How Much More Conservative Does The Democratic Party Have To Become Before It's The Pre-Trump GOP?

Nothing is free— and that, no doubt, includes Liz Cheney’s support for Kamala. As well as the support from other Republicans. Kamala has already said she will include a Republican in her cabinet… and I suspect she isn’t talking about a MAGAt. Most Republicans don’t think of Liz Cheney as a Republican any longer, just an anti-Trump apostate who sold out to the hated Democrats. She’s the poster child child for the “uniparty,” not a hero waging a principled country-over-party battle to save democracy. 

She was a hard core conservative for her whole life. That hasn’t disappeared even if she was kicked out of the party, first by the elites and then by the grassroots. In 2022, her own constituents abandoned her in droves, winning less than 30% of the vote. She won just 2 of Wyoming’s 23 counties, the two that lean blue, Teton and Albany. In MAGA hotspots like Niobrara (11%), Crook (14%), Platte (15%), Weston (12%), Campbell (14%) she struggled to stay in double digits.

Republican politicians who are standing up to Trump— while celebrating their conservative worldview— have no place to go in a MAGA-dominated GOP. So if they want to stay active in politics… they can either wait for MAGA to fall apart (Mitt Romney) or hook up with the Democrats (Liz Cheney). Elizabeth Warren was once a Republican. Her epiphany was complete; she didn’t just junk the “R.” She got rid of the conservatism and never looked back. Almost every Republican who endorses Kamala makes a point of saying how they don’t agree with “some” of her policies and remain strong conservatives but, basically, hate Trump and MAGA. 

An arch-conservative multimillionaire who may have once been— and even may still be; who knows— a Democrap, Chris Matthews, says Kamala must give Republicans, and Cheney in particular, some substantive say over policy. That would be a dream come true for the Joe Manchin/Kyrsten Sinema wing of the Democratic Party... and a nighmare for actual Democrats.

Matthews was a guest on friendly turf, Morning Joe, hosted by right-wing former Congressman Joe Scarborough (R-FL), where he said Cheney is “like a character out of A Man for All Seasons” [presumably Sir Thomas More] and that he’s “never seen a more heroic figure” than her. “If you’re going to use her, repay her when you get into office. Don’t just act like you’re giving a little nod to a Republican. Clean up some of your act. You’ve got problems, Democrats. You don’t have all the answers, you’ve got to have much tougher… action on the border, you have to get serious about it and come up with a reasonable way of getting people into the country in a reasonable way and let them become citizens in time. But you’ve got to do something. You can’t just say, I’m with Biden. That’s not too good.”

Maybe he was asleep when Trump forced the Republicans to sabotage the bipartisan border bill written, for the most part, by Senator Lankford (R-OK), at the request of GOP Senate leadership. But, then again, scumbags like Matthews can never resist hippie-punching Democrats for not adopting the Republican agenda— even when they do! Ne then went on to fart out more Republican talking points: “You can’t say on the inflation, it’s world inflation. Nobody cares about the world, they want to know why are their prices are going up. So I think the Democrats have a lot of things to clean up, but one of the things they need to show is courage and guts, and that woman has it.”

These (former) Republican politicians, including Cheney, are not going to transform into progressive champions or suddenly adopt Democratic Party values. They may oppose Trump’s authoritarianism, but they still subscribe to a neoliberal, anti-Choice worldview that champions elitism, homophobia limited government, corporate tax cuts and pro-business policies. It’s the same worldview that once led Cheney to vote with Trump over 90% of the time. Now, aligning themselves with Kamala (or even the Democratic Party) against Trump, these figures will expect political rewards for their “sacrifices”— and those rewards worry me, given the trend in the party towards conservatism already.

What progressives should be deeply concerned about is that the Democratic Party— already pulled to the right by centrist factions going back to Clinton’s presidency— might further absorb these corporatist ideologies. Figures like Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough and Cheney are not merely joining the Democratic coalition to defeat Trump— they are bringing their conservative baggage and right-of-center ideologies along with them. This conservative influence will undoubtably push the party to adopt positions on the border, inflation and corporate power that mirror Republican-lite policies, in the name of bipartisanship. It’s already happening.

In a party once home to progressive champions like Paul Wellstone, Barbara Jordan, Shirley Chisholm, FDR, Henry Wallace, RFK (NOT Jr, obviously), George McGovern, Bella Abzug… who were all about bold, transformative policies to strengthen and empower the working class, is on the verge of watching these anti-Trump conservatives further dilute the left’s message. The risk is that Democrats will increasingly prioritize "compromise" with these Republicans over advancing bold progressive goals, leaving the left further marginalized within their own party. Progressives should start talking among themselves about starting an actual progressive party, leaving a conservative Democratic Party and competing with it and a fascist Republican MAGA party.

In the long run, this conservative resurgence within the Democratic Party— driven mostly by people who are only here because they have no place else to go— will ensure that corporate interests and right-wing ideology maintain their hold on the political agenda, even if Trump is defeated. Whatever is left of the idea that the Democratic Party being a vehicle for a transformational agenda— rather than just a vehicle for the careers of party officials— will disappear entirely.