Ideological and political wings of the Republican Party
The
Republican Party in the
United States includes several
factions, or wings. During the 19th century, Republican factions included the
Half-Breeds, who supported civil service reform; the
Radical Republicans, who advocated the immediate and total abolition of slavery, and later advocated civil rights for freed slaves during the
Reconstruction era; and the
Stalwarts, who supported machine politics.
During the presidency of
Barack Obama, the Republican Party experienced internal conflict between its governing class (known as the Republican establishment) and the anti-establishment, small-government
Tea Party movement.[1][2][3][4] In 2012, The New York Times identified six wings of the Republican Party: Main Street Voters, Tea Party Voters, Christian Conservatives, Libertarians, The Disaffected, and The Endangered Or Vanished.[5] In 2014, the Pew Research Center split Republican-leaning voters into three groups: Steadfast Conservatives, Business Conservatives, and Young Outsiders.[6] In 2019, during the presidency of
Donald Trump, Perry Bacon Jr. of FiveThirtyEight.com asserted that there were five groups of Republicans: Trumpists, Pro-Trumpers, Trump-Skeptical Conservatives, Trump-Skeptical Moderates, and Anti-Trumpers.[7]
In March 2021, one survey indicated that five factions of Republican voters had emerged following Trump's presidency: Never Trump, Post-Trump G.O.P. (voters who liked Trump but did not want him to run for president again), Trump Boosters (voters who approved of Trump, but identified more closely with the Republican Party than with Trump), Die-hard Trumpers, and Infowars G.O.P. (voters who subscribe to conspiracy theories).[10] In November 2021,
Pew Research Center identified four Republican-aligned groups of Americans: Faith and Flag Conservatives, Committed Conservatives, the Populist Right, and the Ambivalent Right.[11]
As of 2023, congressional Republicans refer to the various House Republican factions as the Five Families.[12][13][14][15] Derived from The Godfather, the term refers to Mafia crime families.[13] The Five Families consist of "the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, the conservative Republican Study Committee, the business-minded Main Street Caucus, the mainstream Republican Governance Group", and the Republican members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus. The House Republican factions overlap with one another, and some members belong to no caucus.[14]
Conservatives generally oppose
affirmative action, support increased military spending, and are opposed to
gun control. On the issue of
school vouchers, conservative Republicans split between supporters who believe that "
big government education" is a failure and opponents who fear greater government control over private and church schools. Parts of the conservative wing have been criticized for being
anti-environmentalist[21][22][23] and promoting
climate change denial[24][25][26] in opposition to the general
scientific consensus, making them unique even among other worldwide conservative parties.[26]
Long-term shifts in conservative thinking following the election of Trump have been described as a "new
fusionism" of traditional conservative ideology and right-wing populist themes.[27] These have resulted in shifts towards greater support of
national conservatism,[28] protectionism,[29]cultural conservatism, a more
realist foreign policy, skepticism of
neoconservatism, reduced efforts to roll back entitlement programs, and a disdain for traditional checks and balances.[27][30]
Neoconservatives promote an
interventionist foreign policy and democracy or American interests abroad. Neoconservatives have been credited with importing into the Republican Party a more active international policy. They are amenable to
unilateral military action when they believe it serves a morally valid purpose (such as the spread of democracy or deterrence of human rights abuses abroad). They grounded in a
realist philosophy of "
peace through strength."[31][32][33][34] Many of its adherents became politically famous during the Republican presidential administrations of the late 20th century, and neoconservatism peaked in influence during the administration of
George W. Bush and
Dick Cheney during the 2000s, when they played a major role in promoting and planning the
2003 invasion of Iraq.[35]
Moderate Republicans tend to be conservative-to-moderate on fiscal issues and moderate-to-liberal on social issues, and usually represent
swing states or
blue states. Moderate Republican voters are typically
highly educated, affluent, socially moderate or liberal and often part of the
Never Trump movement.[73] Ideologically, such Republicans resemble the
conservative liberals of Europe.[74]
One of the most high-ranking moderate Republicans in recent history was
Colin Powell as Secretary of State in the first term of the
George W. Bush administration (Powell left the Republican Party in January 2021 following the
2021 storming of the United States Capitol, and had endorsed every Democrat for president in the general election since 2008).[89]
The Republican Party's populist and far-right movements emerged in occurrence with a global increase in populist movements in the 2010s and 2020s,[127] coupled with entrenchment and increased partisanship within the party since 2010, fueled by the rise of the
Tea Party movement which has also been described as far-right.[128] The election of Trump in 2016 split the party into pro-Trump and
anti-Trump factions.[129][130]
When conservative columnist
George Will advised voters of all ideologies to vote for Democratic candidates in the Senate and House elections of November 2018,[131] political writer Dan McLaughlin at the National Review responded that doing so would make the populist faction even more powerful within the Republican party.[132] Anticipating Trump's likely defeat in the U.S. presidential election held on November 3, 2020,
