Two Cheers for William Weld
Photo by Gage Skidmore.
President Trump will have a challenger in his own party in 2020: William Weld.
For the uninitiated, William Weld is a truly moderate Republican who was the governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997. He’s is probably as out of step with the modern GOP as they come: he is pro-choice, was pro-gay rights before it was even cool. He is in many ways something out of the long ago past.
The reaction from the conservative punditocracy has been a shrug, even from NeverTrumpers. S.E. Cupp sees him as useless. Tom Nichols sees him as too establishment to take on Trump. Damon Linker is not a NeverTrumper, but he thinks only a Trumpist could take on Trump. Matthew Walther sees him as an annoying trend.
Weld is the product of a Republican Party that no longer exists, one that was a bit more heterogeneous when it came to ideology. He is a throwback, and he won’t send today’s more conservative/libertarians atwitter. He has no chance of winning. None. Zippo. Nada.
But I am glad he is running.
If you are wondering why all you have to do is read the Mueller Report or the various takes from the media. To say it doesn’t portray a flattering portrait of President Trump is a gross understatement. We’ve all known that the president is incredibly morally compromised, but the Mueller Report shows just how corrupt the president truly is. We see a man that operates less as the Commander in Chief and more like a mob boss. He is the man that wants, demands loyalty, but will not show loyalty to others. When John McCain died in August 2018, he delayed in putting the flag in the White House at half-mast. He sees the Attorney General as his personal lawyer instead of the chief law officer for the nation. I don’t think I need to mention that he lies consistently because he does it as often as breathing.
If the President were a Democrat, he would be attacked by Republicans for such a horrible moral character. But in this case, he is a Republican and the party has stood by him for the most part- a sign of our increasing political polarization. Republicans might think he is a son of a bitch, but he is their son of a bitch and they have to support him.
Over the last few decades, Americans started to see the role of the president as just another job. What mattered is what the president could do for our certain group. The first sign of this took place back in the 1990s when we learned about Bill Clinton’s indiscretions. But Trump has taken it to eleven. He acts like a cretin and conservatives shrug. In their minds, as long as he brings the judges, they will look the other way.
Trump is a strongman leader, no different than other strongmen like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey or Victor Orban in Hungary. Trump has been hemmed in by some constitutional guardrails so far, but he is still one that seeks to rule ruthlessly. It doesn’t matter how he lives; what matters is making sure he rewards his followers and seeks to punish his enemies.
Even as people have started to see the presidency as less than a moral position and more of a job to rule, Americans have sought out the President in times of crisis. One can remember George W. Bush standing on the rubble of the World Trade Center days after the September 11 attacks telling the workers he could hear them, and that soon, the people who knocked down the towers would hear from America. Or Bill Clinton showing visible anger after the Oklahoma City bombing. Or Ronald Reagan visiting an African American family in Maryland after a cross was burned on their front lawn. All of these examples show the President as a moral leader, speaking for the nation. Being a moral leader doesn’t mean these people were perfect, but these Presidents knew they had to step up to the office. It is about realizing that they are not just a leader, but also a servant to the people of the United States.
Which leads us back to William Weld. Weld is not going to win, but we need someone who can pose a challenge to conservatives: does character matter in the office of President? Does it matter how they live? Does it matter how they see the office of President? As Kevin Williamson notes, there needs to be a place where Republicans can express their dissent about Trump, and it will also measure if there are still Republicans who care about character and honor.
Trump wants not to have to defend his record. He is going to press on state parties to pledge their support for Trump to fend off any challengers. He has muted any dissent from Republican politicians by making them fearful of a primary challenge from a Trumpist. Weld is going to remind voters of Trump’s record. Since he is not a current politician, he can feel free to criticize Trump – from within the party.
The thing is, Weld is the only one to challenge Trump. Never Trumpers talk a good game, but there has never been an effective defense against Trump. Never Trumpers could not stop him during the 2016 primaries to take on Trump. So, 2020 is the last chance to at least stand up to him, to at least make Trump a little uncomfortable.
So, I’m going to support Weld, because it just might be the last time for those on the center-right to stand athwart history and tell Trump “no.”
