Is The GOP Schism Finally Going To Happen?

Separating the hard core MAGA wing from the GOP may be the only way to get America back to more normal politics

The two dominant American political parties have proven sufficiently robust and adaptable over the past 160 years to fend off serious competition from minor parties while at the same time avoiding internal divisions causing them to break apart – or in other words, schism. Trump and Trumpism, however, have stressed the modern Republican Party to the breaking point. Schism may be the best way to heal both the GOP and American politics.  But it remains to be seen what pathway the GOP will choose.

The modern day Democratic and Republican parties emerged just before the Civil War and survived through the tumultuous period of Reconstruction. Even the pressure created by long losing streaks – as Democrats did in the so-called Gilded Age and Republicans did from the Great Depression until the Reagan era – failed to result in new competitors arising or a faction of an unsuccessful party breaking away.

(Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose party in 1912 and Strom Thurmond’s Dixiecrats in 1948 are two notable exceptions, but neither of these schisms lasted more than one presidential election cycle. Ross Perot’s presidential candidacies in 1992 and 1996 were clearly the predecessor of both the Tea Party and MAGA that are the subject of this post.) 

This long history of two-party stability would caution against predictions that our modern circumstances will lead to a GOP schism due to the emergence and persistence of Trumpism. But one would also have said the same about the prospects that during a time of historic inflation and rising crime the party of an incumbent president with low approval ratings would have a reasonably successful midterm election. We live in turbulent and unpredictable times.

The possibility of schism in the GOP has been present for the past decade. The GOP’s defeat in the 2012 presidential election rang alarm bells for the party. This was the fourth loss in the popular vote in the past five presidential elections (a tally that now stands at seven of the past eight). An additional frustration was that Republicans lost Senate seats in Indiana and Missouri that it should have won because far-right Tea Party candidates prevailed in GOP primaries. The exact same thing had happened previously in the red-wave mid-term election of 2010 election, in which Tea Party candidates beat establishment candidates in GOP primaries in Delaware, Nevada, and Colorado, but then lost in the general election and deprived the GOP of a Senate majority. Intra-party unrest cost the GOP possible control of the Senate for Obama’s entire second term.

An “autopsy” of the loss resulted in a Republican National Committee report calling for “a softer tone and broader outreach, includ[ing] a stronger push for African-American, Latino, Asian, women and gay voters.” An author of the report noted that “young voters are increasingly rolling their eyes at what the party represents and many minorities think Republicans don't like them or don't want them in our country.”  She also commented that “the party ‘needs to do better with women’ and needs to address the ‘unique concerns’ women voters have.”

But this “softer” approach was never implemented. For example, despite the RNC’s recommendation that the party embrace comprehensive immigration reform, 32 of 46 Republican senators voted against a bipartisan reform bill in 2013 and the GOP-controlled House refused to take the bill up. The national climate among GOP activists was so hostile to immigration reform that Marco Rubio, who was one of the authors of the bipartisan Senate bill, abandoned it in order to bolster his presidential ambitions.

Rubio’s immigration difficulties almost a decade ago typify the conundrum across a range of issues that continues to plague the GOP to this day. Policy positions that would make Republican candidates attractive to a majority of the general electorate are unacceptable to the GOP base (then the Tea Party, now MAGA). Time and time again, Republican-elected officials have made the calculation that they could not depart from the preferences of their base and continue to win GOP primaries. No matter how radical the demands of the base became, the party remained hand-cuffed to these voters. 

The emergence of Trump and Trumpism compounded this difficulty exponentially.

First, Trump fed the base the hardest line possible on the most divisive issues in America – immigration, abortion, guns, crime, gay and transgender rights, and race. The base embraced these hardline positions with enthusiasm, making it even more difficult for Republicans to move closer to where more voters are nationally.

