Real Conservatives Versus The MAGA Party

Vocabulary matters. Precision in language allows us to conduct public debates productively; when labels are misused– thrown about without accuracy–arguments about public policy and leadership go astray. Calling today’ s Republican Party “conservative” is more than a harmless misnomer; it is a slur on genuine conservatism, deeply unfair to principled conservatives and encouraging of irrelevant argumentation.

Here in Indiana, we need to call out candidates like Braun and Banks who dishonestly label themselves “conservative” when they are anything but. They are actually radical MAGA populist authoritarians–the antithesis of genuine conservatism. 

Peter Wehner is a genuine conservative; he served in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, and was executive director for policy for Empower America, a conservative group formed by William Bennett, Jack Kemp, and Jeane Kirkpatrick.

These days, Wehner is a contributing columnist to the New York Times, and in a recent column, he made a number of points that distinguish genuine conservatives from MAGA cultists like Braun and Banks.

The Republican Party has grown more radical, unhinged and cultlike every year since Mr. Trump took control of it. In 2016, there was outrage among Republicans after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape. On the tape, in words that shocked the nation, Mr. Trump said that when you’re a star, “You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

In 2023, Mr. Trump was found liable for sexual abuse. His “locker room talk” turned out to be more than just talk. Yet no Republican of significance said a critical word about it.

The same was true earlier this year when Mr. Trump was found liable for civil fraud. The judge in the case, Arthur F. Engoron, said that the former president’s “complete lack of contrition” bordered on “pathological.” Yet Republicans were united in their outrage, not in response to Mr. Trump’s actions but at the judge for the size of the penalty.

Wehner pointed out that today’s Republicans excuse the January 6th attack on the Capitol and actually glorify the insurrectionists.
At his kickoff campaign rally for 2024, a song called “Justice for All” played, featuring Mr. Trump and the J6 Prison Choir, made up of prisoners charged with crimes related to the riot. Republicans are not only convinced that Mr. Trump was unfairly impeached and unfairly indicted; they are also completely untroubled by his threats against (and slander of) judges, law clerks and prosecutors, not to mention his attempts to influence and intimidate witnesses.
They are fine with the former president referring to “the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country” and insinuating that the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, deserved to be executed for committing treason. They are fine with Mr. Trump encouraging Russia to attack our NATO allies and comparing himself with Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin’s fiercest and bravest critic, who died while serving time in a remote Russian prison for his political beliefs. They are fine with him suggesting “termination” of the Constitution and with one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers arguing that if as president, Mr. Trump ordered SEAL Team Six to assassinate an opponent, he could be immune from criminal prosecution.
Wehner points out that the pre-Trump GOP would have overwhelmingly supported the recent aid package for Ukraine that twenty-six Republican senators voted against, and he offers several other examples supporting his contention that the MAGA takeover of what used to be a political party is now complete.
Whatever one thought of the Republican Party pre-Trump, it was not fundamentally illiberal or nihilistic; its leaders were not sociopathic, merciless con men, wantonly cruel and lawless. No area of Mr. Trump’s life appears to have been untouched by moral corruption.
I was a Republican for 35 years, and although I was never a conservative of the Peter Wehner variety, his conservatism is based upon a coherent, defensible philosophy of governance–and I agree with his assertion (and that of other principled conservatives) that the GOP is no longer a conservative party. To the contrary.

[Today’s GOP} instincts are nativist, protectionist and isolationist. But the most significant fusion is ethical and moral. The Republican Party keeps getting darker. It has become anti-intellectual, conspiracy-minded and authoritarian, intemperate and brutish, transgressive and anarchistic. And there’s no end in sight.

Mr. Trump is a human blowtorch, prepared to burn down democracy. So is his party.

Whatever today’s GOP is, it’s not remotely conservative.

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No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Well, it appears I’ve missed an intriguing element of those abysmal “ad wars” being waged among candidates for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.

Apparently, Eric Doden’s most recent weird ad–in which he highlights his support for qualified immunity (and anything police might ever do) is based upon the only position Braun took during his six years as a Senator with which I actually agree–he sponsored a bill that would narrow the application of that doctrine. In the current primary contest, that’s a vulnerability.

What’s that old saying? No good deed goes unpunished.

I’ve addressed qualified immunity previously. To recap: The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 was a Reconstruction era-effort to address what one court termed the “reign of terror imposed by the Klan upon black citizens and their white sympathizers in the Southern States.” That law is now  known to practicing lawyers–especially civil rights lawyers– as Section 1983. It  gives citizens the right to sue state and local officials for depriving them of their constitutional rights, and to collect damages and legal fees if they prevail.

