A National Party No More: The Conscience of a National Republican

There was a time when I would have greeted the sectionalization taking place within the GOP with unbridled glee. Now, all I can express is sadness.

If anything, it underscores the irony of politics. As a recent Economist article observes, former Georgia Governor and Sen. Zell Miller wrote a book only a few years ago bemoaning the sectionalization of his own Democratic party. Now, the tables seem to be turned. The GOP, historically the party of national unity, faces the bleak prospect not only of sectionalization but also of provincialism — a party confined only to one section, increasingly parochial, even obscurantist in its outlook.

As the Democrats reinvent themselves to look less like Harvard Yard and more like real America, the GOP looks less like real America, more like the campuses of Baylor or Bob Jones universities. And as the economist observes, there is a real danger here:

The danger for the Republicans is that they will respond to these Democratic advances by retreating to their heartland. The incoming Republican delegation will be more southern and more conservative than ever. It is hardly encouraging that the Senate Republicans have just reinstalled Mississippi’s Trent Lott as one of their leaders—a man who had to give up the top job in 2002 for making a racist remark. There are plenty of Republican activists who think that the future lies in becoming ever more conservative, and not worrying too much about the slow-growing north-east. That sort of thinking led the Democrats to become the Party of Taxachusetts and Michael Dukakis. The Republicans need a Zell Miller of their own.