The Republican party is headed for a split, probably shortly after the 2020 presidential election.
Why? It's trying to be two opposing political parties at the same time. I will call these the Nationalist party and the Conservative Globalist party (Globalists, for short).
The Nationalists are the primary, vocal backers of Donald Trump. They are in favor of protectionist, anti-immigration policies, believing that Americans would be better off if we went it alone, without the rest of the world.
Two of the primary beliefs of the Nationalists are that American citizens are superior to non-citizens, and that the more generations of American citizens and Europeans you have in your ancestry, the more superior you are.
Globalists, on the other hand, believe that a citizen is a citizen. They may be in favor of some protectionist policies, but it is not a primary party position. Instead, they are focused on the more traditional Republican ideals of small government, man-woman-children-and-guns nuclear family structure, and global trade and immigration as good things in strict moderation.
But that is not an explanation of why I think the party is going to split after the 2020 election. Let me describe how I see the next few years, in the context of the Republican party:
After Donald Trump loses the 2016 presidential election to Hillary Clinton, the GOP is going to do some soul-searching, much as they did after Mitt Romney's 2012 loss to Barack Obama. "Why did we lose?" of course will be the primary question, along with "What could we have done better?"
Globalists will blame Donald Trump for offending voters. Nationalists will blame Republicans who refused to endorse Trump, especially those who announced their intentions to vote for Hillary. Republicans will divide into three approximately equal-sized groups:
- Nationalists will argue vehemently that Donald Trump was never given a fair chance, and that the Republican elite did their best to sabotage his campaign because he was a threat to them.
- Globalists will argue, probably less vehemently, that Donald Trump was only impossible to elect, but even if he somehow succeeded, would have been worse than Hillary.
- The centrists, the remaining third or so, will not take a side. Many voted for Trump because he was the Republican nominee, and that's what good Republicans are supposed to do, but they otherwise care little either way; politics are not a dominant part of their lives.
So what's special about 2020? I'm getting close, thanks for your patience so far.
After a brief period of argument following the 2016 election, the GOP will calm down and try to go back to how things were. They are, after all, conservatives, and therefore reluctant to change what has generally worked in the past.
The 2018 midterms will reinforce the widespread delusion among Republicans that everything has returned to normal. Because there is no single embodiment, no lightning rod representing either the Nationalists or the Globalists as there would be in a presidential election, Republicans will relax. If, somehow, the conversation of how to "fix" the party after 2016 is still going on, it will end after the 2018 midterms go more smoothly than expected, given the vehemence of 2016.
Unfortunately, 2020 will turn into a firestorm. There are only two possible choices for a nominee: Another Nationalist like Trump, or a Globalist. The center of the party is not vocal enough to get a nominee through the primaries successfully; look at Jeb Bush and John Kasich (Ted Cruz was a Tea Party Republican, closely related to the Nationalists).
If a Nationalist is chosen, the election will go much like the 2016 elections. The Republican elite will oppose him (and you can be certain the nominee will be a man; the Nationalists are strong traditionalists). He will offend women, immigrants, African Americans, and everybody in between, and lose, just as Trump in 2016.
If a Globalist is chosen (unlikely, as the Nationalists are so much louder than the Globalists), he or she will have a better chance simply by being inoffensive. But unless Hillary completely screws up her first term, the Globalist nominee will lose because it is extraordinarily difficult to defeat an incumbent. In recent history, it only happened in 1980 when Ronald Reagan wiped the floor with Jimmy Carter, and in 1992 when Ross Perot stole so many votes from George H. W. Bush that Bill Clinton swept the electorate. Republicans would need a prophet to unite the Nationalists and the Globalists, and the only obvious liberal spoiler is Bernie Sanders, who will be 78 and therefore older than Reagan, the oldest president, as he
left office.
Either way, Nationalist or Globalist, the other side of the party will make character attacks against the nominee. Nationalists are loud and vocal character attack artists, forming online lynch mobs against anybody opposed to their beliefs. Globalists will attack anti-establishment Republicans due to lack of polish and poise, as happened with Trump. They can hardly help it; the primary Nationalist position of American superiority is offensive to Globalists, who are strongly egalitarian.
After losing their fourth presidential election in a row, the following Republican soul-searching will turn into a witch hunt. Nationalists will attack Globalists for being anti-American. Globalists will attack Nationalists for being uneducated and crude (the Nationalist core is white males without college degrees).
A new party will be born from the ashes, made up primarily of Nationalists and Tea Party Republicans. Globalists and most centrist Republicans will retain the Republican name; it is the Nationalists who are anti-establishment and will want to label themselves as such. I don't know what they will call themselves, but a few likely themes will be "America First," "Make America Great Again," and the "Great New Party."
Who will lead the new Nationalist party? My guess is someone like Ann Coulter or Steve Bannon. Probably a vocal Trump supporter in 2016, and possibly the 2020 Republican nominee, if he is a Nationalist.
The remaining Republicans will probably reorient themselves to center-right, but they may actually split further, with many members picking the upheaval as a good time to join the Libertarians.
The resulting three- or four-party system will result in presidential elections dominated by the Democrats for the foreseeable future. Congress will be held primarily by the now-moderate Republican party, with a significant number of Democrats and lesser, weaker numbers of Nationalists and possibly Libertarians. The Nationalists will become known for using the dominant minority techniques developed during the 2000s and 2010s, such as filibusters and government shutdowns, to get their way.
On the other hand, the Republican party has been around for a long time. Maybe a strong voice will emerge to unite the Nationalists and the Globalists long enough for one side to diminish and join the other. If so, he or she will have quite the task ahead.
