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The ‘reasonable Republican’ is a fantasy
As the GOP drifts to the fringe, Democrats clinging to the delusion of bipartisanship are being pulled right along with them
A lot has been written by left media critics about the effect Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing has had on Democrats’ worldview. In the show, liberal politicos often win the day with a rousing speech that forces their opponents to capitulate through the sheer force of reasonableness, eloquence and moral clarity. The legacy of the show is a sort of idealism among liberal — “delusion” is more accurate— about how politics works.
This Sorkinian way of looking at politics was on display in a recent segment hosted by Vox’s Ezra Klein titled “What a more responsible Republican Party would look like.”
The underlying premise: There is a possibility of a sensible American right that could be reasoned with and won over by a real-life Jed Bartlet.
Klein’s guest was Ramesh Ponnuru, a representative of the traditional strongholds of establishment conservativism, i.e. the American Enterprise Institute and the National Review. Ponnuru was arguing for the party to return to a focus on policy after years of waging culture wars.
