Status-Influence Disequilibrium

Andrew C. McCarthy writes in National Review about the current GOP race for the nomination, and what is behind the choices made so far. He riffs on a concept developed by David Brooks - Status-Income Disequilibrium - and modifies it to fit the current GOP mess.

The story of the race is not Trump. The story is the emphatic popular rejection of Republican party leadership. Combined, the anti-Washington forces have won two-thirds of the vote and over three-fourths of the delegates.

Most remarkable is the SID phenomenon: the higher one’s status in Republican leadership, the less one’s influence over Republican voters, and hence over the GOP nomination battle. SID leads us to a final bit of Washington un-wisdom: the purportedly pressing matter of “uniting the party.”

That is the wrong way to look at it. What needs changing, desperately, is the Republican party. The establishment needs to make itself acceptable to supporters of these candidates (i.e., Trump, Cruz), not the other way around.

One way or the other, though, when the Trump dust finally settles, it will be clear that the Republican party as currently constituted is unsustainable. The people who oppose what the Left is doing to the country want an opposition party. The Republican establishment has shunned that role, preferring to be Washington than to fight Washington. The people are looking elsewhere.

Heads up, Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell. Andy McCarthy is talking to you and the 0.1% fat-cat donors.