WHY THE GOP IS IN INTERNAL TURMOIL

…This could be currently in process.

 

The GOP’s success in the Congress and in the state legislatures may become short lived.

 

I have been studying the GOP for years and it has always confused me why, with all their success in taking over state legislatures, (68 of 98), governorships (31), and both houses of Congress, why is this same party in such internal turmoil?

 

I have come to think that will all that is going on today between Ted Cruz on one end, Donald Trump on the other and a group of moderate Republicans stranded in the middle, perhaps all this internal conflict is that some of the parties members have finally said that “enough is enough!”   

 

 

Could it be that since the 1950’s, the Republicans have been making all those promises that were never fulfilled and the party’s true believers have finally decided to move on.  And now a man named Trump has stepped in and is promising them something that they think they can can believe in.

 

Let’s face it, starting with the conservatives fight against FDR’s New Deal and Social Security, then LBJ’s Medicare, Medicaid and the Civil Rights Act, and now Obamacare, all of these efforts for trying to roll back big government have gone absolutely nowhere.

 

Even with 5 Republican US presidents from the early 1950’s, and a short congressional revolution led in Congress by Newt Gingrich, all of these programs have still survived, and some have even grown.

 

As is always how it works in America, even though the polls always say that Americans are opposed to what the Republicans call the “Welfare State”, in reality, most Americans are glad there is some kind of safety net for when things go bad, as they did in 2008.

 

In E.J. Dionne Jr’s. new book, “Why the Right Went Wrong,” he tells the story that the Republicans kept promising things to their base, but they never delivered the goods. This led to what Dionne calls the “great betrayal.”

 

Those key party players have since felt betrayed.  But in walked someone that says he is beholding to no one and is saying he will finally deliver on the promises of repeal and government rollback.  In addition, he is hitting their patriotic bone with his slogan to “Make America Great Again.”

 

All of this sounds great to his new supporters.  But this effort is not bringing these two most divided groups together.

 

Those people that are supporting Ted Cruz are very different from those that are supporting Donald Trump.

 

Look at it this way, Cruz has said that he will repeal Obamacare, abolish the IRS and propose a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.  This would mean hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending cuts.  Cruz outperforms Trump by about 15 percentage points among the most economically conservative Republicans.

 

But this is totally the opposite with the Trump supporters.

 

Cruz loses to Trump by over 30 percentage points among his supporters who hold progressive positions on health care, taxes, the minimum wage and unions. Trump is well aware of this fact, which is why he won’t touch Social Security or Medicare.  He has also spoken fondly of the Canadian single-payer health care system, as he denounces high CEO salaries, and promises to build American infrastructure and oppose free-trade deals.  Of course, as usual, no one has any clue as to how Trump would pay for all this.

 

Many of those today that support Trump either were or are still registered Democrats.  They are kind of like the old “Reagan Democrats”. 

 

 

Trump’s voters reflect an entirely different individual from those that support Cruz.  Most of Trump’s people are white middle and working classes that have been uncomfortable with the on-going changes in this country. They are dismayed by black protests, urban violence, and terrorist warnings and are enraged by the increasing number of immigrants, many of them Hispanic.  Lately they have expressed hostility toward the Muslims. It is this group of Americans, many of them disgruntled Democrats and independents that say they support Trump.

 

These individuals have virtually nothing in common with the Cruz group except that both groups have felt betrayed by the Republican Party.  In recent survey data from the Rand Corp., Mr. Michael Tesler basically confirmed this as being the situation within the GOP.

 

In his analysis, Tesler shows that, statistically, “Trump performs best among Americans who express more resentment toward African Americans and immigrants and who tend to evaluate whites more favorably than minority groups.”

 

This situation could possibly have been reversed years ago if the Republican Party had been honest with its voters and explained that the welfare state was here to stay and to “get over it”.  In addition, that free markets really do need government regulation, and that the empowerment of minorities and women was inevitable in an America made up of immigrants and it should not be frightening.

 

But today’s Republican party is far too radical and too far-right to ever attempt that approach.

 

Today’s Republican party approach goes way beyond just being highly conservative.  Until the party can get back to where compromise is no longer a four-letter-word, and where the majority of the party is classified as “moderate”, you can expect the party to remain severely split as they are today.

 

I hope my idea about this is all wrong, and that all will eventually improve over time, but I am afraid my analysis may be more right than wrong.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016