Perry Bacon of the Washington Post is a super smart political analyst and I am almost always persuaded by his arguments. But I agree with Steve M that this one was off the mark:
Perry Bacon of The Washington Post thinks America has four major parties, not two. He thinks there are two Democratic parties, and he’s more or less correct, even if he gets some of the specifics wrong.
… the Center-Left Democrats … is the party of, for instance, President Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), New York City Mayor Eric Adams, the policy group Third Way and the MSNBC show “Morning Joe.”
… the surprisingly strong 2016 campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) reignited the left wing of the Democratic Party and created … a Left-Left Democratic Party. This party includes Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, publications such as the American Prospect and the Intercept, and groups such as the Working Families Party.
Bacon says his “own views are closest to” those of the Left-Left Democrats, though I think he’s somewhat off base when he writes this:
There is an ideological divide between the two Democratic parties, certainly, but their differences are also generational and attitudinal — the Left-Left Democrats tend to be younger, newer to politics and more confrontational with the Republicans than the Center-Left Democrats are.
I guess it’s hard not to be “more confrontational with the Republicans than the Center-Left Democrats are,” because the Center-Left Democrats aren’t confrontational with Republicans at all. But the salient point about the Left-Left Democrats is that they’re confrontational with Republicans and Center-Left Democrats more or less equally, or possibly more confrontational with their center-left party mates, so the net quantity of criticism directed at Republicans is effectively the same as the centrists’: zero. You can say there are two Democratic parties, but neither one of them consistently sticks up for the Democratic Party.
The old adage that liberals can’t take their own side in an argument is sadly true. On the other hand, I’ve seen more unity and less internecine acrimony in the last year than we’ve had in decades so it seems as if it might be changing, at least a bit.
But as for the Republicans, Bacon gets it wrong about the Republicans with this analysis:
A small bloc within the Old Guard, such as Utah Sen. Mitt Romney and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, isn’t just Trump-skeptical but outright anti-Trump.
Steve M notes:
Er, Romney voted with Trump 79% of the time in the two years following the 2018 midterms. But go on.
There are policy differences between these two Republican parties. Old Guard Republicans are more conservative on foreign policy, for instance, while the Trump ones fall to the right of the Old Guard on immigration.
Yet many Trumpists — e.g., Marjorie Taylor Greene — are rushing to proclaim opposition to the invasion of Ukraine, while claiming that Donald Trump would have maintained “peace through strength” if he were president. (Trump himself has adopted this framing.) If it doesn’t involve China, Muslims, or undocumented immigrants, most Trumpist Republicans are largely indifferent to foreign policy, and thus fairly flexible.
But I think the biggest difference between these two groups comes down to style: The Old Guard is resistant to America becoming a more multicultural, multiracial country, but not in the loud, aggressive way that the Trump Party opposes that evolution.
Then there’s hardly any difference between the two parties at all. (Bacon is right — even before Trump entered politics, the Old Guard pursued immigration reform and outreach to Hispanic voters under President Bush, then abandoned both without a struggle when it became clear that the party’s base voters wasn’t interested.)
“McConnell wants more establishment-style Republicans in power and to keep pushing the traditional Republican agenda of low taxes and regulation,” said Seth Masket, a University of Denver political scientist. “The Trump wing is less interested in challenging that agenda than on changing how elections are done. They’re trying to make it easier for their side to win elections and to contest those they lose.”
The only big legislative accomplishment of the Trump years was a purely Old Guard tax bill custom-tailored for the rich — and Trumpists never complained. And most Old Guard Republicans haven’t put up much of a fight with the Trumpists on the subject of elections. Even the ones who aren’t actively trying to overturn Joe Biden’s victory insist that the 2020 election was rife with irregularities.
At this point, unless we’re talking about dead House members walking (Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger) or outgoing Northeastern governors (Larry Hogan, Charlie Baker), just about every Old Guard Republican is, effectively, a Trump Republican.
The only split right now is between the Trumpists and the batshit crazy Trumpists — you know, like this one:
Midway through a white nationalist’s conference in Orlando last month, one speaker drew applause calling for gruesome violence against “traitors” after excoriating critics of the “honorable” Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and proponents of the “bioweapon” coronavirus vaccine.
“We need to build more gallows,” the speaker said, adding that such a deadly fate would “make an example of these traitors who’ve betrayed our country.”
… Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers, a Republican lawmaker … represents tens of thousands of constituents and has found a rising national profile as a face of the radicalized wing of the GOP.
Rogers’s trajectory shows the political and financial incentives of going to extremes….
She raised nearly $2.5 million in 2021, outraising even statewide candidates for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, according to campaign finance records. Nearly $2 million of that money came from small donations from outside Arizona as she traveled the U.S. calling for the 2020 election to be overturned and demanding audits of the vote without credible evidence of fraud.
And this one:
Robert Regan, a Republican-backed nominee for a Michigan state House seat, shared a meme from a pro-Nazi website claiming that feminism “is a Jewish program to degrade and subjugate white men.” He also used Facebook to share a piece from a fringe site claiming that Jewish people, led by the Rothschild family, were responsible for 9/11; assassinated Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy; and control the banks and media, among other purported misdeeds.
Regan, needless to say, also wants his state’s 2020 election results decertified.
At this point, nearly every Republican is an election truther. Nearly every Republican is a pandemic truther. Nearly every Republican is an immigrant-basher. If there’s a party schism, it’s between those who openly embrace neo-Nazi ideas and the summary execution of political enemies, and Republicans who aren’t ready to go that far — at least for now.
Sure, a lot of Republicans wish Trump would shut his pie hole and move on. But they are all willing to put up with him as long as he delivers the cult and they can stay in power. They have all adopted the Q slogan, “where we go one, we go all.”