To understand why major political parties sometimes die out we need to eview a bit of political history:

The United States has always had two major political parties at a time, but it hasn’t always been the same two.  Of the five major parties in our country’s history, three have gone the way of the dodo birds.

The Federalist Party was the first on the scene and elected Washington’s vice president, John Adams, as the nation’s 2^nd president. The party with its foundation in the New England states advocated for strong national government. It appealed to those favored businesses, banks, manufacturing, a strong army and navy, and protectionism in international trade.

While Washington was never a member of a party, he favored Federalist ideas and policies. From the beginning of his eight-year term in 1789 to the end of John Adam’s following four-year term the policies of the Federalist Party were dominant.  However, after Adams left office the Federalist Party began to lose popularity.

Rising in opposition to the Federalists was the Democratic Republican Party led by Washington’s Secretary of State and Vice President during Adam’s presidency, Thomas Jefferson, who was elected our third president.  The party had its greatest support in the south and west. It generally opposed all of the Federalist policies and favored political equality and expansionism.

Beginning with Jefferson’s first term and for the next 20 years the Democratic Republican Party had no effective opposition.  The Federalists continued to nominate candidates for president through the 1816 election, but they all lost by convincing margins and the party eventually faded away.  During that time, the Democratic Republicans won five additional presidential elections in a row – another with Jefferson, two with James Madison, and two with James Monroe as its candidates. During those years the Democratic Republicans reigned supreme and the Federalist Party faded into oblivion.  

During the run-up to the 1824 presidential election, the Democratic Republican Party had no real opposition. However, it splintered into four factions, each favoring a different presidential candidate, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay. None of the candidates received a majority of electoral college votes and the election went to the House of Representatives which elected Adams.

Jackson was angered by what he viewed as a corrupt agreement between Adams and Clay which resulted in Adams’ victory in the House and he went on to form his own political party.  In the 1828 Presidential election Jackson beat Adams and two minor-party candidates by a decisive margin. With the election of Jackson, the Democratic Republican Party died off.  Jackson is widely regarded as the founder of the Democratic Party of today. 

By 1830 under the leadership of Henry Clay those who had supported Adams joined with other minor political parties and disaffected Democrats went on to form the Whig Party which arose primarily in opposition to Jackson.  They adopted the name of an English political party of the same name which opposed the British monarchy as they attempted to portray Jackson as “King Andrew”.

For the next 30 years the Whigs joined the Democrats to become one of the two dominate political parties in the country. The Whigs managed to elect two of their candidates to the presidency, William Henry Harrison in 1840 and Zachary Taylor in 1948. However, both died early in their first terms. The Whig presidential candidate was soundly defeated in the 1852 election in large part because of a deep division in the party over slavery. 

This disagreement in the ranks over the pivotable issue of the day led to the dissolution of the Whig Party. They didn’t even field a presidential candidate in 1856.  The abolitionists among former Whig members joined the newly formed Republican party which opposed slavery while those who believed in continuing the institution of slavery joined the Constitutional Union and American parties (neither of which survived) or the Southern faction of the Democratic Party. 

The Republican Party started to emerge in 1854 to oppose the expansion of slavery into the new states which were being formed in the western territories.  It gained members with the dissolution of the Whig and minor parties and by 1860 was strong enough for its candidate, Abraham Lincoln, to be elected president. Of course, the GOP endures along with the Democratic Party as one of our two dominant political organizations today. 

Now if you are still with me, aside for the fact that I like history, I subjected you to that long-winded narrative because it is important to understand why some of the most dominant political parties in our country’s history eventually ceased to exist. 

Three are in that category – The Federalist, the Republican Democrats, and the Whigs.  The Federalists eventually faded away because of the dominance over many years of the Republican Democratic Party. However, both the Republican Democrats and the Whigs both eventually died off because of major disagreements among their members – the Democratic Republicans split over the support of different presidential candidates, and the Whigs over the issue of slavery. 