That’s great, except for the fact that the Supreme Court began to eviscerate the law more than 50 years ago with a doctrine it dubbed “qualified immunity.” As a judge in one case noted, it might just as well be called “absolute immunity.” Ruth Marcus explained it in a Washngton Post article a few years ago:

Nothing in the text of the 1871 statute provides for immunity — not a single word — but the court imported common-law protections in 1967 to shield officials operating in good faith.

Then, in 1982, it went further. To be held liable, it’s not enough to prove that a police officer violated someone’s constitutional rights; the right must be so “clearly established” that “every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.” There must be a case on point, except that how can there be a case on point if there wasn’t one already in existence. This is Catch-22 meets Section 1983.

Numerous justices across the ideological spectrum — Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor — have criticized the doctrine. But the court has appeared unwilling to do anything about it. As its term concluded, the court refused to hear any of the eight cases offering it the opportunity to reconsider the doctrine.

 Lawsuits for damages are a crucial method for protecting everyone’s constitutional rights. Qualified immunity–protection against a damages verdict– is what lawyers call “an affirmative defense”–it can prevent the court from assessing damages even if the officer clearly committed unlawful acts.

In 1982, in a case called Harlow v. Fitzgerald, the Court established the modern application of the doctrine. Ignoring precedents that examined the “subjective good faith” of the officer being sued, the court adopted a new “objective” test. After Harlow, a plaintiff had to show that the defendant’s conduct “violate[d] clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Ever since Harlow, the court has required plaintiffs to cite to an already existing judicial decision with substantially similar facts.

As a result, the first person to litigate a specific harm is out of luck, since the “first time around, the right violated won’t be ‘clearly established.’” A post on Lawfare gave an example.

A recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit illustrates this point. In that case, a SWAT team fired tear gas grenades into a plaintiff’s home, causing extensive damage. And while the divided three-judge panel assumed that the SWAT officers had in fact violated the plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights, it nonetheless granted qualified immunity to the officers because it determined that the precedents the plaintiff relied on did not clearly establish a violation “at the appropriate level of specificity.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor called qualified immunity a “one-sided approach” that “transforms the doctrine into an absolute shield for law enforcement officers.” The doctrine “sends an alarming signal to law enforcement officers and the public. It tells officers that they can shoot first and think later, and it tells the public that palpably unreasonable conduct will go unpunished.”

One legal scholar has characterized the doctrine as a “through-the-looking-glass” example of jurisprudence that doesn’t simply excuse police violations of constitutional rights, doesn’t just grant police an exception to the axiom that “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” but that actually incentivizes law enforcement to remain oblivious to the rights of the people they serve.

I will admit to surprise–shock, really–that Braun understood the pernicious effects of this judge-made doctrine, and the way it encourages reckless police behavior. It is beyond ironic that his one bit of sensible behavior has become his biggest vulnerability in this primary. 

But no problem! His recent ads–showing slavish support for police and “law and order”– confirm that Braun is always about politics and never about integrity.

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Those Awful Ads

A couple of years ago, my children introduced me to the phrase “first world problems.” First world problems are irritants that annoy people who are privileged to be part of the affluent “first world”–a computer glitch, a bad hair day, a spoiled dinner…The sorts of problems that millions of people around the world would love to have.

One of my “first world” problems is the idiocy–and frequency–of the political ads for Indiana Governor and Congress.

My husband and I mostly escape ads of all sorts by streaming most of our television viewing, but as older folks, we watch “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy,” which come to us via live television. Given the demographics of the audience for those shows, they are prime venues for candidates hoping to reach elderly reliable voters, and as the primary election has drawn closer, we are inundated by claims and messages that appear to be aimed at uninformed intellectual cretins.

I’ve previously posted about Jefferson Shreve’s ads for Congress. (He barely had time to catch his breath after losing the race for Indianapolis Mayor before launching this campaign. Obviously, he wants to “be someone.”) Shreve’s ads are inane, misleading and arguably racist, but by far the most offensive messages come from a congressional candidate whose name escapes me (It’s Chuck something-or-other) who says the most important issue facing Indiana is “biological men playing women’s sports” and who brags that while serving in Indiana’s legislature, he sponsored “and passed” (all by yourself, Chuck?) a bill addressing that monumental issue. He ends by pooh-poohing opponents who think “international stuff” is more important than protecting real women athletes from those he labels “biological men.”

Then there are the interminable ads for the gubernatorial nomination.

One of the six candidates for governor–Eric Doden– proclaims that he is the only one who has “a plan” to address his selected issues–but he doesn’t bother to say what those “plans” are. He also proclaims that he’s the only candidate running for governor who will explicitly make his “faith” front and center (his ads prominently feature a bible and little white church)–an excellent reason for avoiding him, in my opinion.

