It’s tempting to bury California’s Republican party — but they clearly don’t need my help
The temptation is strong to write the obituary of the California Republican Party right now. But which Republican Party are we talking about?
I wish I could write the obituary of the California wing of Donald Trump’s Republican party. That party, which has much more influence outside California, is an ever-present danger to our democracy.
That party doesn’t actually believe in democracy. They shout that elections are “rigged” unless they win. They attack voting as fraudulent without offering proof of fraud. They are anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. A heat map of California shows a correlation between votes for them and high transmission of the coronavirus.
I wish this party were dead, and if the recent failed recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom proves anything, it is that the views of this party are those of a small and destructive minority. I’ll never try to appease these kinds of Republicans again. They’re wrong about virtually everything.
Meanwhile, it’s the other Republican Party that seems ready for an obit. There is barely a pulse from within the ranks of fiscally thrifty, small-government, sensible types who aren’t addicted to raging about critical race theory, immigration, transgender folks, etc.
I don’t want to write the obituary for this group, but the recall made them look dead and buried.
When a Los Angeles radio show host named Larry Elder can generate more votes than Republicans who actually hold or held elective office, the party’s crisis is clear.
The Republican Party we want to be dead is very much living, especially in national politics. These antidemocratic, anti-American believers in conspiracy theories and white supremacy could retake the House of Representatives next year. If that happens, get ready for Joe Biden’s impeachment and worse. If they regain power, get ready for a return of Trump-era anxiety and erosion of our institutions and democratic norms.
The Republican Party that we want and need to be alive seems powerless to stop those ready to forsake democratic ideals. Worse, some of them go along to get along.
We saw this play out in the recall. Kevin Faulconer, a former San Diego mayor, tried to present himself as the sort of centrist Republican of yore who used to run California. But in the end, Faulconer tried to burnish his Trump cred and was obliterated by the odious Elder.
Rocklin Assemblyman Kevin Kiley is young and vibrant. He went to Harvard and Yale. He should know better. But he can’t bring himself to say Biden was legitimately elected.
So Kiley tacitly endorses the “Big Lie” that Trump should be president. Even though he had the benefit of the finest educational opportunities available to Americans, he is against vaccination mandates. He subscribes to the “my body, my choice” insanity that has resulted in too many Americans being unvaccinated while the delta variant continues to spike nationwide.
These Trump Republicans are out of step with California, and the recall results prove that. Newsom was right when he said that a no vote on the recall was a yes vote for vaccines, masks, public health and public safety.
The message is clear — the voters have spoken — but the Republicans who ran in the recall, and who hold sway in the party, are not listening.
Every Republican who ran in the recall was at best a variation on Faulconer and Kiley, and only Elder, with his Trumpian grievance politics, was able to generate any passion among the party’s base.
In California, there is no way forward for Trump Republicans beyond mostly rural counties. There is certainly no way forward in a statewide race.
So where does this leave the reasonable old Republican party that used to represent the California establishment?
“I’m still a Republican,” said Mike Madrid, a Sacramento-based political operative with a national profile. “But I’m in the minority and will probably be there for a long time.”
Rob Stutzman, another Sacramento-based Republican, participated in CNN’s live coverage of the recall last week.
“I don’t want to concede the party to the crazies,” Stutzman said when I reached him in New York afterward. “I think it’s important not to leave.”
Stutzman and Madrid believe in voting by mail. They believe in the integrity of our election systems. And they’re not alone among Republicans.
Ron Nehring, the former state Republican chairman, has been speaking out for days.
“We cannot have an evidence-based party if we are (lying to) people in advance that the election was stolen when it clearly was not,” Nehring told the Sacramento Press Club last week.
Nehring rightly noted that the Trump-loving Elder is a disaster for the California GOP. Until Republicans break with Trump and return to believing in ideas, they will be dead in California. They will be the party that loses elections by bowing to the ultimate loser, the ultimate divider, the ultimate threat to our democracy.
“These people are choosing their own reality rather than evolving to survive,“ Madrid said. “At a certain point, you have to wake up. (Trump Republicans) don’t want to wake up. They want to sleep in a fantasy land that never was in the first place.”
