n the year since Senator John McCain’s death, his shadow continues to loom over President Trump. McCain continues to represent the best of the Republican party, which remains a stubborn obstacle to Trump’s plans for America.
The endurance of the McCain-Trump rancor reminds us that the struggle between maverick and orthodox Republicans has deep historical roots. This year we mark not only the first anniversary of McCain’s passing (August 25), but also the 100th anniversary of the passing of the original maverick, Theodore Roosevelt. The long feud between McCain and the far right has instructively re-enacted the fierce battle between mavericks and conservatives that defined Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency and set the course for 20th century America.
At the dawn of both the 20th and 21st centuries, America’s defining issue was destabilizing wealth inequality due to massive technological change. While the Democratic party of each century flirted with socialism to address this challenge, Republican opponents — traditionally supportive of big business — split between two groups. On one side, orthodox Republicans advocated the same pro-business policies that had created wealth in the preceding decades. They believed that since their forebearers’ policies had worked in the past they would still work in the present, despite an obvious shift in the nation’s economic landscape. These Republicans and their business allies also profited handsomely off the status quo, so perhaps their orthodoxy lay in self-interest as well. On the other side, a minority of reform-minded Republicans felt that decades-old policies needed modification to address the new century’s challenges.
The reformers of both centuries were led by remarkably similar men: . Each was war hero, conservationist, beloved by media elites, named after his father, and of the same military rank (a colonel in the Army and a captain in the Navy, respectively, one rank below having a star on his chest). Each abhorred the Democrats’ growing fondness for socialism, and revered the Republican giants of old. However, he found he not only had to fight bad ideas from Democrats; a majority of his own party was also inflexibly infatuated with outdated ideologies. His Republican nemesis became a party boss from the industrial Midwest near the Ohio River. This nemesis, a cunning Senate parliamentarian with deep-pocketed allies in the party and the fossil fuel industry, did whatever he could to thwart the maverick insurgency and retain personal and partisan power. The maverick and his nemesis fought each other just as fiercely as they fought the Democrats.
Fortunately for Americans of the 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt won his reformist insurgency against Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio and the orthodox Republicans, and enacted the Square Deal Economics that launched the American Century. Teddy forced the Republican Party to abandon the unstable laissez-faire capitalism of the 19th century in favor of more appropriate policies that addressed the nation’s new challenges — specifically, his historic “trust-busting.”
Unfortunately for 21st century Americans, John McCain lost his insurgency against Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump. McCain fought valiantly against their mistaken ideologies as well as against slander, far-right blowhards, big money and brain cancer, but in the end his legacy remains incomplete.
In order for mavericks in both parties to start winning again and help America thrive in the 21st century, we must understand the factors that helped Teddy prevail but deserted the equally talented McCain. Fortunately, we have some clear answers.
Continue to the Bulwark