Why no Republican is ever ‘reasonable’ enough for the left

I’m about to unload on a human type that I’ve been encountering for eons and whose representatives continue to annoy me. Most (if not all) of these tiresome creatures have been academics, and all of them have told me repeatedly that they’re dying to vote for a “nice, reasonable” Republican. Unfortunately, the party in question just won’t nominate the kind of candidate my acquaintances would be keen to support. When I ask which Republicans they might back, they predictably name Charlie Baker or another ultraliberal, nominally Republican governor, often from New England.

This year, Nikki Haley seems to have joined the group of Republicans whom the “moderate” acquaintances I know might consider voting for in the presidential election (or so they say). They insist that if all Republicans could be pleasant and benevolent — like “that nice fellow Tim Walz,” as one family friend described — then they’d provide an acceptable alternative to our consistently moderate Democratic Party.

I would love to vote for a Democratic candidate, but unfortunately the Democrats aren’t running Grover Cleveland or even Adlai Stevenson this year.

Although my acquaintances grouse about “immoderateness” in American politics, that problem has not yet beset the party of gender fluidity, taxing unrealized capital gains, bailing out black revolutionaries who are burning down American cities, and banning gender-specific pronouns. If only Republicans could be more like Democrats, then my friends would have a real electoral choice between members of different parties whom they consider equally worthy of their vote.

The last thing these people want in American politics are clear ideological choices. What they really desire are two national parties that never deviate from leftist party lines. But I’m not sure these “moderates” or “independents” would change their party allegiance even if the desired choice were available. They just want to make sure that both national parties are on the left, that neither causes any problems for our expanding administrative state and for those who run it, and that all social issues are resolved by woke administrators and judges. At that point, it won’t matter if the Democratic candidates win because there won’t be any serious ideological alternative for us to vote for.

A useful means to arrive at the same end is the “democracy” program of the DNC, by which all effective opposition to the left will be removed in one fell swoop. By eliminating the filibuster, passing a national election law that bans voter identification, and turning the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico into states, we should be able to achieve one-party leftist woke rule.

Alternatives might exist in theory, but they won’t do much to check the leftward drift of the Democratic Party, which will continue pushing its agenda through Congress or executive orders. Since “American democracy” supposedly requires two national parties — at least, that’s been the practice — “moderate” Republican candidates will stick around and occasionally win to maintain the illusion of a binary choice. In such a controlled setup, those who say, “I wish I could vote Republican,” might occasionally vote for non-Democratic candidates.

An even more cringeworthy variation on the “too bad there’s no Republican I can vote for” theme is the Bad Orange Man pretext to vote for left-leaning candidates. Although there are undoubtedly a few authentic Trump-hating right-wingers (some of whom write for the magazine I edit, Chronicles), almost everyone who rails against the Donald seems to lean sharply left. They’d happily vote for Kamala Harris against just about anyone to the right of Joe Biden. I typically ask these habitual Trump-haters whether they would vote for Ron DeSantis or JD Vance if one of these figures rather than Trump were the Republican presidential nominee.

The answer I invariably receive is that DeSantis is a religious fanatic who bans books and hates women. Vance suffers similar criticism, although my respondents also explains that he is “weird.” What I gather is that it’s not Trump who is keeping that person from voting for a Republican presidential nominee but his own leftist impulses. He would undoubtedly find multiple reasons to hate any Republican candidate who was not at least as far to the left as his Democratic opponent.

Usually at this point, I become exasperated and reach for sarcasm. I point out, for example, that I would love to vote for a Democratic candidate, but unfortunately the Democrats aren’t running Grover Cleveland or even Adlai Stevenson this year. I then remind my listener that I am on the right politically and socially to the right, so I have no interest in voting for “moderate” Republicans, much less for the leftist candidates offered by the other national party.

I would expect a similar degree of honesty from my interlocutor instead of the usual pap about how he’d love to vote for a “reasonable Republican.” We already have George Will, Bill Kristol, David French, Max Boot, David Brooks, and many other journalistic notables covering that base.