Summary
The Republican party has had a well-defined paradigm for decades. The clarity of these ideas communicated Republican goals well to voters and contributed substantially to its political success. A paradigm is a set of accepted theories, beliefs and generalizations; a shared conceptual framework for a group of people. Republicans adhere to these beliefs with near-religious conviction; debating the truth of these principles with a Republican is an exercise in futility. But paradigms can fail with time, when experience produces results (or anomalies) that are inconsistent with expectations. The Republican paradigm is now at such a point of crisis. Some of the core ideas are poorly defined and some are fundamentally untrue. Parts of the paradigm are in evident self-contradiction. Most of all, the leadership of the party is acting in total disregard of these principles, without an iota of criticism from other leading Republicans (except those who are leaving office).
Our recent national experience has created a crisis for the conservative paradigm. Some of the anomalies go back decades, and some anomalies have become particularly acute under President Trump. We are not experiencing the benefits of conservative government as promised. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Core conservative concepts and policies are leading to intractable problems that they were supposed to solve.
To avoid making straw-man arguments, I’ve taken Speaker Mike Johnson’s list of Republican principles, written in 2018, to represent the Republican paradigm. Those principles are:
1. Individual Freedom
2. Limited Government
3. The Rule of Law
4. Peace Through Strength
5. Fiscal Responsibility
6. Free Markets
7. Human Dignity
https://mikejohnson.house.gov/7-core-principles-of-conservatism/
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There are anomalies arising from these principles In our national experience. Let’s consider the flawed ideas, the contradictory ideas and the abandoned ideas in the Republican paradigm.
Flawed Ideas
The idea of unbounded individual freedom is poorly defined and intrinsically flawed. Individual freedoms are intrinsically limited when one person’s freedom conflicts with someone else’s freedom. For example, the Republican policy of unlimited gun possession conflicts with others’ freedom to live without the threat of being shot. More broadly, individual freedom has been extended to companies, giving them the right to pollute and place workers and consumers at risk. That freedom degrades the freedom of others to live in a healthy and safe environment.
The idea of limited government is as flawed as idea of unbounded personal freedom. It ignores the fundamental responsibility of modern government to provide a landscape where private enterprise can thrive. That landscape includes energy, transportation and information infrastructure, public education, the rule of law, protection of civil rights, military defense, economic stabilization, worker and consumer protection, disaster relief, public health, fundamental scientific research and military defense, none of which are provided well by the private sector. Conservatives never define how much government is enough, only that government should be “small”. Republicans fail to identify the critical duties of government or the limits on how small government should be.
Contradictory Ideas
The idea of limited government supported by low taxes is contradictory to the principle of fiscal responsibility. Decades of low taxes have produced a massive forty trillion dollar federal debt, crushing the societal benefits that Republicans expected to realize from small government.
The idea of peace through strength, as implemented by Republicans, is also contradictory to fiscal responsibility. For decades, the U.S. has maintained the world’s largest, most advanced and most expensive military, often costing more than the next ten nations combined. But Republicans don’t want to pay for that strength with higher taxes. And the government debt created by low tax policies severely impairs our ability to react to a new military threat, or other natural or economic disasters.
Abandoned Ideas
The Republican Party under President Trump has abandoned all of the true conservative principles. The administration, Supreme Court, and Congress have:
1) Individual Freedom
Limited freedoms of speech, of the press and broadcast media and persecuted immigrants. Conservatives also long ago abandoned the idea of individual freedom by restricting women’s right to abortion and access to birth control, and the right of gay marriage.
2) Limited Government
Abused the power of government by demanding loyalty from individuals, companies and universities. Attempted to assert federal control of elections and imposed government control and ownership of key technology companies.
3) The Rule of Law
Violated the rule of law in too many ways to list.
Pardoned January 6th insurrection rioters, allowed presidential immunity for any violation of the law in official business, protected sex-trafficking associates of Jeffery Epstein, weaponized the DOJ against perceived enemies, ignored court orders on matters ranging from deportation to the construction of a DC golf course.
4) Peace Through Strength
Openly abused the power of the military by bullying and intimidating other nations and our own citizens. Abandoned our key allies, particularly Ukraine.
