A Binary Choice-Again

Here we are again.

Conservative writer David French recently suggested that non-MAGA Republicans, including Nikki Haley voters like me, should consider voting for Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential election.

French went on to list several reasons for breaking with the party and voting for Biden, all of which I agree with.  Despite my reluctance, I will vote for Biden in November for the same reasons I did in 2020.  

But why are we here again? Why are Republicans opposed to Trump having to go through this all over again?

The failure of the GOP leadership to act in a timely manner to prevent Trump’s rise is one explanation.   It has been suggested that Mitch McConnell should have voted to impeach the

former President in 2021 and that other presidential candidates should have been more assertive in condemning Trump.  While I agree with these points, it is also worth considering that the NeverTrumpers may not have made enough of an effort to provide an alternative for the Republican Party. After the 2020 election, there was some discussion about the possibility of forming a third party or a group to oppose MAGA within the GOP, but it did not come to fruition.

It has been suggested that supporting Biden, despite any reservations we may have, is crucial to protecting democracy because he is seen as a better option than Trump.   We can work on creating a center-right alternative to Trump after the election- but this was what we heard after the 2020 election.

People like French have provided compelling reasons for considering a vote for Biden despite reservations.  However, persuading people to do so this time around may prove to be a challenging task.  In 2020, it was justifiable to select a candidate who aimed to unite people from diverse backgrounds due to the emergency situation.  However, it may be more challenging to persuade individuals to support the same candidate now that he has a track record of aligning with the far left of his party, rather than governing as a moderate. It is important to acknowledge and respect differing beliefs, but also to consider the candidate’s actions and policies. 

The problem with asking Republicans to again vote for Biden is that NeverTrumpers fail to understand how people want to be part of a group and the challenges of that dynamic in a two-party system.  Political scientist Lee Drutman expertly shows this in a January post on Substack.  He writes that in a two-party system, especially in our case where there is one party that isn’t so hot on democracy the binary choice means that Republicans become politically homeless. For many Republicans, the choice to vote Democrat is a bridge too far and so they adjust their outlook to not be homeless. He writes:

If one were to remain a Republican after all Trump has said and done, one would need to shape one’s understanding of reality to justify that decision. And many have.

Understandably, there was no real choice here. For most Republicans, the alternative of becoming a Democrat was just… not possible, given their conception of what being a Democrat meant: Democrats were the opposition.

And in a two-party system, there are only… two alternatives — support the other party, or become politically homeless. So, many Republicans updated their understanding of events to fit with their identity: being a Republican.

 People are group creatures, and they want to belong. To most people, belonging is more important than truth.  Social isolation is real, objective, and terrible. Truth can feel more malleable and subjective.

What Drutman is getting at here is that there are people who will vote Republican not because they’re bad people or because they don’t care about democracy, but because they are Republicans.  Because of this, urging Republicans to vote for Biden, especially when they were asked to do this four years ago is going to be a tough sell.  Drutman believes there needs to be a smaller party of dissent Republicans who could give their ballot line to Biden, allowing people to have some connection to their political party and also vote their conscience.

But none of this is going to happen before November, so we are where we are.  And to be honest I don’t think things will change after the elections either.  In another time, and in another country, anti-Trump Republicans would gather and create another party.  This was what happened in the 19th Century.  Indeed, the Republicans started as a splinter group from the Whigs. But that’s not happening now and it won’t happen after the election for a few reasons.

The first is negative polarization.  We are not voting our hopes, as much as we are voting our fears. We vote against the other party. MAGA types want to vote against Biden and the Dems, and Democrats want to vote against Trump and MAGA.  

Second, we live in an age of platforms and not institutions.  Political Parties are institutions that are supposed to form people, but the rise of primaries and campaign finance weakened these institutions and we saw the rise of people who use parties as platforms for self-promotion. Starting a new party takes a lot of time and effort.  It’s far easier to just focus on promoting yourself. Of course, former President Trump is the paragon of using his role not to govern, but to promote himself, but we are doing something similar in not building new institutions to confront Trump and his cronies.

Third is the ongoing realignment with college-educated Republicans moving toward the Democrats and working-class Democrats moving toward the Republicans.  Some NeverTrumpers are moving away from the Republicans and changing their politics to align with their new party.  

Looking down the road, what I see happening is that the Republican dissents of today will become the Democrats of tomorrow.  Just as Rockefeller Republicans became Democrats over time and just as Neoconservative Democrats became Republicans,  so will NeverTrumpers and they will jettison their prior beliefs to conform.  They might think that being pro-life matters, but just as pro-life Democrats are almost a non-entity, the same will happen to NeverTrumpers.

At the end of the day, the reason there is no viable alternative to the GOP is because the remnant GOP is being driven by the same thing that is driving all of our politics these days: fear.  None of our politics is pointed towards the future and towards hope.  Instead, we talk about the past and are fearful about the other side and what they might do.  I truly believe Donald Trump is a danger to our system of government and way of life.  I also think he is a danger to the world order.  But our politics has in many ways mirrored his politics; one that is based on fear and not hope.  Even in these perilous times, we need to be girded by hope, we need to believe that the forces of evil don’t have the last word. If there was less fear, then there might be a desire to reach out and provide alternatives to Republicans who can’t vote for Biden.

But fear is what defines this election and fear is what we will get.

There is hope down the road that maybe things will change.  The fledgling Reagan Caucus is urging people to support Haley even though she has suspended her campaign and they hope to be an even bigger force within the GOP in 2026 and 2028.

I hope it will be successful.  Until then, I and others are forced again to a binary choice that is about fear and not hope.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.