It’s a legitimate question to ask whether there is any possibility that the Republican Party will crack-up and go the way of the Whig Party. I think it is possible, but not very likely. The Whig Party fell apart in 1854 over two issues. The first should be somewhat familiar: immigration. The huge influx of (mainly) Irish Catholics led to a political backlash among protestants. This led anti-Catholic xenophobes to form a surreptitious political movement known as the Know-Nothings. Some Know-Nothings won office as Democrats and some as Whigs, but they took most of their support away from the Whig Party. I could easily see a repeat of this schism in the modern-day Republican Party over the issue of Latino immigration. The national party will have to pivot away from their nativist base on immigration policy and this could lead to a formal or informal nativist political party/movement arising in response. Such a movement could no more destroy the Republican Party than the Know-Nothings destroyed the Whig Party, but it could make a similar contribution. As a general matter, the Republicans would be more attractive to swing-voters and minorities without their nativists. But they make up enough of their current base that significant defections could significantly weaken the GOP’s viability as a major party.
To kill the Republicans off for good, though, there must me another party (not a mere movement) to replace them. In 1854, widespread opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act provided the impetus for a new political party (the GOP) which quickly replaced the Whigs as the second party in our essentially two-party system.
Even though the Republicans are a severely weakened major party (and are likely to grow weaker in 2010), I don’t see a compelling issue comparable to the Kansas-Nebraska Act that could give rise to a new party. There are significant barriers to entry for third-parties, including ballot access laws, lack of financing, and lack of organizational infrastructure. There are very powerful incentives for moderate conservatives to remain in the party and try to work from within. This is the calculation progressives have made with the Democratic Party, with some considerable success.
What could cause irreconcilable differences within the GOP?
I think the Republicans have a decent chance to win back the governor’s mansions soon in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia, and (perhaps) New York. Those kind of victories could spell the beginning of the end of the Republicans’ demise. Perhaps they can win Senate races in New Hampshire and Connecticut and Delaware in 2010. It could be that the power will swing back towards the GOP in an organic manner. But, it’s not out of the question that what little is left of the GOP base will fracture over immigration and social issues.
What do you think?
Also available in orange.
The GOP is in a down moment, but they will be back. They are pretty good (despite some hiccups of late) of framing issues and demonizing opponents and playing the populist schtick with their low taxes/family values crap. It happened in 94 despite Clinton’s good priorities, and it happened in 2000 despite Clinton’s peace & prosperity and the GOP’s impeachment fiasco two years earlier.
The Dems, of course, can’t blame the GOP for making a comeback in the next decade (by which I mean improved ratios in Congress, not necessarily taking control of a chamber). It will be the fault of the Dems for not being as bold as they should be. We’ve got the trifecta and 60 votes in the Senate, there is no more time for excuses.
Passing a health care plan that tangibly improves people’s lives right away would be a great first step. You need something to counter the “wasteful spending” critique that the GOP is running with. I’d love to see ribbon-cutting on some high speed rail, though that is years away at least. And of course, avoiding another mass casualty terrorist attack (by foreigners) is also kinda important, since the GOP is salivating over making that a partisan issue.
If Dems perform, the GOP is in big trouble. But with the Bayh-Nelson caucus taking the place of the Dixicrats, I’m not super optimistic.
Spot on existenz.
nalbar
“They are pretty good (despite some hiccups of late) of framing issues and demonizing opponents and playing the populist schtick with their low taxes/family values crap.”
Not just “pretty good” — they developed it to a fine art. However, their problems are more than hiccups.
(1) They developed their fine art of winning elections because the demographics have been trending against them for decades. These trends continue and will continue. The GOP is a minority party. Even significant parts of the South are trending against them.
(2) They are basically a one-trick or one-shtick pony, as elaborate and as effective as that shtick may have been. Very slowly, the electorate learned to see through it, and most people, once they finally understand a con, are inoculated against it. This despite the drumbeat of the MSM — in fact, the MSM are also trending down for the same reason. It’s taken a very long time, but it’s happening.
If you lose one, two elections, we can still reasonably expect you to be back. But if you lose and lose and lose, and if you shrink and shrink, we can expect you to survive only as a fringe or regional party. They have not lost enough yet to confirm that this state of affairs has definitely arrived, but I think they have lost enough to deem it likely. In hindsight we can see that the Republican Party was already a pretty hollow shell, but we didn’t know it because they were in power and they did everything they could to keep it that way. Since Obama won the GOP looks like Humpty Dumpty. But that great fall is still so recent, it’s kind of hard to believe it actually happened. They’re now like a small dog with rabies. Still dangerous but controllable.
What we see now is that the forces behind the GOP — the banksters, big pharma, insurance, military industrial complex — no longer have a party that can effectively front for them. All of a sudden the mask is off. They still have the lobbyists, but they don’t have the electorate. That’s really where the fight is right now, the GOP is just a sideshow.
I suspect we’ll see something a replay of the cycle from 1932-1968. The Democrats will become the natural governing party for a spell with a more or less solid lock on Congress, and the Republicans only getting elected to the Presidency as moderates. Eventually, the Democrats will push things further than the country is willing to go, and the Nelson-Bayh wing will become Republicans.
Continued capture of Democrats like Byron Dorgan and Max Baucus by the business lobbyists and frustration of Democratic promises to working folk will turn folks back to the Republicans.
The tax argument has appeal to workers because it engenders the attitude of hopelessness — “If you won’t do anything for me, why should I continue paying taxes.” The “moderate” Democrats are playing right into this script with their half measures.
This makes little sense. Why switch from a party that is partially captured by business interests to a party that is openly brazen about being a wholly-owned subsidiary of business interests? More likely people just drop out and stop voting out of frustration, rather than switch parties.
You might think that there will be a Reagan-like realignment of populist lower class folks and upper class folks. Unfortunately for the GOP, that Reagan realignment was almost all Southern strategy in nature and the demographics are against them for that happening again. That was a once in a generation shift, and the GOP blew their advantage by pandering to their nativist/racist elements instead of using them to build a broader, more centrist coalition that was effective at governance and not just winning elections.
I don’t think that the GOP is going to disappear like the Whigs. I think Booman is right in that analysis. What is more likely to happen is that the Republicans will remain a minority party for a fairly long time, until the majority of my fellow Gen-Xers who have an unnatural love for Ronald Reagan and who don’t seem to know what the hell he actually did in office start to slide out of power and some room opens up for the next generation. It will also help that Republicans that are currently in the over 65 demographic and clinging tightly to racist and generally intolerant attitudes start to die off.
Democrats could alter this dynamic, of course. Generally by being incompetent. Getting us into new wars, running up unemployment further than it is now, not fixing problems as they come up – the conservative flank of the Democratic Party could well kick the Democrats out of power by being stupid about these things. But it will mostly be because Democratic voters become disillusioned and stop voting at all, not because they switch over to vote for a Republican.
With respect to your comments about governors in certaini states, I could easily see Repugs taking that spot in NY. Patterson just doesn’t seen to have the political skills to remain in office after his current term. I’ll bet Rudy Giuliani is salivating even as we speak.
Rudy? The latest polls I have seen have Andrew Cuomo crushing Rudy. As for the Governor’s races Boo mentions, only incompetence and stupidity give the Republicans a chance in most of the races(VA being the exception).
I live in Brooklyn and I can tell you RIGHT NOW that the GOP’s back bench in NY (city & state) is kinda not there. Oh, lots of talk but very little chance.
Now, in VA, I could see that….