Transpartisan Note #130
by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner
New York Times writer, Ross Douthat, in his op-ed The Revolt of the Republican Strategists continues to flirt with the Transpartisan Matrix. In this article eviscerating It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump, the new book by Stuart Stevens (longtime Republican operative and chief strategist for Mitt Romney’s losing 2012 campaign for the presidency), he makes this arresting statement quoting Stevens:
“Being against ‘out-of-control federal spending,’ a phrase I must have used in a hundred ads, is a catechism of the Republican faith. But no one really believes in it any more than communicants believe they are actually eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ.”
Douthat continues saying:
Except that in point of fact, many communicants at a Catholic Mass [which Douthat often writes about being] do believe that they are actually eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ. And this is particularly true among the conservative Catholics whose votes were essential to the Republican politicians Stuart Stevens tried to get elected president.
We suggest that the voters Douthat identifies here tend to occupy the Order Right quadrant of the Transpartisan Matrix. They form an essential part of the core transpartisan constituency. They embrace order through tradition. What people believe matters.
At its best, politics tend to avoid fights over “belief” and seeks the best practical input from people with the widest range of faiths. Empowering diversity of beliefs forms one strand of American Exceptionalism. Fights over beliefs drain energy from efforts to find solutions.
Check out Douthat’s article. Find the matrix.