Great piece, Dennis! One thing I would note: primary challengers almost never win. But they often will weaken a candidate enough to lose — Bush in ’92, Ford in ’76 — and set up the next election: the GOP in ’94, Reagan in ’80. Maybe a Weld challenge gets the GOP back to sanity.Report
It will be fun to contrast the reception of Weld’s announcement by the Left with the way they treated Howard Schultz. And if Weld can weaken Trump enough, then Michael Siegel’s points are all valid. As much as I dislike most of the Democratic candidates that have announced so far, and probably won’t actually vote for them, I will take any of them over Trump.Report
Schultz’ plan would make Trump’s reelection more likely.
Weld makes it a tiny bit less likely.
It’s an easy choice.
And in the off chance one of them actually pulls off their crazy scheme, I’d much rather have Weld in the White House than Schultz.Report
I’m a bit of an idealist here. Everyone that wants to run should get their chance.Report
One cheer for running
Two cheers if he gets others to run
Three cheers if one of the others win
Two cheers if the other winner is Jeb!/Rubio? etc.
One cheer if the winner is Weld.Report
I wish Weld the best, but I really do think this is a vanity project on the order of Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee running for the Dem nom in the last cycle.
The political space to defeat Trump in the primaries is simply not held by Weld, who has been, as some of the critical pieces you linked to note, been pretty much in the oort cloud of Republican politics since his gubernatorial term was up.
If anything, though it didn’t work last time, a ‘center-right’ person should set (should continue to set) themselves up as a third party spoiler to poach some Trump votes in close states.Report
The general consensus is that the primary is where someone runs as far left/right as they can and then, in the general, they run back to the center.
We see a lot of weird and goofy arguments on the left now where they’re taking turns saying things that the center might find baffling were they paying attention. (“Boston Bomber” was trending on twitter the other day, for example. Good job, guys!)
Trump was nutty not because he was running a right vs. left campaign but because he was running a populist vs. elitist campaign.
Having a conservative to hold up against Trump would be interesting, I guess… but the problem with Trump isn’t that he’s on the right. It’s that he’s a populist.
But it’s good for Weld to be running. If anything, a reasonable case could be made that he’s to Trump’s right.Report
Did you know that is some status you can lose your right to vote for awaiting trial in custody because you could’t afford bail? I think that’s worth discussing, even if the Right Wing Noise Machine immediately goes to “Terrorists!”Report
The state can confiscate your stuff! You then have to prove that the state shouldn’t have and the burden of proof is on *YOU*!
Better support Police Unions harder, I guess.Report
Boy, I remember when asking people gotcha questions about extreme edge cases and then laughing at their answers was super fun; at least, that’s what happened with Gary Johnson and drivers’ licenses.Report
If the divide is between establishment and populist (broadly defined) would Weld really be running to his right or to his South? Or is it North – not sure if we’ve established where or which axis populism sits.
I think you are right that casting Right/Left as *the* key divide is looking at things the wrong way, but I agree (more or less) with Linker that a Libertarian Establishment or Neo-Con Establishment challenge are just tails hoping the dog wags.
But, and I’ve been saying this for ages… at least all the way back to 2016, Trump isn’t a movement, and until the moment institutionalizes into some sort of movement (a’la Reagan after Goldwater and subsequently Ford) its either going to dissipate or snowball but either way its going to lose focus and meaning… not necessarily in a good way.
What fascinates me still is the inability of the Republican Party establishment to institutionalize any sort of the populist critique. The entire party has bet 100% with no hedges that the moment will dissipate and this surprises me on a tactical and strategic level.Report
The entire party has bet 100% with no hedges that the moment will dissipate and this surprises me on a tactical and strategic level.
The only thing that makes sense to me is if they’ve internalized the whole “we may be bad, but at least we’re not democrats and after 8 years of democratic rule, the country will be ready for Republicans again, even if they just came down from someone as emotionally satisfying as Obama. We are free to do whatever we want. Trump is just a hiccup.”
This assumes that Republicans are capable of The Long Game, however.Report
I should qualify that I mean Republican Party Establishment rather the whole GOP tent. But yes, something along those lines… though I think its something rather less reflective… more of an assumption that Trump is a hiccup, and that things will drift back to “normal” all they have to do is ride out the wave.
And that might happen… I’m more surprised that someone from the respectable part of the party hasn’t attempted some sort of synthesis – even if only a pragmatic step for after Trump or when Trump goes to the big MacDonald’s in the sky. What’s odd, really, is even if there’s a certain amount of “grifters” driftering around Trump… he’s not building or even really attracting the people who want to build a new movement. Steve Miller (let’s assume he survives 4/8) years?… that’s about it… everyone else is either enjoying their maximal Peter Principal moment or playing along to extract whatever personal benefit they can.
