Republicans have latched on to a series of both foreign and domestic policies that will set the stage for their 2022 campaigns. Weirdly, their positions turn out to be starkly at odds with a majority of voters.
It seems Republicans are returning to the position that we should never leave Afghanistan, one at odds with most Americans. Even more striking, Republicans are already beating the drum to limit entry of Afghan allies, which 80 percent of Americans disagree with. The GOP message boils down to: Stay forever, and if not, don’t take Afghans with us. Most voters want out and want to take as many Afghan allies as possible. In fact, they think the Biden team is not doing enough to evacuate Afghans.
If “America first” has become an indecipherable muddle, it looks like a masterpiece of statecraft compared with Republicans’ domestic agenda, which is not so much an agenda as a statement of what they are against.
Most clearly, Republicans are against democracy. Every single House Republican voted against the revival of the preclearance provisions in Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. In the Senate, every Republican voted against proceeding on debate of a voting rights bill. Filibuster-reform resisters such as Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) must understand by now that even the few Republicans who are willing to acknowledge that Trump instigated a violent insurrection — including Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) — are in favor of allowing states to suppress the vote and subvert election results.
Republicans in both the House and Senate were also unanimous in their opposition to domestic policy items such as the American Rescue Plan (including funding for states to keep first responders on the payroll and the child tax credit); an increase in funding for the Internal Revenue Service to go after tax cheats; raising taxes on corporations or the super-rich (even though both often manage to pay nothing in federal taxes); extending Medicare to cover vision, hearing and dental care; caps on prescription drug prices; subsidized child care; paid family leave; and free community college. Each item gets support from a majority of voters, including some with upward of 60 percent support, even among Republican voters. In a real sense, if a majority of Americans are in favor of something to help working- or middle-class voters, Republican politicians are against it.
Worst of all, Republicans are against lifesaving mask and vaccine mandates. The results are grim. Texas has more than 14,000 people hospitalized with covid-19 (the vast majority unvaccinated); Florida is even worse, with 17,000 hospitalizations. On Wednesday, Florida’s daily death count reached an all-time high of 228. Yahoo News reports that Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’s on a mission to block mask and vaccine mandates, is the “first (and so far only) governor in the U.S. whose state is now recording more covid-19 deaths each day — long after free, safe and effective vaccines became widely available to all Americans age 12 or older — than during any previous wave of the virus.” CNN reports: “Florida and Texas account for nearly a third (31%) of current covid-19 hospitalizations. Florida has the worst per capita hospitalization rate in the country — about 80 hospitalizations per 100,000 people — followed by Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana, each with more than 55 hospitalizations per 100,000 people.” That’s Republican pandemic policy at work. All of this takes place as supermajorities of Americans favor mask and vaccine mandates.
Democrats should be running — it is not too soon! — against a party in favor of grossly unpopular things. Unusually in a midterm cycle, incumbent Democrats have the chance to make Republicans’ radical, dangerous and antidemocratic views the issue. Granted, without a thriving economy and a pandemic under control, Democrats will face stiff headwinds. But if Democrats have bragging rights on the economy and pandemic, their best hope for retaining the majority would be to paint a vivid portrait of what Republicans would do if they held power: continue an endless war, throw desperate refugees to the wolves, overturn elections, nix everything from the child tax credit to dental coverage for seniors and make Florida and Texas the model for covid-19 policy. Is that what voters really want?
