Republicans Run Amok in the Fight to Define the American Right
No more true has a description been bestowed to Mitch McConnel than, “...a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack.” Apt even when delivered by Donald Trump. Despite McConnell failing to vote to convict the former president, his description of the Capitol insurrection is damning, “...an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out…” There is no love loss to be found here. Don’t we hope expected 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley, is right when saying of the former president, “I don't think he's going to be in the picture... I don't think he can. He's fallen so far.” However, if Trump subsequently rejecting a meeting with her is any indication, it is Haley’s political future that remains up in the air. The punches thrown last week are telling. Don’t look now folks, but it seems we find ourselves in the opening rounds of a genuine knock-down-drag-out political brawl.
The 2020 election, of course, stewarded this divide. A divide only fueled forward by Trump's continued contestation, the subsequent loss of the Senate, and headlined by the Capitol insurrection. Now, a month into the new administration, this fervor has found outlets in high level political theatre. Preempting the Senate impeachment trial, the House Republican Caucus delivered the first proxy. It came in the form of a vote on Conference Chair Liz Cheney’s leadership position after her vote to impeach Trump, and at the same time a vote to retain inflammatory freshman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments. While they managed to uphold Cheney’s position and Greene’s assignments (though Greene was immediately revoked by the House at large) the cleavages were apparent. There is an old guard holding on despite falling out of step with much of the party’s direction, and a rising Trump oriented faction residing in and propagating a radical fantasyland.
The impeachment trial escalated tensions and delivered the past week’s spat. McConnell and Haley’s statements were a clear and uncontestable revocation of the ex-president - ones not taken back lightly - and serve as a clear bright line drawn by powerful voices in the GOP. Of course, the most outspoken critics came through the 7 senators who voted to convict the president. The most bipartisan vote in an impeachment trial, and delivered a clear but factional indictment of the former president. It was the reaction of the state level republicans that indicated where the party itself lies, with many censuring or those casting the votes. The battle lines are being drawn. With Trump’s shadow looming large over the party, and clearly interested in maintaining his position, the old guard and former president’s popular but radical faction are found in a struggle for power.
This is not a divide relegated to party leadership, but, and perhaps more importantly, reflective of a larger discord among the voting base itself. This was most recently indicated in a Gallup poll. When asked if a third party was needed 63% of registered Republicans indicated yes. This was an all time high for the group and a 23% increase since the last time tabulated. Alongside this, a 44% plurality of Republicans thought the party ought to move in a conservative direction.
Now at risk of reading too far into the polls, the desire for a third party does not mean there is any real viability for one. Rather it better indicates the current disunity of party leadership, and whether Trump loyalists can belong without him at the helm and vice versa for moderates. The more interesting question is related to ideological leaning. For all intents and purposes, Republicans don’t seem divided on policy despite the desire for ideological shifts from the voting base. Mitch McConnell has not attacked the former President’s Tax policy, and Trump doesn’t have very much interest in combating old guard Republican's on their immigration platforms. No, the divide and consequently what it means to be conservative, deals specifically with what happened in the last election.
The future of the Republican Party is centered around one chief issue: Was the 2020 election stolen by the Democrats? If not, is Donald Trump responsible for lying to his base, up to and including the incitement of the Capitol Hill Riot? While simple this divide is far more sinister than a policy disagreement. When it comes to policy the constituents that make up a party’s coalition can have conflicting positions. Ron Paul found himself at home in the Republican Party throughout the aughts despite his firm Anti Iraq war position, compensated instead by the parties commitment to tax cuts and further deregulation. Similarly, Bernie Sanders will work with Democrats in pursuit of remaking the healthcare system even when President Obama bailed out big banks, a chief enemy of his own. The pursuit of policy is a pragmatic not puratanical.
Conversely, what divides the Republicans, now, is an issue of existential disagreement - irreconcilable - an issue that splits the two camps into diametrically opposed realities. To believe that the election is stolen is to believe that American democracy has failed. Nation-states have dissolved into civil war for less. Any who defend election integrity don’t simply disagree, they are complicit in this failure and are actively working to further disenfranchise millions. The other camp’s reality is no less austere. To them, Donald Trump is actively perpetuating lies to his voting base. Conspiracies that definitively indict one’s own beliefs, and paint this position as antagonistic to democracy’s continuation.
Hope that the impeachment acquittal would calm the waters were dashed by Trump's announcement to speak at CPAC this weekend. Republicans haven’t delivered a cohesive post-election message, it is now likely Trump that will. This does not bode well for the Republican old guard who are determined to distance themselves from the president who managed to lose the oval office and both houses of congress. However, with 75% of Republicans hoping Trump remains a major part in the party, the old guard’s grasp on the base is tenuous at best.
A betting man, at this point, should contend Trump comes out on top. It is likely Trump who will decide what the American Right is based around into the future. While it may be the case that it is Trump who better represents the right, the old guard are correct to worry about the electoral ramifications of this coalition. Trump is unlikely to abandon election fraud allegations. How can Republicans win on a platform that requires independent voters reject reality? This is likely what lost the Georgian races, and that was prior to the Capitol Hill Riots. It is untenable now. This message, put front in center, cannot win in 2022 or 2024.
As an onlooker, there is no denying the schadenfreude in watching the GOP attack itself. One must do so with measured skepticism and determined dubiousness. The erratic nature of American Politics and uncertain outlook of world events makes any prediction rash. Surely, Biden and Dems can fall on their faces over the next few months, and a quest for new blood could outweigh the electoral damage of the current GOP identity crisis. However, as thing stand now, there is little future for a Republican Party based in a message that denies reality.