Sorry, Bulwark staff, but I haven't forgotten Tom Miller

1990 was the year I left the Democratic Party.

It was also the year I moved to Iowa from St. Louis. I'd lived in the Hawkeye State while attending seminary in Dubuque and doing my pastoral internship in Wright County in 1984. That year I'd been a delegate to the Democratic State Convention. I'd supported John Glenn for the presidency in the Caucuses but ended up in the Gary Hart camp by convention time.

I'd swallowed my ethical beliefs about abortion for years. After all, my views lined up with those of the Democrats on most other issues. But I was especially excited about being an Iowa Democrat again in 1990 because our obvious candidate for governor was also pro-life.

Tom Miller, the state's Attorney General, was one of the most popular Iowa politicians of either party. He'd run for that office and lost in 1974 but won a re-match with Republican Richard Turner in 1978 and served ever since. He ran again for the same office- and won- in 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018. Last time out, the Republicans didn't even bother nominating an opponent for him.

1990 was the year he seemed likely to become the state's first Democratic governor since 1969. His opponent was Gov. Terry Brandstad, and the popular Miller represented the party's best chance of reclaiming the Governor's Mansion in decades. His primary opponents were obscure and unimpressive.

Miller was- and is- an orthodox liberal Democrat on every issue except abortion. Needless to say, that was the issue his Democratic opponents emphasized. Never for a moment did I think that it would actually cost him the nomination. But it did.

Donald Avenson, the little-known State Senate President, won the primary with 39.45% to 31.63% for Miller. My first reaction was to be shocked. It made no sense. Avenson had no chance against Brandstad. And sure enough, Branstad got 60.61% of the vote in November, carrying 96 of Iowa's 99 counties.

Once I got over the shock of the primary result, its significance hit me. The Democratic voters of Iowa- knowing full well the likely consequences in November- had preferred an inevitable landslide defeat behind an obscure pro-choice candidate to a solid chance of victory with a pro-life candidate with whom they agreed on every issue except abortion.

They were willing to nominate him again for attorney general four years later and six times after that. He's now the longest-serving state attorney general in the nation. But there was a "glass ceiling," it seemed, for pro-life Democrats. They could run for other state offices, sure. But they could never be governor or a U.S. senator. Similarly, while they'd be willing to accept my vote, my contributions, and my work for the party and its candidates, I myself could at best be only a second-class Democrat.

Of course, I would later face the same situation as a Republican who disagreed with the party line on gun control and other issues. I can't say that my problem in fitting in was unique to the Democrats. Like most people who think for themselves, I'm someone who will never completely fit the mold in either party. But as time went on, the Democratic position on abortion became less and less tolerant and more extreme and strident. Defense of late-term abortions, too, became standard. During Bill Clinton's administration, the Democratic platform, while strongly supporting Roe v. Wade, nevertheless went out of its way to state that pro-life folks were nonetheless welcome in the party. That tone changed considerably during the Obama years.

With the GOP's hostile takeover by the Know-Nothings and Donald Trump, being a Republican is no longer an option for me. Many leaders of the "Never Trump" movement- people like Bill Kristol and Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell and Jonathan Last and others at The Bulwark, for example- are attracted to the idea of becoming what Tim (not Tom) Miller calls "Red Dog Democrats." They see a future for themselves as moderate conservatives who can somehow fit into the only remaining major party still committed to the rule of law, constitutional government, and reality. 

They can live with Joe Biden. So can I. I voted for the man and do not regret it. But I seriously doubt that he's going to run for re-election in 2024. I expect the nominee next time to be Kamala Harris, a woman I have a bit more difficulty seeing as a centrist.

If Donald Trump hadn't scared the daylights out of Democratic primary voters, Bernie Sanders would have been the nominee in 2020. Of that, I have no doubt. Those who see the triumph of the moderate wing of the Democratic Party last year as indicating where the party as a whole stands ideologically or will stand in the future seem to me to be fooling themselves. The new generation of Democrats is far to the left of their parents. I wish I could see Joe Biden or Amy Klobuchar as the future of the Democratic Party, but that strikes me as wishful thinking. After Joe, the deluge.

Three years from now, some Never Trumpers will doubtless have found a place in the Democratic Party where they can be comfortable. But the nation needs a center-right party. Even the existence of a moderate and responsible Democratic Party would not change the fact that a two-party system needs two credible political parties. The Republican Party will never again fit that role.

I expect it to disintegrate, much as the Whigs did. But when the Republican Party replaced the Whigs, they already had a party to replace them with. John Fremont may have lost the 1856 election, but without his campaign, it's difficult for me to imagine Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans being in a position to win in 1860.

Perhaps those on The Bulwark staff and others in the Never Trump movement could support Kamala Harris with no reservations. If the choice is restricted to Vice-President Harris and anyone the Republicans are likely to nominate in 2024, I'd undoubtedly vote for her myself. But I won't be happy about it, and I'll do it without enthusiasm.

A center-right party is an absolute necessity for a healthy democracy. There is simply no way around it. There is no way the Republicans can ever again fill that role, and the emergence of a rational alternative on the right is a historical inevitability. The only question is when it will happen.

I haven't forgotten Tom Miller. I understand the impulse to try to pull the Democrats back toward the center and make it once again a truly "big tent" of a party. I realize that American politics' party structure is fragile right now. The Democratic left might well break off and form a rump party of its own if it loses its coming ideological struggle with the centrists. 

But I don't expect it to lose that struggle any more than I expect the admittedly irrational Trump movement to act on the former president's threat and abandon the Republican Party despite owning it lock, stock, and barrel. Either outcome would be welcome. But welcoming an unlikely event result doesn't make it likely.

What is not just likely but absolutely sure is that America needs both a center-right party and a rational alternative to the Democrats. And the "Red Dog" option will provide it with neither.

A new party wouldn't necessarily split the anti-Trumpist vote. It could reserve the right to nominate an acceptable Democrat like Joe Biden on its own line if one was available. But until and unless we have some reason to think that the Democrats are willing to be a "big tent" again, it's hard for me to see them as a permanent option. And joining the Democrats simply will not address the fact that even a two-party system requires two credible parties.

Photo by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85901911