About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the twenty-first century.
Strictly speaking I do not write political commentary. However if you believe the volcano is about to blow, you are supposed to say something.
Will the Republican Party split if Donald Trump is the candidate? I think so, not because I am a prognosticator but because I am watching it happen in real time.
Reporters are already trying to find language to reflect a split: they refer to the Republican establishment as different from the Republican voters. I submit the story is bigger: this is not a split, it is a psychotic break.
Can an organization experience a psychotic break? I belong to the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). In broad brush, ISPP studies the relationship between political and psychological processes. More specifically it applies psychological theory to political trends, political figures, and voter behavior. Is there voter angst? Is there organizational psychosis? ISPP says yes.
A psychotic break is a period of acute psychosis occurring after a period of sustained stress; rarely occurring after a symptom-free period. During a psychotic break, in a period of acute psychosis, one looses touch with reality. Psychosis is a disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that it is difficult to perceive reality and impossible to function effectively. A psychotic break lasts an indeterminate amount of time. When the entity emerges, it may be permanently changed.
In order to answer if the Republican Party is experiencing a psychotic break, first we might ask if the period just preceding was stressful. Was the Party’s behavior anomalous?
For eight years the party has flatly refused to support anything the President of the United States suggests. Even when the idea was the Republican Party’s in the first place, Republicans rejected it. In advance of knowing what his suggestion might be, they announced they would block everything President Obama proposed. It resulted in possibly the longest period of Congressional inactivity in our country’s history and concomitantly, the lowest public opinion of Congress.
For eight years, the Party’s position even rejected the minimum due to the sitting president: respect for the office.
At this moment rejection takes the form of refusing to “advise and consent” on any candidate for the Supreme Court put forth by the President. In putting forth a candidate, President Obama is exercising his constitutional duty. In refusing to schedule hearings, the Party is neglecting theirs. That is certainly anomalous behavior for the Party that advocates strict adherence to the Constitution.
It is counter even to their best self interest. They propose that the new president should appoint the justice at the same time that they are refusing to vote for the Republican front-runner. So if the Republican front-runner wins, do they believe his choice for Supreme Court justice will be better than President Obama’s? With the Party opposed to him, do they believe their front runner can win?
One Republican, Donald Trump, is ahead – way ahead – and the Party takes the opportunity to tell their voters he is not qualified, and the voters are stupid to support him. It is a position unlikely to endear the Party to the voters.
After a period of stress, the Party is taking positions divorced from reality and not calculated to win.
Their behavior is irrational and I think I know why.
It has to do with money and minorities. The Republican Party noticed – correctly – that one man can and does give as much money to a candidate as all the voters who supported him combined. They deemed it smart politics, even mandatory, to please a minority of mega-rich. The Republican Party forgot this is a democracy and acted as if it were an oligarchy. They forgot that to get elected to national office – elected president — you need the majority. For eight years they ignored the majority in their party and listened to the extreme right and the mega-rich.
As a result they could not understand or accept what was happening. They could not accept that Barak Obama won or believe he was elected to a second term. They tried to deny his presidency by their rejection of him.
Now the majority in their own party is speaking, and the Party is confused and unprepared for reality. After a sustained period of angst and stress, they are shocked and in the midst of a psychotic break.
It is never the first time in politics. If the Republican Party splits and if a third party emerges, it will not be the first time.
President Theodore Roosevelt left office in 1909. Before he left, he played king maker. His choice as his successor was William Howard Taft. Now however, in 1912, as Taft prepared to run for his second term, Roosevelt was unhappy. Increasingly, during his first term, Taft disappointed Roosevelt. Finally, using the Sherman Anti-Trust to break up U.S. Steel, Taft infuriated Roosevelt.
Roosevelt formed the Progressive Party and ran for President against Taft. He lost. Taft’s grip on the Republican Party was too strong. The Progressive, or Bull Moose, Party limped along fielding candidates for a few years. Led by a sitting president, the Republican Party remained viable. It may have seemed a political eruption in 1912, but it is small potatoes compared to what is happening now.
For the Republican Party to avoid an explosion and complete melt down, it would have to admit the problem is with them, not everyone else. Admit their behavior over the last years has not been responsive to the majority of party members but too exclusively responsive to a few donors and a minority on the extreme right.
Of course, they are already up to their waist in alligators and that is a difficult time to develop a workable plan to drain the swamp. They seem to have settled on two unenviable choices: sabotage Trump and anger his supporters or back Cruz and end up with a candidate they never liked and who never liked them. They are breaking President Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment: Thou shalt not insult a fellow Republican.
Why can’t they see Governor John Kasich?
You cannot see reality in the grip of psychosis. When you find yourself in a hole it is time to stop digging but only the wise (and the sane) are able to do that. So plan now and answer Jimmy Buffett: where you gonna go when the volcano blows?