Second, Trump appealed to base voters through a confrontational style of political discourse that had little to do with policy issues, except those that fueled the culture war.  Instead, he branded his political opponents as “enemies” and convinced his core voters that these opponents were undercutting their values, threatening their health and safety, and taking away their way of life. This identity-based politics traps Republicans into an inflexible “us vs. them” worldview that makes it difficult to appeal to independents and moderate voters of both parties.

Third, by elevating the stakes of politics to survival of a way of life, Trump convinced much of his base that maintaining power was more important than American democracy itself.  The MAGA base embraced the notion that 2020 election was stolen from Trump, characterized the mass riot at the Capitol on January 6 as justifiable political activity, and then supported multiple election-deniers with autocratic tendencies in primary elections, Fealty to these voters required many candidates to cast doubt on the electoral systems in which they were participating. Some would not even commit to honor election results if they lost. Again, this is a tough sell for moderates and independents. 

Before getting to the question of possible schism, it is important to emphasize how badly the GOP lost this past midterm. The historical trend of midterms trending against incumbent presidents plus the crushing inflation that affects every single voter should have made this a banner year for Republicans. Yet Democrats only lost nine seats in the House despite Joe Biden’s popularity falling as low as 37.5% on July 21 and not exceeding 43% since early January 2022. In contrast, Obama never dropped below 43% approval in 2010 and lost 63 seats and Trump hovered between 35-40% most of 2018 and lost 40 seats. Democrats’ competitiveness in the House, success in maintaining control of the Senate, and net-two gain in governorships (the most Democrats have controlled since 2009) cannot be interpreted as anything but a stunning defeat for the GOP.

The issue before the GOP is whether, in light of this defeat, it needs to make a hard break from Trump and Trumpism, even if that risks losing a substantial part of its base voters and the possibility that these voters form their own political movement outside the GOP. This is a step the party did not take in 2021, even after Trump lost the popular vote by 7 million votes, refused to concede the election, and then fomented a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol. The reason?  In the words of Senator Lindsay Graham, “We don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of taking back the majority without Donald Trump.” Graham’s observation may still be true two years later, but it appears from the 2022 mid-term results that the GOP does not have a “snowball’s chance” if it continues to embrace Trump, Trumpism, and Trump-endorsed candidates either. The party’s position may be “lose with Trump” or “lose without him.”

 So here are the options for the GOP, with Trump having announced his candidacy for the presidency:

1)    Hope that Trump wanes as a political force due to possible indictments and lethargy in his movement. A new leader emerges that the MAGA base will accept, mollifies “never Trump” Republicans, and appeals to independents. This is the Ron DeSantis strategy that it appears Rupert Murdoch has embraced.

It could work, but this is a narrow needle to thread. The MAGA base’s attachment to Trump is personal and visceral. It does not care a whit about the fortunes of the Republican party. And its grievances regarding establishment Republicans (or RINOs) are even more severe than its animus towards Democrats. If the pugnacious DeSantis challenges Trump and is embraced as the GOP savior, it will be very difficult, in my view, to bring along the entirety of the MAGA base. Schism is still a real possibility.

2)    Make a hard break from MAGA. Nominate a conservative (but non-MAGA) former governor for president and start to move the party toward its traditional right-center orientation. This is the schism option that could result in a break-away party forming and certain electoral defeat.  Even if true schism doesn’t occur, if a big chunk of the MAGA base are so disaffected by this move that they don’t show up at the polls, it probably means that the GOP loses the popular and electoral college vote again in 2024. But the GOP would be liberated to craft a new conservatism for the 21st century and possibly win national elections again in the future. 

3)    Allow a large and divided field compete with Trump for the presidential nomination and watch a repeat of 2016, where the MAGA base is large enough to give Trump plurality victories in enough states to win the nomination. Experience a repeat of the 2018, 2020, and 2022 general election defeats in 2024. The GOP faces the same issues confronting it now, but two years later. 

I am certain that option #2 is best for the country and our democracy. We need two parties that compete over ideas rather than battling over identity. My guess is, however, that the GOP will probably try for #1, but may still end up with #3.