Will this crisis change the Republican Party? Don't bet on it.
When a crisis occurs, the common response from politicians is what economist Larry Summers once termed “now-more-than-everism.” Everyone says the solution lies in the policies they’ve favored all along, which are needed now more than ever.
Except some crises are less amenable to one side’s now-more-than-ever than others. While Democrats can comfortably say that the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis demand the kind of aggressive government action and strong safety net they always favor, Republicans are in a more complicated position. Which is why we’re seeing the first signs of a conflict that could roil their party after November, should Donald Trump lose his bid for reelection.
Not that most Republicans have had their minds changed by this crisis. They’ve gone along with a few trillion dollars in spending, but they’re hardly agreeing that we actually could use universal health coverage and automatic stabilizers that offer quick help to people in any economic downturn.
And they’ll be more than happy to begin deficit fearmongering as an excuse for austerity at the earliest opportunity — i.e., if there’s a Democrat in the White House to suffer the consequences. “As soon as the economy recovers, we are going to need significant deficit reforms,” one conservative economist told The Post. You may recall that even before the pandemic, Trump and Republicans had pushed the deficit past a trillion dollars, with only the most muted objections from conservatives. Should Trump be reelected, all those who claim to be deeply concerned about the debt will say that we really should do something about it — but not quite yet, not when cutting spending or raising taxes might be too damaging to a Republican president.
But what if Trump loses? How will the party understand what happened and where they should go?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/27/will-this-crisis-change-republican-party-dont-bet-it/
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