Michael T. Hayes is Professor Emeritus of American Politics, Colgate University. His most recent book is “Incrementalism and Policymaking in the USA: Adaptations for a Partisan Age” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).
While moderate Republicans are typically branded as Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) for failing to enthusiastically embrace every element of President Donald Trump’s shifting agenda, they are right on almost every issue and the MAGA Republicans are wrong. We need more moderates, and we need the ones we have to have more courage.
Trump, Elon Musk and most Republicans in Congress believe government should be run like a business and treat government agencies as profit-making organizations. If they cost more than they bring in, they should be eliminated. The task of the reformer is not to make better public policies but rather to cut costs, primarily by firing people.
Properly understood, however, public policymaking involves addressing public problems as they arise. In 1854, Lincoln identified the legitimate function of government as doing for the community whatever people need to have done but cannot do, or cannot do as well, for themselves as individuals. Lincoln’s examples of legitimate programs included the maintenance of public order, infrastructure projects (he cited roads and schools) and programs to aid the needy and more.
This list could be expanded today to include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, airline safety and traffic control, environmental protection and storm tracking, among other things.
Both the DOGE cuts and the cuts contained in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act were largely indiscriminate, making no attempt to differentiate between programs that meet Lincoln’s criteria and those that do not. If Republicans who try to protect essential programs their constituents rely on from severe cuts are Republicans in Name Only, then so was Lincoln.
While Lincoln believed there would still be a need for some government “even if all people were just,” he did not advocate for an expansive government.
In Lincoln’s words, there is a need for some government, just “not so much government.”
For example, when government expands, it takes resources from the private sector. Accordingly, Republicans need to ask on a case-by-case basis whether even incremental expansions of the scope of government really make us better off. Moreover, Republicans should be especially wary of grandiose efforts, like the Green New Deal, to fundamentally transform society.
However, Republicans should also oppose radical policies when they are advanced by Republican presidents.
For example, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill will fundamentally transform our society by shrinking government. It is the kind of gamble with people’s lives that moderates will always find alarming.
The country needs moderate Republicans to start challenging much of what the Trump administration is doing. But this is not enough. We also need to reverse the steady decline in the number of moderate Republicans in the House and Senate. The Party of Lincoln is on life support. This is a national tragedy because the failure of Republicans to show any independence at all from Trump is the primary reason our democracy is in peril right now.
Central New York has been fortunate over the past four decades to have been represented by at least four moderate Republicans: James T. Walsh, John Katko, Richard Hanna and Sherwood Boehlert. We need contemporary moderates to run for office, and we need voters to remember how blessed we were by the independence and integrity of these four distinguished moderates. When moderate Republican candidates do emerge, give them money, work in their campaigns and, above all, vote for them.