For the Record: Republican Coalition

 

The Dodo explaining the meaning of "caucus race". Illustration by John Tenniel via [checks notes] Walmart.

In the context of the discovery by The New Yorker's economics and business correspondent Adam Davidson that Republicans who proclaim a deep devotion to the principle that government should never interfere in the processes of the free market may not be perfectly sincere. Not just that I set Davidson and Rick Pearlstein straight (though Davidson actually seemed to be paying some attention), but I think I came up with something important on the subject of what a political coalition is, that nobody ever quite says:

This tweet yesterday. Was saying if he wants to get educated on what the GOP’s been for decades, he should read your work. https://t.co/VWnrjT6nef

— David (@RollingPrez2390) March 16, 2022

I guess it depends on how you'd define the GOP.

And how you define racism.

I bought the story you are telling: that it was a coalition of racists, free-marketers, Christians, etc.

I don't buy that story anymore.

1/

— Adam Davidson (@adamdavidson) March 17, 2022

2. Someone who claimed free-market as their core ideology but who then quickly accepted an anti-market, state-power, racist program is, IMO, racist. Even if they weren't focused on overt racism (a la John Birch, say) previously.

3/

— Adam Davidson (@adamdavidson) March 17, 2022

So you mean true free marketeers *would* object, no? If they actually existed as a force in political life as opposed to academic departments.

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) March 17, 2022

But they're not consistent free marketeers, are they? They might like a protective tariff, or suppression of collective bargaining, or police suppression of a competitor (liquor store owners against cannabis). The doctrinaire free marketeers are academics.

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) March 17, 2022

NFIB went full Trump.

They say it's for tax cuts. But it's absurd to suggest the SBA was strengthened under Trump. And it shows remarkable comfort with explicit racism that suggests they are for only a specific kind of small business.

— Adam Davidson (@adamdavidson) March 17, 2022

Strong agree!

— Adam Davidson (@adamdavidson) March 17, 2022

I assume that those who provide the biggest money in the GOP have the same aims they always have: to reduce their tax burdens and free their businesses from regulation. The free marketeers proper are op-ed writers paid to provide them with a respectable intellectual rationale.

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) March 17, 2022

But the biggest problem for the big money contributors is votes, since their program (business owners' taxes should be reduced and freed from regulation) is inherently that of a minority. In the past they got support mainly from farmers, but there are hardly any of those now.

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) March 17, 2022

The money people put up with these because they must--it's the only way left for them to hold a majority and achieve their aims. The Trump administration was a fantastic, if temporary, success for them. The op-ed writers, meanwhile, are less and less relevant.

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) March 17, 2022

The party doesn't *need* rationales any more! The available Republican voters don't even want them, on the whole. They want more expression of their grievances and resentments.

— Yas We Can (@Yastreblyansky) March 17, 2022