Whatever happened to the notion of ‘the loyal opposition’? In our system of government, the loyal opposition is the opposition party in the legislature. The word loyal indicates that the non-governing party may oppose the proposals and actions of the President and his cabinet while remaining loyal to the national interest and the formal source(s) of the government's power, such as the republican form of government and the constitution.
If it were
not for the fact that the next national election is only 17 months away, and
that we will have another Presidential election in 2024, there is little doubt
that creating and funding an independent commission to investigate the events
of January 6, 2021 would have been a routine, non-controversial, matter for
Congress to decide, as long as the commission would be bi-partisan and
consisting of people with established authority and integrity. But there will
be elections in November of 2022 and November of 2024 and the maneuvering,
jockeying for position, for these elections is already in full swing. So, this
commission is unlikely to ever see the light of day, at least until after the
next set of elections is behind us.
The
Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has made no bones about it when he
stated earlier this month: “One hundred percent of my focus is standing up to
this administration” and “It’s not at all clear what new facts or additional
investigation yet another commission could lay on top of the existing efforts
by law enforcement and Congress.” Little surprise for someone who had earlier, in 2012,
declared to move heaven and earth to make sure that Barack Obama would be a
one-term President. This is no longer a loyal opposition.
The
Republican party has seen that the existing rules of the game have not allowed
them to alter the outcome of the 2021 election in the heavily contested races
in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that went against them, and the
party is working hard to bend the rules in its favor. The instruments at its
disposal are the gerrymandering of voting districts, the tightening of voting
rules and voting access, and the freedom of State legislations to appoint
members of the Electoral College in deviation of the outcome of the popular
vote in States with a Republican majority. And the party leaders are hell-bent
on using all these instruments to secure a more favorable outcome in the next
set of elections.
They know
that, typically, midterm elections favor the party that missed out on the White
House, but they are not about to take any chances, so they block Congressional
action on the change of any rule they like, e.g. the filibuster rule, the
number of members of the House of Representatives, and the denial of Statehood
to the citizens of the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and other American
Territories, while, at the same time, using their dominance in the majority of
State legislatures to change the rules they don’t like.
This is no
longer loyal opposition. Purely partisan interest is taking precedence over the
national interest and the most basic principles of democracy are being flaunted
in the process. All the Republican positioning and action is directed towards
denying the Biden administration to implement its, admittedly ambitious, leftist
agenda in the hope that a failed administration will hand them control of
Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024.
This is no
longer a tug of war between two ideologies, both firmly rooted in fundamental
democracy, one left of center and the other one right of center, both fighting
for the favor of a larger share of the voting public. The party at the right
has been hijacked by people who are in the game only to protect their own
perceived interest and are no longer encumbered by the guardrails of democracy.
For today’s Republican party, the end justifies the means, and the end is to
stay in power even if it represents only a minority of the population. It
follows the abhorrent path charted by the Nationalist Socialist German Workers’
Party, which grabbed power from a minority position based on lies, conspiracy
theories, and racism, enforced by terror and intimidation. Here at home,
an estimated 14% of Americans believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 election
and is still the legitimate President of the United States. But their reach is
much longer than the number suggests, because of fear and intimidation. The
fear of being 'primaried' if stepping out of line with the Trumpian gospel; the
fear of not winning the next election and, maybe, never winning an election
again; and the intimidation of being censured, ridiculed, and threatened by hordes
of delusional fanatics like on January 6, 2021.
The
principled, democracy loving, traditional Republicans who refuse to bend to
this populist pressure have a hard choice to make. Will they put principle
above power, the people above party and deny the disloyal opposition the power
grab it is after? Will they go as far as creating a third party that is solidly
positioned right of center and faithful to true conservatism and long-established
democratic principles and rules? A tough choice to make, because it would most
likely condemn both the Republican party and the third-party spin-off to
minority status in Congress for a long time, even though they could viably
contend for the White House with a strong and popular candidate. But a loyal
opposition party could possibly find ways to reign in and contain the leftist
impulses of the Democratic Party and cooperate on a bi-partisan agenda of all
steps the nation so desperately needs: reduced inequality, voting right
protection, social justice, economic stability, fiscal responsibility, and
infrastructure enhancement.