All of the governor candidates save one have signed on to Trump’s MAGA party, and one–Mike Braun–boasts that he’s been endorsed by Trump. (The voice-over says “and we know why.” Yes, indeed we do, and a lot of us find that disqualifying.)  At least three of them claim to be “outsiders,” a claim that runs from ludicrous to factually dubious, and raises the question “why would I vote for someone who doesn’t have the background needed to understand the job?”

James Briggs is an opinion columnist for the Indianapolis Star, and recently responded to a question about those campaign ads, and why most of them ignore issues that are specific to the state.

Carl Gottlieb: Most of the campaign for governor commercials I have seen on TV seem to be campaigning against President Biden. I didn’t know he controlled the Indiana Statehouse? Where do these clowns stand on issues relevant to Indiana?

I agree it’s annoying how candidates operate like McDonald’s franchisees, offering templated menus to local communities. But, much like in the restaurant industry, political candidates are responding to market demands

You, me and (probably) most people reading this exist in a bubble where we want to see candidates offer policy-based discussion. But it’s a pretty small bubble!

A record 3 million Indiana residents, or 65% of registered voters, cast ballots in the 2020 general election. Turnout for those elections is typically below 60% — and it falls to around 25% for primary elections, which is what you’re talking about here with the GOP gubernatorial race (which is probably going to determine our next governor).

Among the people who show up and vote, most are busy living their lives. They pick up fragments of election-related information and file it away according to preexisting (and nationally oriented) understandings of politics.

Given the fact that a depressingly small number of voters can even name the current governor, Briggs points out that candidates with enough money to blanket the airwaves try to do three things:

No. 1, make people remember their names through Election Day; No. 2, link the candidate to values shared by voters; and No. 3, brand opponents as unacceptably awful and depress people who otherwise might vote for them.

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A Chilling, Albeit Correct, Diagnosis

I don’t know who Thomas Zimmer is, nor do I recall how I came to read his February 8th “Democracy Americana” newsletter. 
It’s likely some reader shared it after one of my periodic rants about racism and MAGA’s takeover of the GOP, but that’s just a guess. The headline and subhead are pretty clear indications of the subject-matter: “Domination or Dissolution, Rule or Ruin: The Right is fantasizing about secession, ‘national divorce’ and civil war–because they will not, under any circumstances, accept pluralism.”

The article began by focusing on the Texas border standoff, and the growing divide between Red and Blue states.
 
The Right loves to talk about secession and civil war. And quite a lot of people on the center and on the Left seem to have come to the conclusion that “blue” America would indeed be better off if we severed all ties with “red” states and unburdened ourselves from the reactionaries who are evidently not on board with the idea of egalitarian multiracial pluralism. I get all the frustration and exasperation. But would you feel comfortable making this argument – let them go do their own thing! – to the tens of millions of people who happen to live in those Republican-led states, who want nothing to do with the reactionary project, but would suffer most under authoritarian white Christian patriarchal rule?
 
There really aren’t that many hard-core secessionists. Zimmer pointed to the much-hyped (at least on the Right) “Take Our Border Back” trucker convoy. Organizers of what they dubbed “God’s Army” predicted the participation of 700,000 trucks. They got about 100– “A sad, paltry contingent of hardcore MAGAs and White Christian nationalists. It’s hard sometimes not to dismiss the rightwing threat to democracy as just silly, pathetic cosplay from a bunch of grifters, buffoons, and lost souls.”
 
The situation is quite a bit more serious than that, unfortunately. Not only is there simply no guarantee that grifters and buffoons can’t bring down democratic self-government. The trucker convoy fiasco also doesn’t change the fact that the border standoff is acting as a catalyst for the pervasive lusting for civil war and ubiquitous fantasizing about secession on the Right. This isn’t confined to extremist online fringes either. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, for instance, fabulated we would “have a war on our hands” were president Biden to federalize National Guard troops. Kevin Stitt, the Republican Governor of Oklahoma, argued that the Texas National Guard was merely “protecting their homeland” from the federal government. And Representative Clay Higgins posted on Ex-Twitter that “the feds are staging a civil war, and Texas should stand their ground.” These aren’t just outlier voices. Texas, with the explicit support from 25 Republican governors, is deploying precisely the argument slave states used to justify secession.
 
Zimmer delves into the history of the Civil War, and provides a great deal of context for the situation we face, but the essential point he makes is one that I have reluctantly concluded is at the very foundation of America’s current polarization:  significant parts of the political Right steadfastly refuse to accept what he delicately calls “multiracial pluralism.”
 
In short, they’re committed racists.
 
At its base, the Rightwing populism that has largely displaced conventional conservatism is a creation of what Zimmer calls “a reactionary counter-revolution” by aggrieved defenders of “real America” against nefarious “woke, globalist elites.” One example he cites is the White Power movement of the early 1980s. Members embraced the ideas outlined in the “Turner Diaries,” a neo-Nazi novel published in 1978 that has served as a central reference point for the extreme Right ever since.
 
