Far Right Is Too.........

In G.O.P., Far Right Is Too Moderate

In Virginia, Eric Cantor Trounced by David Brat

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The forces of political nihilism not only remain alive and well within the Republican Party, but they are on the rise. Witness the way they shook Washington on Tuesday by removing from power Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, who had been one of the most implacable opponents to the reform of immigration, health care and taxation. His crime (in addition to complacent campaigning)? He was occasionally obliged, as a leader, to take a few minimalist steps toward governing, like raising the debt ceiling and ending a ruinous shutdown.

For that he was pilloried in his Virginia district by a little-known resident of the distant extremes, David Brat, whose most effective campaign tool was a photo showing Mr. Cantor standing next to President Obama. By falsely portraying the seven-term incumbent as just another compromiser, just another accommodationist to the power of big government, Mr. Brat managed the unimaginable feat of bringing down a majority leader in a primary, and by double digits.

“Cantor is the No. 1 cheerleader in Congress for amnesty,” Mr. Brat wrote in The Richmond Times-Dispatch on Friday. This is utter nonsense. More than anyone else in the House, including Speaker John Boehner, Mr. Cantor was responsible for the chamber’s refusal to vote on the Senate’s immigration bill. He personally refused to allow a vote on an amendment to give legal status to undocumented immigrants who serve in the military.

He did publicly muse about the possibility of a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for children brought to the country illegally, perhaps aware that the long-term future of the Republican Party requires the support of some Hispanic voters. But after voting down the real Dream Act in 2010, he never brought his own bill to the floor. He sent fliers around his district saying the “Obama-Reid plan to give illegal aliens amnesty” would ignore the rule of law and “reward people for illegal behavior.” He was nonetheless called “amnesty-addled” by one of Mr. Brat’s talk-radio surrogates.

Mr. Cantor did vote repeatedly to raise the debt ceiling, as Mr. Brat likes to point out in his most irresponsible smear. But Mr. Cantor is better remembered as the leader who, along with Mr. Boehner, openly encouraged the House Tea Party class of 2010 to begin a series of high-stakes debt standoffs with the White House that nearly plunged the country over the brink of default. Having unleashed the most destructive political impulses of his party, he finally fell victim to them.

Those impulses continue to batter the party around the country, producing candidates who are light-years from the mainstream. Chris McDaniel, who has a strong chance of winning the June 24 runoff for the Republican nomination to Mississippi’s Senate seat, was the first to sign a new anti-immigrant pledge not to grant amnesty and to prevent growth of legal immigration. Joni Ernst, the new Republican nominee for Iowa’s Senate seat, is anti-amnesty, hates the Clean Water Act, and wants private Social Security accounts.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who won his primary on Tuesday, supports immigration reform but placated conservatives by regularly going on talk shows to bash Mr. Obama’s foreign policy and suggest the possibility of impeachment.

Mr. Brat will probably go to Congress next year, joining Republicans like these who will face a momentous choice for their party. Now that Mr. Cantor has agreed to step down, will he and other members of the leadership be replaced by even more divisive politicians determined to stage confrontations with the president at every juncture? Will they continue to ignore a stagnating economy, inadequate education and decaying cities? If they do, they will create an opening for Democrats. The majority of Americans remain appalled by this extremism and want better choices than the one in Virginia’s Seventh Congressional District.