7 years ago
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A GOP strategist explains why the Republican Party is about to break in two
"There will be the alt-right party; then there will be a center-right conservative party." — Steve Schmidt, interviewed by Andrew Prokop.
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Actually, what the article describes is not possible. The center-right party in the US is the Democratic Party. There is no space left (no pun intended) for the GOP to split.
They've been making this same nonsense argument for literally as long as there has been a Republican Party. You tell me, how are the Mugwumps doing these days?
The party will evolve, it will adapt, there will certainly be a change in leadership, but the GOP will move on and be just fine.
Ordinarily, I'd be right there with you. Every new headline about a "civil war" in the Republican Party turns my stomach a bit more than the last. The most nauseating was a couple of weeks worth of sham "GOP civil war" stories around the re-election of John Boehner as Speaker of the House. In the actual event, they agreed to not even hold a vote. Some war of brother against brother that was. However, to give Steve Schmidt his due, he was effectively the campaign manager for McCain/Palin, the dangers of which were not lost on him, and he recognized correctly as he put it "There are worse things than losing." His upshot here may be bullfeathers, but from him I'll take it to mean more than when the usual hacks say it.
Be that as it may, these stories are nothing more than meaningless distractions. There isn't going to be a "split" in the Republican Party, there's going to be a purge at the top. This election cycle has proven that the division isn't among two competing wings of the GOP, the division is between leadership and the rest of the Party. Now some of this is because leadership is completely out of touch with the base, but a lot of it has to do with the base shifting back to the more traditional Republican values and away from the Koch/Tea Party dominated far right Christian extremism.
EDIT: Fixed an unintentional (if somewhat appropriate) typo.