A Place at the Table

In order to confront the chronic problems facing urban America, the Republican Party

might have to split itself in two.

Back in 2008, Massachusetts education-reform activist James Peyser suggested that in order for Republicans to regain a foothold in New England, Republicans in the region would have to differentiate themselves from the national GOP. He wrote, “Defining a distinctly Massachusetts style of conservatism may not be enough to change the tarnished Republican brand. A name change might also be in order, to symbolize the fresh start and create some distance from the national party. In Minnesota, the local Democratic Party is called the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Maybe here in Massachusetts--or across New England--the GOP should start calling itself the Independent Republican Party.”

Republicans who are serious about competing in the major cities and having an opportunity to improve public education and public safety might want to consider doing something similar. The major cities aren’t Democrat-dominated by accident: the political imbalance in these cities stems from the perception by residents that Republicans either don’t know or don’t care about their concerns.

In the urban American worldview, Republicans are cold, amoral, obsessed with cutting vital social services because they believe those services are too expensive and/or unconstitutional. Residents of these cities might be receptive to candidates who propose workable solutions to chronic urban problems, but not if those candidates have a “typical Republican” image.

It is precisely because the Tea Party movement is exerting so much influence on the national GOP that Republicans who want to compete in the major cities must distance themselves from the national party. How many Tea Partiers come from the major cities? It’s wrong to describe the movement as racist in nature, but it’s not wrong to describe the movement as suburban in nature. The anxieties of suburban America are reflected in the Tea Party movement: a concern about excess government spending, a fear that one’s children and grandchildren will be forced to endure a lower quality of life because of increasing taxation. These concerns are distinct from the concerns of urban America, where residents need government to work, where the immediate concern is not about whether one’s children and grandchildren will have a better quality of life, but whether one’s children and grandchildren will even have a chance to live.

The Tea Party vision—the one that has, at least rhetorically, moved the GOP back to limited-government conservatism—and the urban Republican vision are in direct conflict. One vision asks that the government leave him or her alone; the other vision concedes that government services are vital, and seeks to raise the quality of those services. Republicans can, and must, compete in the major cities—but Republican candidates in these cities have to make it clear that the tone of the national party just isn’t their cup of tea.