My depression for the day is supplied by the news that Susan Eisenhower is walking out on the Republican Party. Not because she’s a big deal in herself, but because she claims it is no longer effective for constitution-guarding individualist types to spend time
trying to reinvigorate a political organization that has already consumed nearly all of its moderate “seed corn.”
You’d have to be really believe a party is beyond salvation if you don’t feel it’s even worth your staying in and fighting for your vision of its future. We don’t all have to share in Eisenhower’s sense of hopelessness about the future of the Republican party, but most of us can agree that it’s going to need to conduct an intensive intellectual debate within itself if it’s to reestablish a cogent ideological foundation. lf classical liberals in the Eisenhower tradition want to be part of that reestablishment, they have to be part of the internal debate. It’s saddening to see someone with such privileged access to the Republican machine giving up on it. Particularly as there are plenty of us who’d gladly fight the same fight, but not being grandchildren of Presidents, need leaders within the party to represent us - and it feels like Eisenhower is walking out on us as well.
It seems like the Susan Eisenhower story has been buried by the long-awaited announcement that Biden will indeed be Obama’s running mate. Hat tip to Crooks and Liars for linking it to this timely reminder of how horrified the original Eisenhower would be today.
As someone who was brought up as a Republicanism, I can only say that I don’t think I’ve walked out on the party; the party has walked out on me. It happened when they gave up on promoting small government and instead promoted increased government spending that merely had a different focus than Dem government spending. It happened when they trampled all over human rights by glorifying torture in the name of national security. It happened when they abandoned the traditional Republican principles of limited foreign engagements by getting massively unilaterally involved in multiple theaters of battle. It happened when they didn’t even bother to have a cogent plan for exiting or reconstructing said theaters.
I’m sure Susan Eisenhower feels a similar way. I’m not discounting the possibility that the GOP will return to sanity, but it sure isn’t looking bright when the party “leaders” are declaring that the way forward is represented by digging in and compromising with the Dems less.