It’s not like they will actually do anything to fix the problem they’ve created. However the current midterm problems the GOP is facing due to decades driven policies that have re-distributed upwards combined with the current affordability crisis have Republicans looking at what their policies have wrought. A realization is growing and setting in that what Biden (and others) called the “hollowing out” of the middle class isn’t just a reality, but that THEIR Part is responsible for it! Even Vice President J.D. Vance is on record lamenting what GOP economic policies have done to ‘regular Americans.’
That’s the takeaway from a short but dense article from The New Republic and it’s worth the time to read. Yes, it’s short but take your time. It’s written in a style I have (deservedly I have to admit) have sometimes been accused of – long paragraphs and sentences that can be a bit hard to digest. However it’s eye opening when you consider what’s being said and who’s saying it. People like Vance, and even Marco Rubio are cited which makes me wonder what Trump’s reaction will be if someone tells him about this.
The problem the GOP faces is literally decades in the making, going back to Reagan’s first term and that first round of “Supply Side” Tax Cuts. Better known as tax cuts for the rich they didn’t do what Reagan promised. Instead, it wound up exploding the National Debt. Between his two terms and Bush 41’s the debt (not the deficit which is a measure of annual budget) went from $1 Billion to $4 Billion. I’m not sure what that comes to in 2026 dollars but just think of it this way – Reagan’s signature economic policy (which when campaigning against him for the 190 nomination the elder Bush called “Voodoo Economics”) set us on a course that the GOP hasn’t been able to divorce itself from.
Yes, Clinton managed to pass a tax increase and by the time he left office had us on a course that would have seen the National Debt mostly paid off in the 2000s. It also cost Democrats control of the House and led to too much giving in to the GOP on deregulation. He signed the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act. Then SCOTUS handed the WH to Baby Bush and HE rammed through Supply Side Tax Cut 2.0 despite the clear evidence that the Laffer Curve Reagan touted justifying the first one didn’t work. (Laffer himself once admitted that while it could work on limited/target things it wasn’t meant for general economic policy.He also started a major war in the middle east that went on and on. Add in deregulation of Wall Street and we got the crash of 2008 which triggered a global recession.
Obama managed to get things back on track after a couple of years. The recovery slowed the growth of the National Debt and he also started getting the annual budget deficit reduced. However while those in the upper middle class and those even better off were back to normal the effectives of the recovery weren’t so much for the regular middle class and the working poor. One of the things that hurt Hillary Clinton was being a moderate and Trump was able to exploit that as he created his MAGA cult. In the end he slimed his way into the WH and the only big legislation he wanted and got was yet another Supply Side Tax Cut. And though handed a smoothly running economy he made no effort to extend the benefits of it to regular Americans.
Biden won in large part because he could and did authentically hammer the electorate with ‘kitchen table’ issues and emphasizing the hollowing out of the middle class. Like Obama he made things better and some of it DID extend to working class Americans. In the end it didn’t matter as Trump got a second term. And just as we suspected it would be even more weighted towards making the uber rich even richer. What Reagan set in motion is something we’ve been stuck with for decades. Republican dogma was always that if rich people had enough they’d spread the wealth around. Bring manufacturing back home, invest in communities and provide meaningful programs to help people lift themselves up.
I don’t know what drugs they were on for four decades but with Trump getting a second term and knowing what it would mean it became clear to Republicans they were the proverbial dog that caught the car. And didn’t know what to do. What they do know is that Americans don’t like how things are. For a long time significant numbers of Americans including rural/small town voters who tend to vote Republican actually agreed more with Democrats on most issues. Why so many have over and over voted against their best interests has gotten a lot of ink so I won’t get into it here. What matters is that GOPers can see the anger out there. Even with MAGAs. They aren’t worried so much about these mostly white voters suddenly voting for Democrats. However they’re scared to death they’ll vote third Party or not at all. The fact even control of the Senate is a realistic possibility this year has them wondering what the hell to do. From the linked article:
The particularly inconvenient thing about Republicans realizing they’ve caught the car at this moment is that they’re presently in lockstep behind Donald Trump who, as a dedicated transactionalist, has stacked up a jenga tower of economic policies that are largely short-sighted. Not the sort of ideas you would use to rebuild a party platform that has failed, let alone revive a crumbling economy.