5) Fiscal Responsibility
Totally abandoned any attempt at fiscal responsibility by continuing to cut taxes on businesses and the wealthy despite spiraling government debt, and military spending. Engaged in an expensive, unnecessary war-of-choice against Iran.
6) Free Markets
Made a mockery of the idea of free markets with a program of global tariffs. Extorted equity stakes in private companies for the government through threats of legal or financial repercussions.
7) Human Dignity
Made a mockery of human dignity with the inhuman treatment of immigrants, the militarization of city streets, denial and mockery of LGBTQ+ rights and the termination of international aid programs, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths.
The Trump administration has violated the Republican paradigm so thoroughly that voters will probably reject Republicans in coming elections. However, some measure of the paradigm will live on. The failure of the Republican paradigm is so broad that it is difficult to identify the failure of specific elements and connect those failures to consequences. That makes it difficult to fix the paradigm.
Consequences of insufficient government include inadequate education, environmental damage, loss of public health, impaired economic growth, etc. It is difficult to draw a direct causal line from societal ills back to the Republican principle of limited government, but the connection is real. Republicans need to recognize those connections for themselves for conservatism to develop a better paradigm from the ashes of the old paradigm.
Over time, failed paradigms are generally replaced by a new set of shared theories and beliefs, but it will be a long time before the failure of the Republican paradigm is adequately recognized. Democrats should challenge the flawed ideas of the Republican paradigm in political debate. Rather than debate specific policies of child care subsidies, Democrats should ask Republicans to identify the critical functions of government, and demand that they say what they mean by limited government. Democrats should challenge Republicans on fiscal responsibility, when federal debt has risen to $40 trillion under Republican leadership. Most of all, in communicating with voters, Democrats must connect the Republican paradigm to failures in outcomes for government and society.
Criticizing the failed Republican paradigm prompts a further question: what is the Democratic party paradigm? Previously, this blog reported on the values of the Democratic party, expressed in the Preamble to the Alaska Democratic Party Platform. I think it’s time to develop a Democratic paradigm that flows from those values to governmental policies. The paradigm should be easily understood and capture the essence of what it means to be a Democrat.
https://debatablypolitical.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-values-project.html
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Full Article
About Paradigms
In his landmark book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” (1962), Thomas Kuhn redefined the word paradigm. Kuhn’s paradigm is a shared conceptual framework – the accepted theories, beliefs, generalizations, rules, symbolism, and values that are accepted by a group as a complete package. A scientific paradigm governs the range of topics under investigation, the kinds of research conducted, and the everyday processes of doing the work. Kuhn proposed that the most significant advances in science do not happen incrementally, but in leaps, when an existing paradigm is overturned and replaced by a new conceptual framework.
The transition between paradigms begins when experiments produce results that contradict the old paradigm. When sufficient anomalies accumulate, it forces a crisis and a reassessment of the foundational assumptions and beliefs. After a period of conflict, a new paradigm emerges, adapting to the new evidence and providing a new framework going forward. A new paradigm is accepted when it solves existing problems and raises questions for research into new problems.
Paradigms exist in many areas of human society – science, the arts, music, engineering, farming, marketing, finance, etc. Politics and government have their own competing partisan paradigms. The conservative paradigm has roots extending back into the 1700s, but took its modern form in the 1980s, when the expressed ideas of Ronald Reagan were broadly accepted across much of American society. Today, even some Democratic office-holders campaign with these concepts as unquestioned wisdom.
Our recent national experience has created a crisis for the conservative paradigm. Some of the anomalies go back decades, and some anomalies have become particularly acute under President Trump. We are not experiencing the benefits of conservative government as promised. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Core conservative concepts and policies are leading to intractable problems that they were supposed to solve.
The Republican Paradigm
To avoid creating straw man arguments, I’ll draw on a top Republican source for the elements of the Republican paradigm. House Majority Leader Mike Johnson published a list of seven core conservative principles, as follows:
1. Individual Freedom
2. Limited Government
3. The Rule of Law
4. Peace Through Strength
5. Fiscal Responsibility
6. Free Markets
7. Human Dignity
https://mikejohnson.house.gov/7-core-principles-of-conservatism/
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In the Republican paradigm, individual freedom is considered the highest priority. Johnson lists fundamental human rights and freedoms, including life, liberty, conscience, free speech, free exercise of religion, the right to own property and the right to self-defense.