Peter Feaver wrote in Foreign Policy magazine: "With victory having been so close, the Trumpist faction in the party will be empowered and in no mood to compromise or reform."[133] A poll conducted in February 2021 indicated that a plurality of Republicans (46% versus 27%) would leave the Republican Party to join a new party if Trump chose to create it.[134] Nick Beauchamp, assistant professor of political science at
Northeastern University, says he sees the country as divided into four parties, with two factions representing each of the Democratic and Republican parties: "For the GOP, there's the Trump faction—which is the larger group—and the non-Trump faction".[135]
Lilliana Mason, associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, states that Donald Trump solidified the trend among Southern white conservative Democrats since the 1960s of leaving the Democratic Party and joining the Republican Party: "Trump basically worked as a lightning rod to finalize that process of creating the Republican Party as a single entity for defending the high status of white, Christian, rural Americans. It's not a huge percentage of Americans that holds these beliefs, and it's not even the entire Republican Party; it's just about half of it. But the party itself is controlled by this intolerant, very strongly pro-Trump faction."[136]
Rachel Kleinfeld, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, describes it as an authoritarian, antidemocratic movement that has successfully weaponized cultural issues, and that cultivates a narrative placing white people, Christians, and men at the top of a status hierarchy as its response to the so-called "
Great Replacement" theory, a claim that minorities, immigrants, and women, enabled by Democrats, Jews, and elites, are displacing white people, Christians, and men from their rightful positions in American society.[137]
In a speech he gave on November 2, 2022, at Washington's Union Station near the U.S. Capitol, President Biden asserted that "the pro-Trump faction" of the Republican Party is trying to undermine the U.S. electoral system and suppress voting rights.[143][144]
Senators
John McCain and
Mitt Romney were two of the most prominent early voices within the Republican Party to publicly condemn Donald Trump and
his ideology.
A divide has formed in the party between those who remain loyal to Donald Trump and those who oppose him.[145] A recent survey concluded that the Republican Party was divided between pro-Trump (the "Trump Boosters," "Die-hard Trumpers," and "
Infowars G.O.P." wings) and anti-Trump factions (the "
Never Trump" and "Post-Trump G.O.P." wings).[10] Senator
John McCain was an early leading critic of Trumpism within the Republican Party, refusing to support the then-Republican presidential nominee in the
2016 presidential election.[146]
Several critics of the Trump faction have faced various forms of retaliation. Representative
Liz Cheney was removed from her position as Republican conference chair in the
House of Representatives, which was perceived as retaliation for her criticism of Trump;[147] in 2022, she was defeated by a pro-Trump primary challenger.[148] Representative
Adam Kinzinger decided to retire at the end of his term, while Murkowski faced a pro-Trump primary challenger in
2022 against
Kelly Tshibaka whom she defeated.[149][150] A primary challenge to Romney had been suggested[151] by
Jason Chaffetz, who has criticized his opponents within the Republican Party as "Trump haters".[152] Representative
Anthony Gonzalez, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the
Capitol riot, called him "a cancer" while announcing his retirement.[153] Former Governor of New Jersey
Chris Christie, who was
running against Trump in the
2024 Republican primaries, called him "a lonely, self-consumed, self-serving, mirror hog" in
his presidential announcement.[154] Indiana senator
Todd Young is one of few elected Republican senators that has pledged to not support Trump's 2024 campaign.[155]
The
Stalwarts were a traditionalist faction that existed from the 1860s through the 1880s. They represented "traditional" Republicans who favored
machine politics and opposed the
civil service reforms of
Rutherford B. Hayes and the more progressive
Half-Breeds.[168] They declined following the elections of Hayes and
James A. Garfield. After Garfield's assassination by
Charles J. Guiteau, his Stalwart Vice President
Chester A. Arthur assumed the presidency. However, rather than pursuing Stalwart goals he took up the reformist cause, which curbed the faction's influence.[169]
The
Half-Breeds were a reformist faction of the 1870s and 1880s. The name, which originated with rivals claiming they were only "half" Republicans, came to encompass a wide array of figures who did not all get along with each other. Generally speaking, politicians labeled Half-Breeds were moderates or progressives who opposed the machine politics of the Stalwarts and advanced civil service reforms.[169]
The
Radical Republicans were a major factor of the party from its inception in 1854 until the end of the
Reconstruction Era in 1877. The Radicals strongly opposed
slavery, were hard-line
abolitionists, and later advocated equal rights for the
freedmen and women. They were often at odds with the moderate and conservative factions of the party. During the
American Civil War, Radical Republicans pressed for abolition as a major war aim and they opposed the moderate Reconstruction plans of
Abraham Lincoln as too lenient on the
Confederates. After the war's end and Lincoln's assassination, the Radicals clashed with
Andrew Johnson over Reconstruction policy.[170]
After winning major victories in the
1866 congressional elections, the Radicals took over Reconstruction, pushing through new legislation protecting the civil rights of African Americans.
