After big wins, GOP faces uncertain future
Many Republicans say party needs to pass tax reform to right ship.
— Less than one WASHINGTON year after Republicans won the White House and maintained control of Congress, party unity appears to have largely dissolved.
Just what this means is anyone’s guess, but some fear the rancor between populist sup
porters of President Donald Trump, staunch House GOP conservatives and more traditional Republicans could hamper Republican hopes to overhaul the tax code and may threaten the survival of some GOP candidates in next year’s congressional elections.
“There has been a pending civil war within the Republican Party that has been building since (George W.) Bush left office,” said Jeff Sadosky, a Republican strategist in Washington. “And the only thing that held it off was a lack of unified government. Now that Republicans hold the House, Sen- ate and the presidency, the fight looks that much more inevitable.”
The fight appears to have intensified in recent weeks.
In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Sept. 10, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon charged the “Republican establishment is trying to nullify the 2016 election.” That prompted GOP consultant Alex Conant to retort that Bannon is “more interested in destroying the modern Republican Party than winning elections.”
Arch-conservatives who helped elect Trump have also broke with him at times during his seven months in office.
When Trump forged a deal with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling and avoid a government default, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, and 89 of his
conservative allies dismissed pleas from senior administration officials and voted against the agreement.
A separate tentative deal announced by Trump about a plan to stop the deporta
tion of so-called Dreamers — those who came into the country under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arriv- als program — also angered some Republicans, who see a president suddenly seeming more interested in negotiat
ing with Democratic leaders Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., than in working with top Republicans.
Some incumbent Repub- licans, faced with primary challenges from ardent Trump supporters, are leav- ing Congress at the end of their terms. Seven House Republicans from safe seats are not seeking re-election, and Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona is fending off a primary chal- lenge from a Trump backer.
Sadosky said if the infight- ing continues, the party’s prospects for 2018 and 2020 could hang in the balance.
But others aren’t so sure. A Republican official deeply involved in next year’s congressional elec tions dismissed much of the hysteria as “noise that means absolutely nothing to normal people.”
“The most important thing for 2018 is whether Repub- licans cut taxes or not,” the Republican said. “If they do, 2018 will be good. If they don’t, 2018 will be bad. If we don’t deliver and we have no results, nothing else will matter.”
Nathan Gonzales, a con- gressional analyst for the non- partisan Inside Elections in Washington, said the party is struggling to deal with a pres- ident who he said does not have “a firm ideology.” With Trump “it’s about deal mak- ing, Gonzales said, “and that complicates the Republican coalition because he is willing to make deals that don’t match up with the traditional Republican ideology.”
The collapse this summer of congressional Republican efforts to scrap Obamacare
and adopt a more market oriented solution sparked recriminations rarely aired in public. Trump tweeted out sharp criticism of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and all but encouraged a primary challenger
against Flake, whom Trump described as “weak on bor- ders, crime and a non-fac- tor” in the Senate.
Barry Bennett, a Republican consultant who served as a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign, said Congress is to blame for the inaction on bills promised during last year’s presidential race.
“The registered Republi- can voter across the coun- try believes that the Congress and Washington have done almost nothing,” Bennett said. “It was the Congress which has run up $20
trillion worth of debt, hasn’t solved the immigration prob- lems, hasn’t been able to fix the health care problem, can’t pass a budget, and it doesn’t take Donald Trump to point that out to voters.”
Yet other Republicans say Trump has no one to blame but himself for the failure of the health bill.
After pushing House Republicans to pass a bill killing Obamacare, he ventured the bill was “mean” leading Sadosky to ask, “Remind me? Which one called the health care bill mean? It was President Trump who provided Democrats with the greatest single talking point to
kill the bill.” Tax reform remains a big target for Republicans — and possibly a big opportunity. But Democratic strategist James Manley said the splintered factions within the GOP will make it difficult to approve the sweeping changes in tax laws that some want.
“You can’t look at what happened over the last eight or nine months and expect them to get tax reform done by the end of the year,” he said. “All of this stuff, including failed efforts to repeal
O bamacare, h as b een a sideshow to the main event which is to get taxes done.”