Can you win something with nothing, and is that what Republicans tried to do in 2022? Will they have the same problem in 2024? “It really is going to come down to style in these elections,” Adam Baldwin says about the GOP presidential primaries, and that may mean another lost opportunity. “We might be looking at a permanent Democratic majority,” if Republicans can’t come together and explain what they’re for rather than just what they’re against. “That’s frightening.”
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Welcome back to my VIP video series “The Amiable Skeptics,” featuring my friend Adam Baldwin! Adam is well-known for his long and storied Hollywood career, starting with My Bodyguard, and especially for his roles in Full Metal Jacket, Firefly, its film sequel Serenity, Chuck, and The Last Ship.
Our episode today keys off of an excellent and thorough essay by Gladden Pappin at American Affairs Journal called “Requiem for the Realignment.” In it, Pappin goes into great detail in trying to analyze the disappointing 2022 midterms, and concludes at least in part that Republicans failed to capitalize because they offered no real benefit to voters and no real plan or agenda for the future. Read it all; even if you don’t agree with all of Pappin’s arguments, it’s the most comprehensive look at the potential pitfalls of the 2024 cycle, as well as the ideologies that will conflict on the Right in the presidential primaries. (I put it in our Headline marquee yesterday for that reason.)
Pappin raises the question, I say, that the GOP may have turned into Monty Python’s Argument Clinic, which amused Adam. “They’re just becoming the automatic gainsay party,” standing for nothing much other than just opposing whatever Democrats do, I argue.
“Oh, you want abuse,” Adam replies in the same spirit. “Abuse is down the hall.”
The upcoming primaries will pit the so-called MAGA and New Conservative wings against each other, Pappin predicts. There may be more overlap than Pappin allows between the two, but also it may end up being more personality-driven — which would avoid a real debate on policy and agenda. Adam and I don’t entirely despair that a positive, unifying, and winning agenda will emerge …. but are we amiably skeptical?
Watch and find out — and join the conversation in the comments!