Anomalies
In truth, conservative government restricts and oppresses American freedoms. Conservative policies violate freedom of conscience and individual freedoms in these areas:
- Freedom of life and liberty, for illegal immigrants who have been deprived of both without due process.
- Freedom of conscience for many issues which conflict with conservative ideology.
- Women’s right to choose abortion.
- Women’s right for access to birth control.
- The right of gay marriage.
- Freedom of speech. The Trump administration has assaulted free speech by legal actions against broadcast media, late-night comedy, government employees, universities, legal immigrants and foreign visitors, etc.
- Freedom of religion, by requiring the Judeo/Christian Ten Commandments to be posted in schools and government buildings. Perhaps conservatives are unaware of the First Commandment, which reads, “You will have no other gods before me.” The free exercise of religion also applies to the freedom from government-imposed religion.
- Freedom of the Press. While not featured in Speaker Johnson’s list, freedom of the press is among our core freedoms. The Trump administration has verbally attacked and threatened media which publish negative articles about the administration. The administration selectively restricted news organizations from the White House and eliminated media access to military information sources.
Further, some of the “freedoms” promoted by conservatives impinge on the freedoms of other people. The main idea is that one person’s freedom should end where another person’s freedom begins.
- The unregulated freedom to bear arms means that other citizens are subject to intimidation and risk from fellow citizens carrying firearms.
- The freedom to discriminate based on race, religion, national origin or sexual orientation – in hiring, lodging, or performing commercial services – impinges on the freedom of others to live normal lives
The actions of Republican government belie the stated conservative principle of individual freedom.
2. Limited Government
Johnson writes: “For individual liberty to be championed, government must be reduced.”
Johnson doesn’t define the optimum size of government. Conservative rhetoric is only an unbounded pursuit of smaller government. Reagan started this vague campaign by saying that government was the problem, without a goal about how small government should be, or what it should do.
The Republican ideal of small government is an indirect expression of the real goal, which is low taxes. It is institutionalized selfishness, of personal stinginess elevated as a virtue. Republicans tried to ensure small government by limiting revenues, but relentlessly cutting taxes conflicted with principle #5, Fiscal Responsibility. Instead of an efficient government and economy, Republican policies have led to a government threatened by excessive debt, rising borrowing costs for business and consumers, and higher taxes due to interest payments. Similarly, the cost of maintaining the world’s largest military to achieve Peace Through Strength conflicts with the goals of fiscal responsibility and small government.
The conservative ideal of laissez-faire small government is rooted in ideas that are centuries old and obsolete. Modern government creates a landscape for private business to thrive and prosper. Without strong government, private business would lack the core elements for success. Modern government creates a landscape where private enterprise can prosper through energy, transportation and information infrastructure, public education, the rule of law, consumer & worker protection, public health, fundamental scientific research and military defense, none of which are provided well by the private sector. The conservative unbounded pursuit of “small government” without regard for the providing the functions of government is deeply misguided.
The conservative paradigm makes five foundational claims about limited government. The paradigm holds that:
A) the constitutional purpose of government is to secure individual rights and freedoms,
B) government is inefficient in using society’s resources,
C) government must be limited (to an undefined minimum) in order to allocate maximum resources to the private sector, and
D) private-sector efficiency translates into general well-being for society.
E) low taxes ensure small government by placing fiscal restraints on government spending.
Anomalies
A) The libertarian Cato Institute recently ran a poll, where they said that the main purpose of the U.S. Constitution is to limit government power. Cato judged other answers as incorrect. Johnson, Cato and conservatives are wrong.
The Constitution itself gives its purpose in the Preamble. Let’s read. “"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Securing the blessings of liberty is last on this long list. In particular, the conservative paradigm pointedly ignores the injunction for the government to promote the general welfare.
B) Conservatives justify their unbounded desire to shrink government with the claim that government is inefficient, which is recited with religious conviction. However, there is much necessary work that is done by government which private industry is unable to do or chooses not to do. Private industry does not typically have the scope to undertake massive infrastructure projects for energy, transportation or information. It requires government vision, government planning, and government resources to undertake projects such as the Interstate Highway system, the Hoover dam, or geosynchronous satellites for weather forecasting or GPS navigation. I’ve encountered the argument that government is necessarily inefficient because it is big. The refutation of that idea is as simple as the private companies Amazon or Walmart. Size creates efficiencies of scale.
