve.”
Though moderate Republicans and Tea Partiers are both broadly understood to be politically right-wing, they are still in many ways fundamentally different. Generally speaking, moderate Republicans seek to promote the more right-of-center side of the status quo. Tea Partiers are reformers, seeking to return American politics to its constitutional foundations.
Reducing the size of government is virtually a consensus position on the right, the only difference being how much to reduce government. Further, most politicians on the right support the Constitution. The difference is that moderate Republican support of the Constitution goes only as far as it is politically advantageous. Take gun control. While they are certainly to the right of Democrats on the issue, some moderates believe that the Second Amendment is dangerous.
Some moderate Republicans no longer believe in principle or platform. Some don’t even believe in Constitutional Republicanism, but have instead been duped into the progressive idea that America is a democracy. Their politics have become largely baseless and, as a result, more focused on the perpetuation of political power than the defense of liberty through principled and just legislation.
Many Tea Partiers, therefore, see themselves as reformers seeking to return the historically conservative Republican Party to its principled roots. In response, the establishment moderates, seeking to maintain their power, use words like Lucchese used to describe Tea Partiers: “hard-liners,” “absolutists,” saying that they “cannot win in the long run.”
Interestingly, Justin Amash (R-Mich.), whom Lucchese mentions to highlight conservative reforms passed by Speaker Boehner, was one of the 25 “hard-liners” who voted against Boehner during his most recent bid to become Speaker of the House.
While his framing of the issue is off, Lucchese’s assertion that the fight between Tea Partiers and moderates has been tearing the Republican Party apart is correct. Though a member of the Tea Party may see it as reform, there is no denying that Republican politics have become cacophonous.
Thankfully, principled politics and savvy politics are not necessarily at odds. Politics is a complex art and is, at times, unsatisfying. There is wisdom in Lucchese’s statement that “delaying fights for another day where victory is more foreseeable is not necessarily wrong.”
Hopefully, principled politics and savvy politics can unite, and harmony can reign again in the Republican Party, really allowing Boehner to “get the job done.”
Or moderates could crush the “hardliners,” pull up their philosophical anchor, hoist their mast to be filled with the ever-changing winds of politics, and be led wherever polls take them. The choice is ours to make.