John C. Frémont of Michigan, the party's first nominee for president in 1856, was a Radical Republican. Upset with Lincoln's politics, the faction split from the Republican Party to form the short-lived
Radical Democracy Party in 1864 and again nominated
Frémont for president. They supported
Ulysses S. Grant for president in 1868 and 1872, who worked closely with them to protect African Americans during Reconstruction. As
Southern Democrats retook control in the South and enthusiasm for continued Reconstruction declined in the North, their influence within the GOP waned.[170]
After Roosevelt's 1912 defeat, the progressive wing of the party went into decline. Progressive Republicans in the
U.S. House of Representatives held a "
last stand" protest in December 1923, at the start of the
68th Congress, when they refused to support the
Republican Conference nominee for
Speaker of the House,
Frederick H. Gillett, voting instead for two other candidates. After eight ballots spanning two days, they agreed to support Gillett in exchange for a seat on the
House Rules Committee and pledges that subsequent rules changes would be considered. On the ninth ballot, Gillett received 215 votes, a majority of the 414 votes cast, to win the election.[173]
Moderate or liberal Republicans in the 20th century, particularly those from the Northeast and West Coast, were referred to as "The Eastern Establishment" or "Rockefeller Republicans", after
Nelson Rockefeller, Vice President during the
Gerald Ford administration.[178][179][180]
With their power decreasing in the final decades of the 20th century, many Rockefeller-style Republicans were replaced by conservative and moderate Democrats, such as those from the
Blue Dog or
New Democrat coalitions. Massachusetts Republican
Elliot Richardson (who served in several cabinet positions during the
Richard Nixon administration) and writer and academic
Michael Lind argued that the liberalism of Democratic President
Bill Clinton and the
Third Way movement were in many ways to the right of
Dwight Eisenhower, Rockefeller, and
John Lindsay, Republican Congressman and Mayor of New York City in the late 1960s.[181][182]
According to historian
George H. Nash, the
Reagan coalition in the Republican Party, which centered around
Ronald Reagan and his administration throughout all of the 1980s (continuing in the late 1980s with the
George H. W. Bush administration), originally consisted of five factions: the libertarians, the traditionalists, the anti-communists, the neoconservatives, and the religious right (which consisted of Protestants, Catholics, and some Jewish Republicans).[16][183]
On matters of foreign policy, the movement largely supports avoiding being drawn into unnecessary conflicts and opposes "liberal internationalism".[192] Its name refers to the
Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, a watershed event in the launch of the
American Revolution.[193] By 2016, Politico said that the modern Tea Party movement was "pretty much dead now"; however, the article noted that it seemed to die in part because some of its ideas had been "co-opted" by the mainstream Republican Party.[194]
Several political organizations were created in response to the movement's growing popularity in the late 2000s and into the early 2010s, including the
Tea Party Patriots,
Tea Party Express and
Tea Party Caucus.
^Dunlap, Riley E.; McCright, Araon M. (August 7, 2010). "A Widening Gap: Republican and Democratic Views on Climate Change". Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development. 50 (5): 26–35.
doi:
10.3200/ENVT.50.5.26-35.
S2CID154964336.
^Båtstrand, Sondre (2015). "More than Markets: A Comparative Study of Nine Conservative Parties on Climate Change". Politics and Policy. 43 (4): 538–561.
doi:
10.1111/polp.12122.
