The Republican Party has long been a free-market party. The
basic idea of free markets is that when there is competition between vendors, both
buyers and sellers benefit. Competition forces sellers to be innovative and
efficient and, in return, they have the opportunity to earn profits and market
share with a well-run business. Buyers benefit from lower prices and a wider variety
of products to choose from. So it is with Mark
Sanford’s consideration of a primary challenge against President Trump.
Right now, the Republican Party is a monopoly. For years, I
countered liberal claims that there was no diversity on the right by saying
that Republicans had diversity of thought while the left largely engaged in
groupthink. Today, however, that intellectual diversity is largely a thing of
the past. Republican opinion ranges from those who enthusiastically agree with everything
that Donald Trump says to those who reluctantly agree with almost everything
that Donald Trump says.
Enter Mark Sanford.
Sanford is a former governor of South Carolina who served
from 2003 through 2011. In June 2009, he admitted to an extramarital affair after
an unexplained absence in which he had traveled to Argentina to meet his
mistress. After his divorce, Sanford staged a comeback and was elected to the
House of Representatives where he served from 2013 until this year after being
defeated in the Republican primary.
As a congressman, Sanford backed Trump in 2016 but became “one
of the president’s most eloquent critics” per the Washington
Post. Despite his criticism, FiveThirtyEight
noted that Sanford had one of the strongest pro-Trump voting records in the
House. He lost the 2018 Republican primary election after Trump attacked him on
Twitter
and endorsed his opponent, who ultimately lost the seat to a Democrat in the
general election.
Sanford is likely to be a stronger contender against Donald
Trump than William Weld, the former Massachusetts governor and Libertarian candidate
who has already launched a primary challenge against President Trump. Weld, who
has so far run a stealth campaign, is a fiscal conservative but holds views
on social issues that are outside the Republican mainstream. Sanford, on
the other hand, has a 93 percent rating from Freedom
Works. Conservative
Review lamented his primary loss, noting that he was defeated because he
had opposed President Trump’s trade war, allowing his opponent to label him a “Never
Trumper” despite his strong pro-Trump voting record.
Sanford’s primary loss in 2018 is emblematic of the current
state of the GOP. No matter how strong a candidate’s conservative record, any
criticism of President Trump will get them labeled as a “Never Trumper,” which
is the trendy new way attack a candidate’s character that has apparently
replaced “RINO” since Trump, a long-time Democrat has assumed control of the
Republican Party. As I said earlier, intellectual diversity is a rarity in
today’s Republican Party.
Even though Sanford will have an uphill battle against the
incumbent president, his primary campaign should be welcomed by Republicans.
After Trump’s
offensive tweets over the weekend, it should be obvious that the president
has a problem with moderates and minorities. A USA
Today/Ipsos poll found that 68 percent of Americans found Trump’s tweets
offensive and 2018
exit polls showed that the GOP had lost ground among virtually every demographic.
Further, the president’s trade war has eroded support in farm
states that are typically solidly Republican as well as the Rust Belt states that
propelled Trump to victory in 2016.
Mark Sanford gives Republicans a choice. If Sanford decides
to run, Republican voters can opt between a candidate that preserves the best
of Trump’s policy but who does not have the baggage of off-the-wall comments
and the tariff war, which has almost completely offset
the benefits of tax reform.
The problem for Sanford is that Republicans don’t necessarily
want a conservative who is not controversial. A new Reuters
poll found that Republican support for Trump increased by five points after his
weekend tweetstorm. A March poll from Morning
Consult found that only 20 percent of Republican primary voters said that
they wanted a candidate other than Donald Trump.
Nevertheless, a Sanford candidacy would offer conservatives in
the Republican Party an alternative to Trump. In contrast to 2016, when
Republicans reluctantly accepted Trump in the general election out of necessity
to defeat Hillary Clinton, if the party voluntarily embraces the president in
the 2020 primary it will mean that Trump has fundamentally changed the nature
of the Republican Party, perhaps irrevocably, from a conservative party to
something else. Republican voters should at least have a choice in the direction
of their party.
The Republican resistance to any challenger to Trump is
indicative of the president’s weakness. The Republican establishment realizes
that President Trump’s support is likely to be both shallow and fragile. They
fear that a primary battle that shines the light on Trump’s personal flaws and
poor record of achievement outside of tax reform and judicial appointments
could expose the fundamental differences between the base that follows Trump’s
personality and the traditional Republican conservatives who are more concerned
with a principled platform. The illusion of party unity depends on no one questioning
the president.
On the other hand, with Republican fortunes are tied to an
increasingly unstable incumbent and Republican luminaries such as Rush
Limbaugh embracing trillion-dollar deficits and proclaiming that fiscal
conservatism is a thing of the past, the debate over the future of the Republican
Party is not only necessary, it is long overdue. Reintroducing diversity of
thought and holding an honest and serious debate about President Trump’s
character and record can only strengthen a party that has been hemorrhaging voters
since 2016. For that reason, conservatives should welcome a campaign by Mark
Sanford even if it ultimately fails.
Originally published on The
Resurgent
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