C) I agree that the free market is necessary for efficient functioning of the economy, and that central planning rarely produces better results than market economies. However, the private sector only works because government creates the landscape where private enterprise can prosper. Government provides essential services to the private sector through infrastructure for energy, transportation and information, and public services as listed above.
D) While conservatives tout the efficiencies of the private sector compared to government, private sector efficiency doesn’t necessarily contribute to public prosperity or well-being. Private sector business maximizes returns to shareholders. It’s easy to look at history and see that the accumulation of massive wealth is not good for society. Aristocracy has always built estates with monumental displays of gross excess, the 26th century BC in Egypt; 1st century; whether in 17th century France, 18th century Britain or 20th century America. The 21st century is no different, with a larger and larger share of the productivity of the economy being dedicated to the wealthy.
Money accumulated by capital owners is wasted on displays of conspicuous consumption and ostentation. The notion that wealth “trickles down” to the working classes is proved false by decades of wage stagnation and a declining share of GDP by wage-earners.
E) Conservatives of the Reagan era advocated low taxes as a way of restricting the size of government, in a strategy they called “Starve the Beast”. My belief is that conservative low-tax policies are rooted in a selfish reluctance to contribute to the general good of society. That aside, conservative tax policies have not led to spending restraint, but instead contributed to the massive growth of government debt, from 55% of GDP in 2000 to 122% of GDP in 2026. Interest payments on the debt are about one trillion dollars per year and now consume about 20% of Federal revenues. The nation is at risk of a financial crisis in the event of rising interest rates, and the Federal Reserve will be constrained in responding to economic conditions.
Conservatives have largely shaped the United States government over the past 45 years, shrinking U.S. government spending (as a percentage of GDP) until it is the lowest of the G7, lower than almost all nations of the EU, and lower than all but the least developed nations in OECD. U.S. taxes are likewise among the lowest of industrialized democratic countries. But the result has not been an economic or social utopia. Poverty in the United States persists; our economic growth is stagnant; workers’ wages are stagnant; workers’ share of GDP has declined for four decades; national debt has dramatically increased; and global economic leadership has shifted to China. The conservative ideal of small government is broken.
3. The Rule of Law
Mike Johnson’s third conservative principle is the Rule of Law. Johnson writes, “Ours is "a government of laws and not of men," and the rule of law is our foundation.…public and private virtue should be encouraged and justice must be administered equally and impartially to all….Transparency and accountability are keys to good government, and Congress must faithfully perform its constitutional responsibility of oversight.”
The Trump administration has laughably violated every facet of this principle. The Republican Congress and conservative Supreme Court have utterly failed to hold the administration accountable for those violations.
Anomalies:
This point is laughable. The Trump administration has repeatedly engaged in illegal executive orders and actions, and flouted the authority of courts. Trump is literally a convicted felon for tax and financial fraud; made false claims about the 2020 election; incited an insurrection to block the certification of that election; organized a scheme to name fake electors to overturn that election; pardoned the rioters convicted of crimes in that insurrection; attempted to create a $1.8 billion fund to pay those insurrectionists; took top-secret documents into his personal possession; organized a grifting scheme involving foreign governments and crypto-currencies that netted hundreds of millions of dollars for Trump and his family; hid the identity of the associates of pedophile and sex-trafficker Jeffery Epstein, and dozens of other potential crimes that Republicans have ignored. Trump violated the recently-passed Lindsay Graham Act to buy diesel fuel from Russia, despite express prohibitions from such purchases.
Republicans and conservatives in national and local jurisdictions have also committed crimes of election tampering; abuse of official powers, and sexual offenses (particularly involving conservative clergy).
The conservative Supreme Court gave Trump a preemptive license to commit crimes for any action done “in an official capacity”. Other SCOTUS decisions have been equally unethical partisan decisions, including greenlighting partisan gerrymandering, limiting enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, releasing restrictions on campaign financing, and allowed presidential firing of the heads of independent federal agencies. Legal experts say that partisan voting by SC justices has reached an historic high.
