In chaos, there is fertility.
So observed feminist French novelist Anaïs Nin, who would probably be aghast at having her insight filched by a man expounding on the U.S. Republican primaries.
But Nin was clearly onto something, especially where today’s Republican Party is concerned. Because beneath this mayhem we’re witnessing — this dreck of a campaign — a coherent new message, that could define a new GOP for years to come, is slowly, but unmistakably, emerging.
I credit former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina with first spelling it out, but Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson are all touching on it now. Others are, too.
The message is that big government favors the rich and powerful — that the American playing field is now rigged against the little guy. The larger government gets, the more complex its tax and regulatory codes become, the harder it is for the average person, or the average sized business, to compete with the well connected.
Not only is this true, it feels true — viscerally. And that’s more important. Everyday Americans sense a fundamental unfairness in this country, and Republican candidates, who used to reflexively support any business interest, are not only giving voice to them now, they’re also identifying the chief culprit, their party’s historic nemesis, big government itself. It’s an extraordinarily powerful argument that, over time, could dramatically turn the table on Democrats, the party of ever-larger government.
Ronald Reagan’s Republican Party was the party of the middle class. But it didn’t last long. By the end of President George H.W. Bush’s one-term presidency, that mantle had been snatched away by Bill Clinton’s Democratic Party, which hasn’t let it go since. That the GOP is “the party of the rich” has become a veritable axiom.
There is potential for that to change now. Republican willingness to identify and fight the entrenched big-business/big-government “Washington Cartel,” as Fiorina puts it, opens up a new avenue to the middle class — and to the classic conservative emphasis on personal and economic liberties and equal treatment under the law. Let Democrats get stuck defending the uber connected.
It’s a stunning rhetorical reversal yet to be fully realized.
Just four years ago, President Barack Obama was skewering GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for representing the party of the “millionaires and billionaires” and for backing “tax breaks for private jet owners.” Now, Republicans are using the same argument to tear at a big government culture middle-America detests. It’s already become a weapon in the primary.
We saw it in last week’s Republican debate in Wisconsin when Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, arguably the most conservative candidate in the field, took a not-so-subtle swipe at Rubio for supporting crony capitalism in the form of sugar subsidies. He may as well have called him a closet Democrat.
The growing intersection of government and business in America — it’s virtually blending in some cases — is an ideal target for the 21st Century Republican Party. China subsidizes hand-picked businesses. Japan subsidizes hand-picked businesses. America does not — at least it’s not supposed to. There should be no special favors here for anyone.
Americans can live with recessions. They can endure life’s ups and downs. But what we can’t stand — what we’ve always had a special barometer for — is unfairness. Republicans should spend the next 12 months, and beyond, indicting it and its grand protector, this colossal federal government.
William F. B. O’Reilly is a Republican consultant.
