The Changing Face of the GOP : Practicing Politics of Exclusion

In his moving speech at the Republican Convention, former President Ronald Reagan told his fellow party members, “We can no longer judge each other on the basis of what we are, but must, instead, start finding out who we are. In America, our origins matter less than our destinations and that is what democracy is all about.” And he described how he wanted to be remembered: “Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts.” This is not how George Bush will be remembered by anyone who attended this convention.

Reagan is an inclusive Republican. His philosophy is conservative, but his style is more liberal than that. He reached out to disaffected Democrats, to young people, to working people. It was the Democratic Party in the 1980s that saw its base shrink and its appeal dismissed as narrow.

This year, these roles have reversed. The Republicans in Houston celebrated Patrick J. Buchanan and Pat Robertson, silenced the moderates, and reached out instead to the religious right. It was the Democrats in New York who rebuffed Sister Souljah, refused to make deals with Jesse Jackson and reached out to the middle. The Democrats are in better shape than they have been in decades, while the Republican Party is in disarray. And Bush, who began his political career as a moderate, cannot or will not lead his party down the path of inclusion.

It was “us against them” last week in Houston, and God had chosen a side. Evangelical conservatives pushed aside not only moderates in the Republican Party, but even the traditional economic conservatives. Instead of political debate, we had religious warfare. God was invoked. The opposition was damned. The cheer from the floor during Bush’s speech was “Hit ‘em again, hit ‘em again--harder, harder.” In this atmosphere, gay men and lesbian women have become the Willie Hortons of 1992.

The President let others do his dirty work, occasionally apologizing, but more often just remaining silent, and refused to stand up to the evangelical right. He sat by as gays were bashed, Hillary Clinton was damned and religious war was declared.

It began in the Platform Committee. The GOP platform, in addition to its opposition to gay rights and abortion rights, called on the government to “not remain neutral toward religion itself or the values religion supports,” and urged state legislatures “to explore ways to promote marital stability.”

Indeed, a handful of delegates to the Platform Committee went so far as to object to quoting Abraham Lincoln for the proposition that the United States is “the last, best hope for man on Earth,” because that phrase could only describe Jesus Christ. It was one of the few points where the President’s men vetoed the position of the evangelicals.

It continued in the speeches, each of which were reviewed by the President’s deputies. Buchanan, who described the Democratic Convention as a “giant masquerade ball” of “cross-dressing,” gay rights, abortion on demand, and women in combat, said what Clinton would do as President is “not the kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God’s country.” To raucous applause, he told the delegates: “There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America.” Robertson continued that theme. Clinton, he said, “would destroy the traditional family” because the governor would “repeal the ban on homosexuals in the military and appoint homosexuals to the Cabinet.”

The Democrats in New York erred in not allowing anti-abortion Gov. Robert P. Casey of Pennsylvania to speak at the convention. The Republicans did one better. The move for a floor discussion of abortion was quashed; that was to be expected. But Massachusetts delegates who wanted to hold pro-choice signs in the air were told they could not.

Gov. William F. Weld of Massachusetts, one of the most prominent gay-rights supporters in Houston, was, according to his aides, asked not to include any mention of gay rights in his speech Tuesday night. He did not.

Far from rejecting this brand of vilification, party leaders--men working directly for Bush--embraced it. Richard N. Bond, the GOP chairman, described the differences between the two parties in this way: “We are America. These other people are not America.” Charles R. Black Jr., one of the top strategists for the Bush-Quayle campaign, said Clinton’s decision to “tearfully endorse” gay rights would be part of the Bush campaign on family values. Indeed, campaign officials said they would paint Clinton as a promoter of gays and lesbians.

Underlying the speeches, the platform and the strategy was the new reality of GOP politics. Evangelical conservatives counted for as many as 40% of the convention delegates. The executive director of the Christian Coalition, an organization of politically active evangelicals that did not exist four years ago, says their influence may be even greater, and claims religious conservatives gained virtual control of at least a dozen state delegations in Houston. Their opposition to abortion and gay rights is religious in its basis. They have no doubts--and no room for doubters. According to Ron Carey, vice chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party and a convention delegate: “The Scripture is very clear that homosexuality is a sin.” That is, increasingly, the GOP’s position.

Of course, Bush himself did not attack gays and lesbians, or declare a religious war against his opponent. No one believes he is an evangelical conservative--least of all the conservatives themselves. Bush’s own speech included the appropriate reference to the American ideal of individual self-worth. But it contained no rebuke of the hatred, not even the usual apology which seems to have become the accepted modus operandi for GOP attacks that cross Bush’s own lines of what is appropriate.

Bush made a political judgment in Houston, not a principled one. The President has repeatedly said that at least the victims of rape and incest should be entitled to an abortion, but he is running on a platform that allows no exception to the abortion ban. Bush would embrace a grandchild who is gay, but he is running on a platform that endorses discrimination, and leading a party in which only Mary Fisher had a kind word for gays and lesbians. Since when does a nominee who won every primary and caucus, let alone one who is the President of the United States, cede control of the platform of his party? Bush’s platform is more conservative than Reagan’s was, and that is a testament both to Reagan’s strength and to Bush’s weakness.

For all his bravery in battle, Bush seems too weak, or too afraid, to stand up to the forces of hatred and exclusion threatening his own party. Desperate for the support of the GOP’s right wing, he was willing to take the risk that the rest of his party, and his country, wouldn’t notice, or wouldn’t care. His failing is not that he is an ideologue, but that he seems to stand for so little and stands by silently while others preach hate on his behalf.

It is, unfortunately, a familiar pattern for Bush: clean hands and a dirty campaign. Four years ago, it was the way he dealt with Willie Horton and the politics of race. He stood by silently as the fires of racism fueled his campaign.

There are some inside the Republican Party, troubled by the appearance of bashing gays, who have tried to draw lines between promoting, tolerating and repressing homosexuality, claiming that Democrats are promoters while Republicans are merely tolerant. But I do not know a single gay man or lesbian woman who views their sexual orientation as a choice; it is simply who they are. It is a question of acceptance or repression.

Most Americans do not look to politicians for religious guidance; they look to them for a strong economy and decent schools and safe parks. Most Americans want a political debate, not a religious war. The question for November is whether Bush can move beyond the narrow politics of Houston and the narrowing base of this party to rebuild the Reagan coalition that elected him four years ago.

Regardless of what happens in November, the Republican Party faces a continuing challenge. The evangelical conservatives have vowed to be back in even greater number four years from now. The question is who will stand up to them, and insist, as Reagan has, on the politics of inclusion. Many speakers at this convention quoted Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, who appealed to “the better angels of our nature.” The question for the Republican Party is whether they will appeal to our better angels or pander to our worst instincts.