The Republican commitment to the rule of law is a hollow and hypocritical tenet of the Republican paradigm. Republicans flout the law when it suits their interests.
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4) Peace through Strength
The conservative ideal about strength is about deterring threats from aggressors. But the reality is that conservative strength is not used to deter threats, but to bully and extort other nations.
Johnson writes: “America serves in a natural role of moral leadership in an increasingly dangerous world, and weakness invites aggression, we must remain the strongest military power on earth—fully prepared and capable of defeating any adversaries, tyrants or terrorists, under any circumstances, at any time.”
The idea that a strong military discourages a physical attack is valid. It is likely that Russia would have invaded the Baltic republics long ago if not for fear of NATO defense and reprisal. But the idea of peace through strength has been perverted by the conservative movement, on both individual and national levels, into strength for bullying and extortion. “Peace through strength” is no longer Teddy Roosevelt’s admonition to speak softly and carry a big stick. Rather, conservative strength is about making loud demands and hitting people with the stick.
Anomalies:
President Trump’s record and behavior shows the real purpose behind conservative desire for military strength. Trump has threatened military action against allies and enemies alike, to demand various concessions, and violently attacked several nations. In Trump’s first term, he threatened military action against North Korea. In Trump’s second term, he has threatened Panama, Mexico, Denmark (Greenland), Cuba, Columbia, Canada, Oman and Yemen. Trump ordered actual attacks on Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia and Syria, kidnapping the president of Venezuela and assassinating the leader of Iran. The president also used threats to withhold military assistance to gain minerals deals from Ukraine. The president obtained a 100-year oil development deal with Venezuela through military extortion.
5) Fiscal Responsibility
This is another laughable conservative principle. From Reagan to Trump, the overriding conservative principle has been to lower taxes, particularly for the wealthy. For forty-five years, Republicans repeatedly lowered taxes in the face of growing Federal debt.
In 2018, Johnson wrote: “America is facing an unprecedented debt and spending crisis. Federal debt now exceeds $33.5 trillion, and our current fiscal path is unsustainable and dangerous, jeopardizing our nation's economic growth, stability and the security of future generations.” Johnson blindly ignores that the Republican low tax regime is, in fact, the root of the problem. Eight years later, Federal debt has increased to over 40 trillion.
While running for president in 2016, Donald Trump said that U.S. taxes were among the highest in the world. That was false then, and false today. U.S. taxes are the lowest of the G7, and lower than almost all of the nations in the EU and OECD. U.S. government spending as a percentage of is likewise among the lowest in the industrialized world. Nevertheless, government debt continues to mount.
Anomalies:
Current total U.S. government debt is 126% of GDP. Debt as a function of GDP has grown relentlessly since 1974, Lenders no longer regard the U.S. Treasury bond as the safest possible investment. Government borrowing now competes with commercial borrowing, causing a drag on the economy. Large capital investments for AI infrastructure are competing with larger government borrowing, leading to higher interest rates, which puts even more pressure on the Federal budget. Currently, annual interest payments are over one trillion dollars, or about 1/6 of the Federal budget. Figures for the 2026 fiscal year were just released, showing a two trillion dollar deficit. Spending is 37% higher than revenues. Total government debt is over 40 trillion dollars. All of this is happening with a Republican president, a Republican Supreme Court, a Republican-majority House of Representatives and a Republican-majority Senate. The administration got everything it wanted in the 2025 Big Beautiful (budget) Bill, and conducted a year-long purge of federal agencies in the name of cost cutting. Yet 2026 federal spending is 5.7% higher than spending in 2025, while revenues increased by only 3.2%.
Since the time of Reagan, conservatives have pursued a strategy of strangling the government by limiting tax revenues, to restrict the size of government. It was an ill-considered plan on every facet, beginning with the idea that limited government was a good idea. But worst of all was the commitment to fiscal irresponsibility, in hypocritical contrast to the stated values of conservatism. Republicans have worked to bankrupt the federal government for an ideological objective, without consideration of the consequences of that strategy. Today, the United States is in a deep fiscal hole, unable to meet domestic crises or foreign wars and unable to conduct the fundamental functions of government because of the fiscal irresponsibility of the Republican Party.