ISSN1747-1346. The U.S. Republican Party is an anomaly in denying anthropogenic climate change.
^
abChait, Jonathan (September 27, 2015).
"Why Are Republicans the Only Climate-Science-Denying Party in the World?". New York.
Archived from the original on July 21, 2017. Retrieved September 20, 2017. Of all the major conservative parties in the democratic world, the Republican Party stands alone in its denial of the legitimacy of climate science. Indeed, the Republican Party stands alone in its conviction that no national or international response to climate change is needed. To the extent that the party is divided on the issue, the gap separates candidates who openly dismiss climate science as a hoax, and those who, shying away from the political risks of blatant ignorance, instead couch their stance in the alleged impossibility of international action.
^Foster, Peter (February 24, 2013).
"Obama's new head boy". The Telegraph (UK).
Archived from the original on February 28, 2013. Retrieved March 12, 2013.
^K. Dodds, K. and S. Elden, "Thinking Ahead: David Cameron, the Henry Jackson Society and BritishNeoConservatism," British Journal of Politics and International Relations (2008), 10(3): 347–63.
^Whitehead, Andrew L.; Perry, Samuel L.; Baker, Joseph O. (January 25, 2018). "Make America Christian Again: Christian Nationalism and Voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election". Sociology of Religion. 79 (2): 147–171.
doi:
10.1093/socrel/srx070. The current study establishes that, independent of these influences, voting for Trump was, at least for many Americans, a symbolic defense of the United States' perceived Christian heritage. Data from a national probability sample of Americans surveyed soon after the 2016 election shows that greater adherence to Christian nationalist ideology was a robust predictor of voting for Trump, even after controlling for economic dissatisfaction, sexism, anti-black prejudice, anti-Muslim refugee attitudes, and anti-immigrant sentiment, as well as measures of religion, sociodemographics, and political identity more generally.
^Deckman, Melissa Marie (2004). School Board Battles: The Christian Right in Local Politics. Georgetown University Press. p.
48.
ISBN9781589010017. Retrieved April 10, 2014. More than half of all Christian right candidates attend evangelical Protestant churches, which are more theologically liberal. A relatively large number of Christian Right candidates (24 percent) are Catholics; however, when asked to describe themselves as either "progressive/liberal" or "traditional/conservative" Catholics, 88 percent of these Christian right candidates place themselves in the traditional category.
^Barnett, Randy E. (July 17, 2007).
"Libertarians and the War". Wall Street Journal.
Archived from the original on July 29, 2017. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
^Slomp, Hans (2011).
Europe: A Political Profile. Vol. 1.
ABC-CLIO. p. 107.
ISBN978-0-313-39182-8. Most European liberals are Conservative Liberals, located at the right end of the left-right line, exactly opposite the American liberals' position. If transplanted to the United States, they would occupy the Left wing and the center of the Republican Party. Only the less numerous social liberals resemble American liberals.
^Arhin, Kofi; Stockemer, Daniel; Normandin, Marie-Soleil (May 29, 2023). "THE REPUBLICAN TRUMP VOTER: A Populist Radical Right Voter Like Any Other?". World Affairs. 186 (3).
doi:10.1177/0043820023117681 (inactive June 28, 2024).
ISSN1940-1582. In this article, we first illustrate that the Republican Party, or at least the dominant wing, which supports or tolerates Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda have become a proto-typical populist radical right-wing party (PRRP).{{
cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of June 2024 (
link)
^Desiderio, Andrew; Sherman, Jake; Bresnahan, John (February 7, 2024).
"The end of the Old GOP". Punchbowl News.
Archived from the original on February 7, 2024. Retrieved February 8, 2024.
^Aratani, Lauren (February 26, 2021).
"Republicans unveil two minimum wage bills in response to Democrats' push". The Guardian. Archived from
the original on August 14, 2021. Retrieved September 7, 2021. In keeping with the party's deep division between its dominant Trumpist faction and its more traditionalist party elites, the twin responses seem aimed at appealing on one hand to its corporate-friendly allies and on the other hand to its populist rightwing base. Both have an anti-immigrant element.
^Lillis, Mike (February 28, 2024).
"GOP strained by Trump-influenced shift from Reagan on Russia". The Hill. Archived from
the original on February 28, 2024. Retrieved February 28, 2024. Experts say a variety of factors have led to the GOP's more lenient approach to Moscow, some of which preceded Trump's arrival on the political scene ... Trump's popularity has only encouraged other Republicans to adopt a soft-gloves approach to Russia.
