New Orleans Peggy Noonan is an old school conservative Republican. She’s what used to be called a Reagan Republican. Comfortable, but not uncritical of the Bushes, she was an interesting barometer that made her column worth reading in various administrations. Trump undoubtedly sees her as a RHINO, Republic in Name Only. During the second term, she’s had trouble finding the middle ground where she likes to stand firmly, so I stopped paying any attention. Nonetheless, she wrote a surprising column on the eve of the US midterm elections. She called for a massive blue wave victory for the Democrats. Peggy Noonan as Republican heretic is definitely a new look, and worth attention given the way she’s committed to “on both hands” conservativism. She’s speaking to us, but it’s worth wondering who she’s speaking for, as well.
Her argument is that “a big, big wave is coming” not just from wildly motivated blue voters but “indignant red voters, too, and disappointed Trump-base voters, many staying home,” which is not unique, but then she hopes for an election where “the outcome is unmistakable. Let it be a clear and obvious rebuke – a rejection, a rebellion, a rout.” Go, ahead, you bad sister!
She wants to have the voters drown out the pre-and-post-election whining from Trump and his sycophants about the vote count and its procedures. She’s still a party loyalist of course, saying, “If MAGA take it full in the face on Tuesday, it will begin to shatter on the state level, where it matters. In that shattering, room will be created in which not fully MAGA figures can start to rise.” She’s nostalgic for the good old-time, small-town and DC establishment, not the new look populists on the Republican and Democratic side. She wants a GOP “with standards and driven by beliefs not resentments. A party for regular people, normal people…one that stays in touch with them and knows what’s going on in their neighborhoods.” Basically, she wants a Democratic Party wearing a Republican mask. True to her ideology and roots, she also wants the wave to shake up the Democrats. She wants them to turn away from socialism, pretending a couple of big city elections have the vandals ready to storm Rome, and tackle “the national emergency.”
Truth is, as the song goes, “you don’t always get what you want,” and she won’t be happy even with a Democratic tsunami, but it will let her keep her day job. If there’s the wave she wants, the Democrats will have to deliver and big time. She worries about “extremes,” but she must have forgotten the Obama administration and how little it delivered while in control of both houses of Congress. If the Democrats take Congress, the first order will be undoing some of the horror, starting with the draconian Big Bad Budget Bill and its attack on lower income working families. Trump’s war will still be a problem. Stopping the genocide and land grabs by Israel will be hard, but has to be on the list. Trump will still control the refashioned, stripped down “deep state” that he and Musk tried to reshape. They will have to make Congressional budget appropriations means something. The cleanup list is long.
They will also have to build coalitions with the Peggy Noonan Republicans with an eye to stop the steal in 2028. This will be a fight to recover territory and regain the high ground. Scaling higher mountains will have to wait until the road to get there is repaired and paved.