DEMS, GOP FACE INTERNAL BATTLES
With the election behind us and a new president getting to work, the Republican and Democratic parties are already getting back to fighting their internal battles. And the way they’re going about it shows just how different these two parties are: what’s important to them, what binds them together and breaks them down, and how they define themselves.
For Democrats, it’s about ideology and policy. For Republicans, it’s still about Donald Trump.
Let’s start with the GOP. As much as some in the party might like to make a clean break with the former president, he still looms over everything — and for those who continue to support him and his style of politics, how much loyalty everyone demonstrates toward him is still the most important question to ask.
That’s true for many in Congress, and it’s true at the state level as well. The Oregon Republican Party, for instance, just passed a deranged resolution declaring that “The violence at the Capitol was a ‘false flag’ operation designed to discredit President Trump, his supporters, and all conservative Republicans.”
Meanwhile, in Arizona, the state party officially censured Cindy McCain, former Sen. Jeff Flake, and Gov. Doug Ducey for various crimes of insufficient devotion to Trump.
By all appearances, this will continue to be the defining ground on which internal Republican conflicts are fought:
How pure is your loyalty to Trump? Have you faltered in your devotion to him? Though they may despise the Democratic policy agenda, Republicans can barely be bothered to argue with each other about the details of taxes or health care or climate change. It’s just about Trump.
And while there are Republicans who wish they could be rid of him, when it really matters their own self-preservation will demand that they get in line. You’ll see this when the Senate completes its trial in Trump’s second impeachment.
There were a number of Republicans who criticized Trump in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, but they’ve since come to the same conclusion they did in his first impeachment: No matter how repugnant his actions were, their own interests demand that they line up behind him.
For all the discussion of whether Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and others will vote to convict, they won’t. In all likelihood, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, will once again be the only vote against Trump; at most, one or two others may join him. To do otherwise would be to risk the wrath of the conservative media, the party base, and Trump himself.
And the Democrats? It may come in part from the luxury of being in charge, but for them what matters right now is policy. And also personnel, because as the saying goes, personnel is policy.
That’s not to say the fights might not be intense; for instance, one group of liberals has started what they’re calling #NoHoneymoon to communicate to Biden that they will not give him anything like support or indulgence as he begins his presidency.
I happen to think that if you communicate that you’ll offer the administration nothing but opposition then it’s easy for them to treat you like background noise and not take your demands seriously. Not only that, Biden’s early policy and personnel choices have been about as good as anyone on the left could have expected.
But whatever you think of the tactics used by one or another group on the left, for all of them the focus is on the substance of governing.
No one in the Democratic Party seems to particularly care whether anyone else is loyal to Biden, not even Biden himself. They certainly aren’t demanding performative demonstrations of loyalty. For Democrats and progressives, there are much more important things to argue about.
These internal conflicts can be problematic at times for both parties. But wouldn’t you rather be the one arguing about policy — what should be done, what should be prioritized, how to approach problems — rather than the one arguing about who remains loyal to a disgraced, defeated ex-president?