That brings us back to today.  In my view, the Republican Party currently faces a very deep and critical split in its membership. One faction is led by Donald Trump while the other consists of establishment Republicans who want to take their party back.  Neither side seems willing to concede any time soon.  I don’t see this as a split that Trump initiated; rather I see him as a wedge that finally drove two very different parts of the Republican Party apart. 

For many years Republican leadership has been dominated by establishment Republicans and their big monied backers. For the most part they have been financial conservatives whose main concerns centered on economic issues such as reducing taxes, especially for the rich and corporations, eliminating regulations, opposing global warming initiatives, etc.

On the other hand, much of the party’s base has consisted of the less economically privileged party member and evangelicals whose concerns have been mostly centered on conservative social issues. These issues include opposition to abortion and LBGT rights as well as immigration and globalization. They have also been attracted to proposals intended to increase public safety.  To be frank they have often been driven by xenophobia and fears that they would lose jobs and status to people of color.

For many years establishment Republicans maintained the strong voting support of their members by giving lip service to their social conservative causes.  However, once elected much of their attention was spent on legislation that benefited the rich and big corporations which also often economically disadvantaged their socially conservative members.  They even favored immigration policies which provided a bigger labor pool for businesses. It was amazing to see how they could persuade people to vote against their economic best interests for such a long period of time.   

Then Trump came along and ripped the binds between these two very different factions of the Republican Party wide open.  Sensing the unmet needs of the social conservatives in the Republican base he ran on populist messages of severely curbing legal and illegal immigration, punishing international trading partners in order to bring back jobs, keeping the country safe from Muslims, forcing religious values on the entire population, tax breaks for the middle class, etc.  In the process he stole the leadership of the GOP base away from the establishment Republicans.

Trump’s message also appealed to enough blue-collar workers in swing states to get himself elected..  While he has remained popular with a large majority of the Republican base, his lies, incompetence, and erratic behavior turned off a majority of the rest of the voters causing his defeat when he ran for reelection. The invasion of the Capitol Building has weakened Trump and emboldened establishment Republicans in their efforts to take back control of the GOP.

Now the Republican Party finds itself in much the same position as the Federalists, the Democratic Republicans and the Whigs before those once powerful parties faded into history.  Like the Democratic Republicans and the Whigs, the Republicans find their ranks split into warring camps seemingly unable to reconcile with one another.  The establishment Republicans want to drive Trump and Trumpism out of their party, but many of their leaders still fear him.  And even if they succeeded, they fear that he would be able to take his devoted followers with him.

Will the split become permanent? It’s possible.  Trump is said to be considering forming his own political party.  He has even picked out a name for it – the Patriot Party.  The Republican party has already been losing members with only 26% of the voters now identifying as Republicans and only 41% identifying as Republicans and independents leaning Republican. If that diminishing group eventually split into two hostile parties, the power of both factions to control national issues would be severely diminished.

Even if the party remains intact, its candidates are likely to face difficulty getting elected in all but the reddest of red states if Trump retains influence. They will be caught between fervent Trump supporters who will demand allegiances to their demigod and the majority of the voters who now want nothing to do with him.  Failure to gain Trump’s favor could easily mean a loss in the Republican primaries.  On the other hand, those candidates swearing allegiance to Trump will wear him like an albatross in the general elections.

The only real option for future success is for the Republican Party leaders and its base to leave Trump and Trumpism behind forever.  However, for the foreseeable future that doesn’t seem possible.  It is hard to see how that genie can be put back in the bottle, but given enough time it is not a total impossibility. However, given the current state of affairs even if the GOP manages to stay intact it might well fade into history due to lack of political success like the Federalist Party. On the other hand, if it splits into smaller warring parties it could easily be doomed to follow the path of the Whigs and the Democratic Republicans. 

The future of the GOP will depend on how it deals with the cancer within its ranks.

Cajun (Rick Guilbeau)   1/24/2021