Opinion: Hickenlooper’s entry reveals how moderates fatally misunderstand today’s GOP
By Paul Waldman Paul Waldman Opinion writer covering politics Email Bio Follow Opinion writer March 4 at 12:16 PM The race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination got another entrant today, which makes 12 major candidates, with more to come.
Hickenlooper talked about the importance of going out and listening to people, about how when he was mayor of Denver and ran for governor he connected with voters all over the state whose concerns weren’t partisan. Which is surely true, but unfortunately it shows that while being out in the “real” America can help you understand how policy decisions affect people’s lives, it can also obscure the real challenges of federal policymaking the next president will face.
First, when you say what we need is to put aside the squabbling to “get things done,” you’re assuming that there’s broad agreement on what the “things” are that ought to be done. From time to time that may be the case; for instance, last December, Congress passed a bipartisan criminal-justice reform bill, because it was something both Democrats and Republicans thought was worthwhile.
The second and more important reason that the two parties can’t just sit down, hash everything out, and get things done is that there’s this thing called the Republican Party. You may have heard of it. But apparently John Hickenlooper hasn’t. Here’s the problem for a Democratic president: Today’s Republican Party isn’t just committed to a particular set of policy preferences, it’s also committed to a style of politics in which 1) any compromise with Democrats on a controversial issue is an unconscionable betrayal, and 2) literally any tactics, no matter how morally reprehensible, are justified in the pursuit of their goals.
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