In the book, a small group of dedicated white supremacists manages to bring down the federal government and, ultimately, over the span of a little more than a century, restore white domination not only in America, but across the globe. Such ideas, as historian Kathleen Belew has emphasized, have influenced the tactics of fascistic militias like the Proud Boys that led the charge on January 6. And the white supremacists who regard the future depicted in the “Turner Diaries” not as a dystopian nightmare, but as an aspiration, have moved much closer to the center of conservative politics: On January 6, they stormed the Capitol literally in service of the man who is still, three years later, the leader of the Republican Party.
 
Zimmer provides a number of other examples, and the (lengthy) essay is worth reading in its entirety. I came away from it convinced of his central point: in November’s elections, both federal and down-ballot, too many voters will still be fighting  America’s Civil War. 
 
November’s elections will pit MAGA’s White Christian Nationalists against Americans who support pluralism, inclusion and the American ideal of civic equality. Pretty much everything else is window-dressing.
 
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Who Decides?

The Bill of Rights–as I repeatedly note– addresses areas of citizens’ lives that the Founders marked “off limits” to government authority, answering the question “who decides this?” in favor of individual citizens.

That framing is one way to look at today’s vicious culture war.

Those of us who want to maintain the constitutional line between matters government is authorized to decide and matters remitted to our individual consciences are under attack by the autocrats and theocrats who want to use the power of the state to impose their favored choices on everyone else. Nowhere is that clearer than in the persistent efforts to control what books we can read and what information we can access.

A recent article from Axios focused on that battle.

Attempts to ban books at public libraries have reached record levels, pitting right-wing parents and legislators against those who oppose censorship.

Driving the news: The culture war over books has become a legislative battle as well.

  • Last year, “more than 150 bills in 35 states aimed to restrict access to library materials, and to punish library workers who do not comply,” per the New York Times.
  • As a counterpunch, legislators in blue and purple states are coming to the aid of librarians to help them fight efforts to remove books with certain racial, sexual or gender-related themes.
  • Last June, Illinois became the first state to pass a law penalizing libraries that ban books.

What they’re saying: “We have broadened the framing to refer to ‘intellectual freedom challenges'” rather than just book bans, AnnaLee Dragon, executive director of the New York Library Association, tells Axios.

The hypocrisy is obvious. As one librarian reportedly told Axios, “It’s the same people who are out touting the freedom to own a gun. But you don’t think I have the right to pick a book for my kid?”

The American Library Association has mounted a campaign, Unite Against Book Bans, to encourage people to take action locally, and it’s also selling a workbook for librarians about “navigating intellectual freedom challenges together.”

Libraries have long been seen as cradles of democracy; in the words of former U.S. Senator Wendell Ford, “If information is the currency of democracy, then libraries are its banks.”

The current attacks are coming from what the article calls “a small but vocal minority” that opposes libraries precisely because they are democratic– inclusive, affirming, and intentional. That minority sees access to information as a threat.

The current onslaught has come at a time when libraries are serving an expanding variety of community needs. Librarians have gotten used to tackling whatever tasks society demands of them, and those demands continue to broaden. As Time Magazine recently reported, 

Libraries are among the most visited public service institutions, totaling more than 1 billion visits annually with users turning to libraries for critical educational services in addition to books. In recent years, as many as 118 million participants have taken part in nearly 6 million programs focused on early and family literacy, digital literacy instruction, after-school homework support and summer reading programs for youth, adult literacy and basic education, career readiness, small business development, arts and humanities programming, English for Speakers of Other Languages instruction, and special programs for adults navigating memory loss and reentry after incarceration.

The effort to restrict what information other citizens can access has accelerated.

Last year there were 1,269 attempts to censor library books, the highest number of attempted book bans in the two decades that ALA has been compiling data about censorship in libraries. During this same period, 2,571 unique book titles were targeted for censorship, an astonishing 32% increase over 2021, with 40% of book challenges occurring in public libraries, while the remaining nearly 60% occurred in school libraries. As these threats to the right to read continue, in all too many cases, parents are being roped into banning books they haven’t even heard of before, let alone read, by extremist groups using book banning as a political tactic. At a school board meeting in Pennsylvania this year at which book censorship was being recommended, one parent supporting the banning of a title proclaimed, “I have not read the book myself, I don’t intend to read the book, but I have had portions distributed to me of this book.”

If we have come to a time in this country when parents can be successfully swayed into restricting access to books they haven’t read, what does that mean for our future as a nation? What other personal and constitutional rights might next be compromised?

Some constitutional questions are open to interpretation. This one isn’t.

The First Amendment protects our right to decide for ourselves what we and our children read.

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