Because absent some sort of synthesis/course correction… a large chunk of votes will be up for grabs and while negative partisanship is high, the anti-Democrat theory discounts (IMO) the anti-Neocon-Establishment theory.
Assuming that what comes after Trump is a return of Turn of the Century Republican Redux strikes me as… unlikely.Report
They are. Control of the judiciary means no successful challenges to gerrymandering and vote suppression means a boot stamping on a human face, forever. Trump doesn’t matter.Report
“If the divide is between establishment and populist (broadly defined) ”
Trumpian “populism” can only be defined as white cultural supremacist.
The “people” in his definition of “populism” are not Hispanic, or black. They aren’t recent college grads working at a gig job. They are farmers, but not farm workers. They own restaurants, but don’t work in them.
Seriously man, this word needs to be killed, burned, salted over and ground into dust.Report
Cool, so is Weld proposing a populism that includes Whites, Hispanics and Blacks?
What happens to the first person who does?
You are willfully misreading the comment, because the entire point is what happens when Trump is gone.Report
Kolohe gets it right. Weld is honorable and decent but he is a vestige from the past that no longer really exists except maybe in Massachusetts. The old WASP liberal Republican from the Northeast is largely dead. Weld might not have been the last of them but he is among the last of them. There used to be a time when a Massachusetts Democrat and Massachusetts Republican had more in common than they would with Democratic or Republican brethren from other states but that is no more.
I’d honestly be shocked if Weld even managed victories in the New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts Republican primaries. He is going to make some points which make really rich and allegedly “bipartisan” media types swoon. He might get some Very Serious People to love him because our Very Serious People are stuck in the 1990s and wish they can go back to those days of neo-liberal, globalist consensus when going to Aspen and Davos to be a lickspittle for CEOs got you praised instead of damned. But that is not the time anymore.
The GOP has gone almost full fascist by now. The Democratic Party is moving to the left. NeverTrumper Republicans should just admit they are a people out of time.Report
Our current president is a socially liberal, pro-safety net, protectionist New Yorker who was a Republican, then an independent, a Democrat, Republican, independent, then Republican.Report
I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I want to show you and can give you for a reasonable deal. Are you just trolling now or do you honestly believe this crap? Our current President is loved by Republicans because he appoints far-right wing judges (often young firebrands) who will hamper liberalism and civil rights for decades to come and has done more to make White Supremacy an official policy than any other President in recent decades. He is no social liberal, he is a stone-cold xenophobic racist suffering cognitive decline. Jerry Falwell Jr. and the Evangelicals would not support him under your description.Report
There are billions of people on earth at this moment who sincerely think that your opinions are nonsense.Report
Socially liberal, probably (at least on the republican curve), but his last budget went after the safety nets and prior to that he supported repealing the ACA with nothing to replace it with so any claim to pro safety net doesn’t pass the laugh test and can be chucked onto Trumps mountain of broken promises.Report
How is being a racist xenophobia socially liberal? How is appointing judges that Jerry Falwell Jr. loves socially liberal? How is appointing Betsy Devos socially liberal?
Can we stop this shit? Trump is a stone-cold reactionary fascist.Report
He was never a social liberal, just an opportunistic libertine. At best, he didn’t give a shit what other people did unless there was something in it for him. When he was a real estate developer/TV celebrity, there was nothing in it for him. As a politician, there is.Report
So…he occupies that place where nationalism and socialism intersect?Report
That’s spelled “libertine”.Report
Great piece. I know he doesn’t have a shot, but if by some miracle he does well enough to get to the PA primary I might change my registration back to GOP just to vote for him there.
Granted if I could really wish for something, it would be a latter day Teddy Roosevelt to found a Bullmoose Party to give all the non-Dems thoroughly disgusted with Trump a place to go. And maybe, just maybe, provide the rest of us with some real choices.Report
In 2016, Weld wouldn’t have made it out of the first kiddie debates. In Cleveland, those were between Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham, Carly Fiorina, Jim Gilmore, and George Pataki. But he didn’t even get invited because he ran on the libertarian ticket, where he at least did significantly better than Jill Stein of the Green Party.Report
I just read your comment and thought, “that Star Trek guy ran?”.Report