Op-Ed: The allure of the Republican Party is baffling. Voters will regret falling for it.
When was the last time you saw a liberal who didn’t have an A-list or a B-list or a C-list in the Republican Party? When was the last time you saw any Republican who didn’t have a D-list or a E-list or a F-list in the Democratic Party? “Well, it’s never a perfect party, but when we think of the parties that we can elect from, what’s left? In a vacuum, what are the two main parties for?” — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, “The Case for the Republican Party”, August 14, 2012
Today, for the first time since I’ve been on the other side of the bench, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before: I’m going to try to explain to you why you should vote for the Republican Party in November.
It’s hard to do, because so much of what our political system requires is alien to you. How can you say (even in the broadest terms) what you want when so much of what you want isn’t even in the Republican Party?
What’s different about the Democratic Party? It has a lot of identity-politics problems. It has its share of elitists that don’t want to listen to you. It has its share of people who can’t be bothered to learn what we’re talking about. But it does have something that’s different from the Republican Party: it doesn’t have people who are willing to talk about the things that they know. It doesn’t have people who talk about race and gender and economics and education.
It doesn’t have people who talk about the things you love and care about. It