^Jonathan, Chait (February 23, 2024).
"Russian Dolls Trump has finally remade Republicans into Putin's playthings". Intelligencer. Retrieved February 28, 2024. But during his time in office and after, Trump managed to create, from the grassroots up, a Republican constituency for Russia-friendly policy ... Conservatives vying to be the Trumpiest of them all have realized that supporting Russia translates in the Republican mind as a proxy for supporting Trump. Hence the politicians most willing to defend his offenses against democratic norms — Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Tommy Tuberville, Mike Lee, J. D. Vance — hold the most anti-Ukraine or pro-Russia views. Conversely, the least-Trumpy Republicans, such as Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney, have the most hawkish views on Russia. The rapid growth of Trump's once-unique pro-Russia stance is a gravitational function of his personality cult.
^Baker, Paula; Critchlow, Donald T. (2020).
The Oxford Handbook of American Political History. Oxford University Press. p. 387.
ISBN978-0190628697.
Archived from the original on December 15, 2023. Retrieved April 23, 2021 – via Google Books. Contemporary debate is fueled on one side by immigration restrictionists, led by President Donald Trump and other elected republicans, whose rhetorical and policy assaults on undocumented Latin American immigrants, Muslim refugees, and family-based immigration energized their conservative base.
^Jones, Kent (2021). "Populism, Trade, and Trump's Path to Victory". Populism and Trade: The Challenge to the Global Trading System.
Oxford University Press.
ISBN978-0190086350.
^Smith, Jordan Michael; Logis, Rich; Logis, Rich; Shephard, Alex; Shephard, Alex; Kipnis, Laura; Kipnis, Laura; Haas, Lidija; Haas, Lidija (October 17, 2022).
"The Neocons Are Losing. Why Aren't We Happy?". The New Republic.
ISSN0028-6583.
Archived from the original on May 5, 2023. Retrieved May 5, 2023.
^"Three Minor Parties Merge Ahead of April Elections". The Hill. November 7, 2007. Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.), a longtime member and former co-chairman of the Tuesday Group, said lawmakers launched the PAC to help vulnerable centrists as well as liberal-leaning Republicans running for open congressional seats.
^Lizza, Ryan (December 7, 2015).
"A House divided". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 10, 2017. Meadows is one of the more active members of the House Freedom Caucus, an invitation-only group of about forty right-wing conservatives that formed at the beginning of this year.
^"Stalwart".
Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 21, 2017.
^
abPeskin, Allan (1984–1985). "Who Were the Stalwarts? Who Were Their Rivals? Republican Factions in the Gilded Age". Political Science Quarterly. 99 (4): 703–716.
doi:
10.2307/2150708.
JSTOR2150708.
^Milkis, Sidney (October 4, 2016).
"Theodore Roosevelt: Domestic Affairs". Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia. Retrieved February 20, 2019.
^Arnold, Peri E. (October 4, 2016).
"William Taft: Domestic Affairs". Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia. Retrieved February 20, 2019.
^Somin, Ilya, The Tea Party Movement and Popular Constitutionalism (May 26, 2011). Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy, Vol. 105, p. 300, 2011 (Colloquy on the Constitutional Politics of the Tea Party Movement), George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper No. 11-22, Available at SSRN:
https://ssrn.com/abstract=1853645
Barone, Michael and Richard E. Cohen. The Almanac of American Politics, 2010 (2009). 1,900 pages of minute, nonpartisan detail on every state and district and member of Congress.
Baker, Peter, and Susan Glasser. The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021 (2022)
excerpt
Dyche, John David. Republican Leader: A Political Biography of Senator Mitch McConnell (2009).
Edsall, Thomas Byrne. Building Red America: The New Conservative Coalition and the Drive For Permanent Power (2006). Sophisticated analysis by liberal.
Crane, Michael. The Political Junkie Handbook: The Definitive Reference Book on Politics (2004). Nonpartisan.
Frank, Thomas. What's the Matter with Kansas (2005). Attack by a liberal.
Frohnen, Bruce, Beer, Jeremy and Nelson, Jeffery O., eds. American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia (2006). 980 pages of articles by 200 conservative scholars.
Hamburger, Tom and Peter Wallsten. One Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century (2006). Hostile.
Hemmer, Nicole. Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s (2022)
Hewitt, Hugh. GOP 5.0: Republican Renewal Under President Obama (2009).