I truly believe lots of Republicans want to work across the aisle but they are more scared Trump will start publicly trashing them and the fear has paralyzed them. Yet as the linked article notes some pretty well known GOP leaders including the aforementioned Vance and Rubio have been saying some surprising things. Let’s start with Vance who for the moment seems to be Trump’s heir apparent. Upon Rogan making an attack on socialism the response was jaw dropping:
Vance picked that moment to offer a complaint that decades of Republican economic policy has left Americans suffering and that (most horrifyingly for Vance) the policies of his own party have “created a generation of kids who kind of are attracted to socialism.”
I often call Vance an idiot but he’s not. He is however a ‘tool’ but he can read and comprehend polling and he sees the lay of the land. He knows most of us are stuggling. Just as importantly Vance realizes the Republican donor class is enjoying the spoils of America’s ever-more-pronounced economic inequality—while average Americans are ‘taking it on the chin.’ Trump may shout about “Affordability” being a “hoax” but Vance clearly knows better:
In a striking moment of honesty, Vance made a direct attack on his own party’s longstanding supply-side economic doctrine, telling Rogan that “we ran the experiment of … allowing Wall Street to come in and buy every asset of modern life and turn it into an investable line-goes-up asset.” It’s this experiment, based on a longtime Republican measurement of economic success, Vance says, that’s turning our youths onto socialism.
The linked article goes on to explain it isn’t just Vance. It’s dawned on increasing number of GOPers that their long-standing economic policies have screwed MOST of us out of the oft talked about “American Dream.” That once widespread belief that each generation would have it a little better than their parents did. That simply isn’t the case anymore. Americans seem to be understanding that. More importantly Republicans realize that Americans now know that good old American Dream is no longer a realistic outlook! As I’ve said, Vance isn’t the only one who’s commented publicly:
Senator Josh Hawley lodged complaints last year that accomplishing the Republican dream of slashing the social safety net in the Big Beautiful Bill was “politically suicidal” and demonstrative of the GOP’s longstanding fealty to what Hawley called his party’s “old-time religion: corporate giveaways, preferences for capital, and deep cuts to social insurance.
You want more? “Little Marco” Rubio is battling Vance to be the one to take over for Trump when the time comes. He expressed some interesting thoughts too:
Even Marco Rubio during his Senate confirmation hearing last year admitted that “free and unfettered trade at the expense of our national economy has shrunk the middle class and left the working class in crisis” —a remark that sounded eerily similar to the Marxian theory that free trade accelerates inequality.
I know this hasn’t been a fun read so I thank those of you who stuck it out this far. Again I’ll urge you to read the linked article. Just consider that some well-know people in the GOP have publicly admitted they’ve screwed over the middle class to help their rich pals/donors. It would be fascinating to hear the private discussions taking place among Congressional Republicans. I can’t help but wonder if they feel like the people in the conference room during the movie Margin Call where the big boss tells them ‘the music has stopped.’
The GOP rode Reaganomics for decades and kept putting off dealing with the consequences of the massive transfer of wealth to a relative handful, leaving most Americans struggling paycheck to paycheck. Assuming they still get a paycheck. At some point people wouldn’t be able to live the way they used to and we’re there. GOPers kept putting off a course correction, telling themselves ‘just one more time’ with their tax cuts for the rich and cutting of regulations and govt. programs to help average and poor Americans. Like a game of musical chairs. Every time the music seemed to be slowing they convinced themselves they could speed it up again. Just one more time.
Could it be that finally the music HAS stopped? Maybe but it will take all of us working our butts off to register voters and get them to vote this fall. When you look at races that are suddenly within reach, whether it’s winning a Senate seat in Texas (even IOWA is now even!) or the Governor’s mansion in freaking Ohio Yes, the GOP realizes that Americans are waking up to the fact they’ve screwed the middle class. And the working class. And the poor.
IF we create a Blue Tidal Wave we will not only stop the music but destroy the GOP’s stereo. Let’s get it done. Replace their music with ours!
