The Republican Party is at a
difficult crossroads, especially after the insurrection of January 6. The party
has already split into at least four factions:
1. The first group we can call Principled
Republicans Who Stayed. This is a rather small group. It includes politicians
such as Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, Liz Cheney, Larry Hogan, and John Kasich, as
well as a few Republicans such as George Conway (husband of Kellyanne) and some
members of the Lincoln Project who strenuously opposed Donald Trump. These
individuals live in the real world of facts and laws and conservative
principles, such as they are. They have endured Trump but have spoken out against
at least his most extreme outrages, all while trying to remain loyal to what
they consider true conservatism.
2. The second group would then be Principled
Republicans Who Left. This is also a relatively small group. It includes such
individuals as Steve Schmidt, longtime GOP strategist who is now registered as
a Democrat; columnists George Will and Max Boot; and Peter Wehner, a senior fellow
at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. These people believe the Republican Party
no longer exists, so they are politically homeless.
3. The third group is what we
might call the Unprincipled Conservative Opportunists. This faction
includes Senate Minority Leader (my, that sounds good!) Mitch McConnell and a
whole host of Republicans in Congress who know full well how corrupt Donald
Trump is but opposed certifying the Electoral College vote because of either fear
of getting primaried by someone in group 4 or fear of having Trump tweet at
them (there is much overlap here, but the level of cowardice is the same).
These people have no moral core but simply blow with the wind and try to take
advantage of it for personal benefit.
4. The fourth group is the
largest. I’ll call these people Disinformed Trump Supporters. (We should
recognize the difference here between misinformation, which is simply inaccurate
information that is generally unintentional, and disinformation, which is inaccurate
information spread with the intent to deceive, such as the claim that there was
widespread election fraud.) This group is massive and includes not just Ted
Cruz and Josh Hawley, but also Burgess Owens, Chris Stewart, and Mike Lee of
Utah, as well as the roughly 70 percent of the Republican Party who still
believe, despite no evidence to support this belief, that Trump actually won
the election and that there was widespread fraud. (“It’s out there somewhere,
we know, even though Trump’s lawyers couldn’t present a shred of it in court.”)
These people either believed the lies or intentionally used them to try to keep
Trump in office. The Constitution and our democratic republic are collateral
damage in their war against reality.
Somewhere in the past four years,
this fourth group became by far the largest, and at that point, the Republican
Party transformed itself from an anti-Democratic party, which it has always
been, to an antidemocratic party, meaning that it was willing to throw
democracy under the bus in order to retain power.
Because of the divisions listed
above (with possibly dozens of smaller fractures), I believe the GOP may be on
the verge of splitting asunder. The upcoming impeachment trial of private citizen
Donald John Trump will tell us a lot about the future of the Republican Party. Rumor
has it that Mitch McConnell is finished with Trump and would like to convict
him and thus expel him from the party. McConnell has always been about one
thing: power. He has changed positions on various issues over the years and
even enabled Trump in his worst offenses, in order to keep himself in power in
the Senate. But the attack on the Capitol was a bridge too far, as was Trump’s
behavior leading up to the Georgia Senate runoff elections, which took the
Senate leadership out of McConnell’s hands. The questions now are: (1) Can
Mitch find sixteen other Republican senators who are willing to risk the anger
of Trump’s mob? and (2) Even if he can, will he be able to maintain his
position as minority leader? I’ve seen both the courage and the moral compass
of the majority of Senate Republicans, so I’m dubious about answering either of
these questions in the affirmative.
From all appearances, the largest
segment of the Republican Party is trapped in the right-wing media bubble,
angry, irrational, delusional, and determined to win by any means available,
even if that means embracing absurd lies, throwing the Constitution out the
window, and following a self-absorbed madman on whatever destructive crusade he
dreams up. So, where does this leave the other three groups?
I keep hoping that a few of the Principled
Republicans will leave the GOP to the insane mob and form a new center-right
party, draw in some of the Unprincipled Conservative Opportunists and
even a few moderate Democrats or unaffiliated voters, and give battle to the GOP
for the soul of conservatism. I’m not sure they could prevail. Social media is
all on the side of lunacy and extremism, after all, but at least they could
prevent the corrupted GOP from winning elections. Over time, as failure sets
in, this might eventually lead a few of the less wacko group 4 members to come
to their senses and flee to the new party.
If my hope is ill-placed, then
there is only one future for the GOP, and that is to become a party of angry
grievance, white supremacy, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and
antidemocratic demagoguery. It will eventually shrivel and die. But the damage
it will do on the path to political perdition will be immense.
These possibilities present a
difficult decision for many Latter-day Saints (since most Mormons are Republican).
If the party splits, this may make the decision easier. If LDS Republicans are
principled, they would of course leave the GOP and join with other principled conservatives
in forming a new party, much as the original Republicans did when they said
goodbye to Whigdom over slavery. If they are not principled—in other words, if they
want to live in an alternate reality where facts are flexible and they can
chase after crazy conspiracy theories and drink the Kool-Aid of disinformation
being concocted in the right-wing media bubble—then they may eventually find themselves bumping up
against Church guidance and prophetic counsel. The Church has already started
trying to rein in the extremists, with warnings in the Handbook about unreliable
sources of information and conspiracy theories, and public statements supporting
such responsible notions as getting vaccinated. It is already obvious that many
Latter-day Saints are going to choose their alternate reality over their religion.
This could create contention in the Church as reality-based Latter-day Saints
find it impossible to communicate with Church members who inhabit a different
universe.
If the GOP doesn’t split, then
things become even more difficult for principled Latter-day Saint Republicans.
If the party stays together, it appears that the dominant faction will be the Disinformed
Trump Supporters. Mitch McConnell will be pushed aside, replaced perhaps by
Ted Cruz or someone similar, who will push all the Trump buttons in an attempt
to keep the “base” riled up over nonexistent crises and petty grievances. Those
Church members who choose to stay in this party will find themselves supporting
not a political party but a cult with no real policy positions, driven by disinformation,
inflamed by increasingly irrational conspiracy theories, and open to an
increasing wave of white supremacy. Some Latter-day Saints will feel comfortable
in such a cult, but others will find themselves feeling increasingly alienated.
They may still vote “R” on election day, but they will find it harder and harder
to get excited about supporting the types of candidates who will rise to the
top in such a party.
It will be interesting to see how
this all plays out. A lot will be revealed the second week of February, when
Donald Trump goes on trial in the Senate for instigating an attempted overthrow
of democracy.
