In a Post Policy World Only Winning Matters

Steve Benen has written a book with the title "The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics. The book is excerpted on a talkingpointsmemo at How The GOP Gave Up On Governing In Order To Keep Winning Elections.

The excerpt explains, "The GOP's push to win elections at all costs opened the door to a new leader who would cement its status as a post-policy party."

The following passage is the heart of Benen's argument:
"Many voters have grown accustomed to the idea of a national competition pitting two governing parties against each other. One has a more progressive vision, the other a more conservative one, but for most Americans, Democrats and Republicans are basically mirror images of one other, each with an internal range of opinions. The electorate has long had reason to assume that both major parties were mature and responsible policymaking entities, their philosophical differences notwithstanding.

The actions of the Republican Party over the last decade have made it abundantly clear that it’s time to reevaluate that assumption.

The current iteration of the GOP is indifferent to the substance of governing. It is disdainful of expertise and analysis. It is hostile toward evidence and arithmetic. It is tethered to few, if any, meaningful policy preferences. It does not know, and does not care, about how competing proposals should be crafted, scrutinized, or implemented.

The modern Republican Party has become a post-policy party."

When this blog was started on February 14, 2016 with the post "Scalia Successor" , the blog name "When Tactics Become Policy" was chosen as the best description of the phenomenon that Benen describes.What he calls a "post-policy party" is one in which actions to advance a policy are completely replaced by actions with the sole purpose of winning, and such actions are tactical in nature, not designed to advance policy, but to ensure victories, either by election or by judicial nominations.

But this blog has also been dedicated to the proposition that the traditional view of political parties that are mirror images of each other, equal and opposite, is also a protected viewpoint, however flawed. That is because the traditional view of fairness and objectivity taken by the NYT and others commands that any objective view of the political parties must eschew assymetry -  assymetry could result in one party being "bad" when the other party is being "good", assumed be a biased conclusion.

This tension between entities like the NY Times clinging to an outmoded definition of good political journalism and the clear logical argument against that NY Times position has persisted in recent years despite its flaws. And so, Benen emerges as only the latest example of someone yet again making an argument to the public as if it is new, trying different angles to convince people who refuse to be convinced by compelling arguments because they made their minds up long ago. Or maybe because they only care about winning and using any tactics that will get them there.