6) Free Markets
Johnson writes: “Free markets and free trade agreements allow for innovation, improvement and economic expansion as risk-takers, entrepreneurs and business owners are given the liberty to pursue the American dream and create more jobs and upward mobility for more people.”
At one time, free markets were a key part of the conservative paradigm. The concept has a long pedigree dating back to Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, published in the year of the American Declaration of Independence. As Smith explained, each nation has comparative advantages in production. Some nations’ geography favors agriculture, other nations are better suited to manufacturing. In theory, all nations benefit from free trade, maximizing the utility of each nation’s particular advantages. In practice, things are not so simple, as voting blocks demand protection from foreign products, and nations use trade policy to negotiate or extort diplomatic gains in other areas. Wars add another barrier to free trade, where alliances try to limit the ability of other nations to conduct military operations. But despite these variances, the conservative ideal was still to negotiate free trade agreements wherever possible, and to maximize the production and profits to every country.
Anomalies
On April 2, 2025, Donald Trump proclaimed “Liberation Day”, involving a sweeping package of import tariffs in a global rejection of free trade. Presidential authority for the policy was dubiously justified as a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (1977). The tariffs ranged from a global baseline of 10% to a high of 145% on Chinese goods following tariff retaliation and escalation. Rates were set at 25% to 50% on various high-trade partners. Trump even boasted that tariff revenue would all the government to replace the individual income tax. In February 2026, the Supreme Court struck down the emergency powers, causing the administration to re-set tariffs to around 10% to 12.5% using alternate authority. Refunds are being paid to the importer of record. As of August 2026, the administration had paid out $100 billion of $166 billion collected under the illegal program.
If Trump’s tariff program had proceeded as originally planned, it would have generated about $370 billion annually, far too little to address federal debt or to replace the income tax.
Trump’s tariff programs were intended to reduce the U.S. trade deficit, to bring in new tax revenue, and to stimulate U.S. manufacturing. Currently, a year and a half past “liberation day”, the U.S. trade deficit has sharply increased in recent months, rising to 3.0% of GDP. Manufacturing output and employment have shown modest increases in recent months, but remain below the level of prior years. However, small manufactures are struggling financially, reducing workforce or going out of business, because those businesses were dependent on international supply chains for the component parts of their products.
Tariff revenue has been trivial compared to revenue brought in by the individual income tax, or in comparison to the Federal deficit. The Tax Foundation estimates that 2027 tariff revenues will total about $125 billion.
Trump continues to use tariffs as a geopolitical weapon, in retaliation for international actions contrary to Trump’s global priorities, or to extort nations into investments in the United States. Some of Trump’s tariff threats seem to reflect only personal pique.
The behavior of the administration in assessing global tariffs stands in stark contrast to the ideals expressed in Mike Johnson’s conservative principles. And the Republican-dominated Congress has expressed nary a peep in protest. It’s clear that the ideal of free markets is no longer a part of the conservative paradigm.
7 Human Dignity
Of all the betrayals of conservative principles by the Trump administration, the betrayal of human dignity is the worst. Johnson writes: “Every human life has inestimable dignity and value, and every person should be measured only by the content of their character.”
The Trump administration has made the persecution of illegal immigrants the centerpiece of its domestic policies. The Republican persecution of immigrants and unjust policing of people of color is racism disguised as the rule of law. Cruelty and intimidation are the hallmarks of administration policies toward all immigrants, legal and illegal. The administration constructed concentration camps to detain immigrants while their cases are being adjudicated; the number of detained individuals has fluctuated around 60,000 to a high of 73,000. The administration has denied sanctuary to immigrants seeking asylum, who would face threats to their lives if deported. The administration has deported immigrants, including unaccompanied children, to third countries where they have no means of support. The administration has moved to end Temporary Protected Status of hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants, and has eliminated processing of legal asylum claims.
Both Federal and local conservative governments have conducted campaigns of harassment against trans-sexual individuals, including members of state legislature or Congress. Republicans at all levels have tried to restrict LGBTQ rights.
The U.S. military has conducted extra-judicial killings of at least 238 people in small boats off the coast of South America, with no attempt to gather evidence of supposed crimes. The military is planning to live-stream the firing-squad execution of a military convict later this year, in a barbaric display disregarding human dignity.
The administration has devalued human diversity in every context, including limiting the promotions of Black and female military officers. The administration has restrained freedom of speech among foreign students and scholars. The administration has repressed news media critical of the administration and even forced comedians off network programming. The administration has cut critical aid to underdeveloped nations, contributing to unnecessary deaths of an estimated 762,000 people, including 500,000 children. If the funding cuts persist, estimated deaths will reach 14,000,000 by the year 2030. The administration has also undercut key international organizations working to preserve human well-being, include the World Health Organization, the U.N. Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The administration has supported repressive, dictatorial and authoritarian governments worldwide, which restrict the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, rights of sexual identity, orientation, and reproductive choice, and the rights of women and minorities among their own citizens. And again, the Republican Congress has supported the administration fully, through funding and rhetoric, in denying human dignity and human rights to vast swaths of humanity.
The idea that Republicans support human dignity is hypocritical gaslighting. The visible actions of the Trump administration and Republicans make a mockery of that claim.
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Conclusion
The Republican paradigm comprises a set of principles and beliefs that have guided Republican voters, politicians and policies for at least half a century. That paradigm has been extraordinarily cohesive and persuasive to voters. The political success enjoyed by Republicans has allowed implementation of these ideas into national government and law.
But political success does not equal practical success. Implementation of the Republican paradigm has revealed flaws and anomalies contrary to the expected results. We are not experiencing the benefits of conservative government as promised. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Core conservative concepts and policies are leading to intractable problems that they were supposed to solve.
The pillars of the Republican paradigm have failed in three ways.
First, there are ideas which are fundamentally flawed or so poorly defined as to be useless. First among these is the idea of the unbounded pursuit of small government. Republicans never say what the ideal size of government should be, or what functions government should strive to achieve – only that government should be small. Comparison against other industrialized democratic countries shows that active government enabling a robust private economy is the consensus governmental model. Modern societies require large, active government to provide the landscape for private enterprise to succeed. That landscape includes major infrastructure for transportation, energy and information, social development including education and fairness of opportunity, protection against harm from natural and human causes and responsible protection of the environment. Without these things, society does not reach its full potential, or creates disproportionate harm to the population or to future generations.
Second, contradictory ideas are ideas within the paradigm that work against other principles within the paradigm. The prime example of this is fiscal responsibility. Republicans claim to be fiscally responsible, but every Republican administration has increased federal debt more than Democratic administration. Republicans want low taxes and large military spending, but those policies result in higher deficits. You simply cannot have your cake and eat it too, and Republican principles, when realized in government, reliably produce high deficit spending and fiscal irresponsibility.
Third, there is the wholesale abandonment of Republican principles by the Trump administration. For the most part, the Republican establishment has completely abandoned its principles in obedience to Donald Trump. Today, there is nothing about the Trump administration that reflects Republican moral principles of any kind.
Consequences of insufficient government include inadequate education, environmental damage, loss of public health, impaired economic growth, etc. It is difficult to draw a direct causal line from societal ills back to the Republican principle of limited government, but the connection is real. Republicans need to recognize those connections for themselves for conservatism to develop a better paradigm from the ashes of the old paradigm.
Over time, failed paradigms are generally replaced by a new set of shared theories and beliefs, but it will be a long time before the failure of the Republican paradigm is adequately refuted. Democrats should challenge the flawed ideas of the Republican paradigm in political debate. Rather than debate specific policies of child care subsidies, Democrats should ask Republicans to identify the critical functions of government, and demand that they say what they mean by limited government. Democrats should challenge Republicans on fiscal responsibility, when federal debt has risen to $40 trillion under Republican leadership. Most of all, in communicating with voters, Democrats must connect the Republican paradigm to failures in outcomes for government and society.
Criticizing the failed Republican paradigm prompts a further question: what is the Democratic party paradigm? Previously, this blog earlier reported on the values of the Democratic party, expressed in the Preamble to the Alaska Democratic Party Platform. I think it’s time to develop a Democratic paradigm that flows from those values to governmental policies. The paradigm should be easily understood and capture the essence of what it means to be a Democrat. Without a cohesive paradigm of their own, Democrats will continue to be mischaracterized by the opposition, and fail to inspire voters.
