The Republican party is divided into two groups these days. There’s the Trump faction and its rival, the elected leaders, GOP officials, and rank-and-file antagonists of Trump. The split is not ideological. For the most part, the two sides agree on cutting taxes, killing Obamacare, and building up the military.
But two differences stand out. The Trump group is by far the largest. Polls show the Republican grassroots overwhelmingly sticking with President Trump. And this side—the base—is eager for swift action on the agenda, including the border wall, favored by Trump. The other side appears to lack the same sense of urgency.
This isn’t the most significant split among Republicans, but it’s an important one. In recent weeks, friction between Republicans has increased sharply. And criticism of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell from conservative Trump backers has spiked.
Last week, FreedomWorks, the Senate Conservatives Fund, and Tea Party Patriots released a nasty letter to McConnell, blaming him for the Senate’s failure to repeal and replace Obamacare and demanding he resign. Another outfit, the Conservative Action Project, called on McConnell to speed up efforts to confirm Republican judges and administration officials.
Meanwhile, Steve Bannon, fired as White House strategist in August, has made McConnell his chief target. Bannon is recruiting candidates to challenge GOP senators seeking reelection in 2018 while insisting they promise to oppose McConnell as leader.
And the Judicial Crisis Network, which seeks to confirm conservative judges, prepared a TV ad calling on McConnell to get more conservatives confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The group backed off before airing the ad.
All this agitation is hardly sufficient to force McConnell to step down or even publicly acknowledge the attacks. But given the media, it’s put the issue of Republican congressional leaders on the table. And the critics aren’t alone.
Trump occasionally airs his displeasure with McConnell. After the Republican health-care bill failed in the Senate, he insisted in a tweet that McConnell should try a second time. That effort failed too. Though there’s no evidence the president won over any GOP votes, he accepted no blame for either defeat.
Trump’s chats with Senate Democrats about compromising didn’t go anywhere either. Democrats simply want funds to bail out Obamacare, not repeal and replace it. Now Trump wants to try a third time next year, putting McConnell on the spot again.
But before then, McConnell and Republican leaders face a real threat. A budget resolution—it’s already passed the House—will come to a vote in the Senate shortly. If all goes well, it would tee up Trump’s number-one goal, tax reform, for a vote later this year.
Should the tax bill pass, the political status of McConnell and Republicans would improve, perhaps even soar. So would the prospects of holding the Senate in the 2018 miderm election. McConnell’s enemies would be shamed. And Bannon’s plan to turn Senate primaries into battlegrounds would probably be left in the dust.
But if tax reform fails—and there’s a real possibility of this—it would produce a political explosion. McConnell and his allies would suffer. The fragile 52-48 majority might fall apart. And calls for McConnell to resign would multiply.
But McConnell isn’t dead yet—quite the contrary. He’s declared that confirmation of federal judges—conservative judges, that is—will be his top priority. He’s promised Democratic tactics to delay or defeat a stream of confirmations will not work.
And there’s a lot he can do to strengthen his position and that of Republicans. Both Trump and his budget director, former House member Mick Mulvaney, want McConnell to kill the filibuster on legislative votes, just as he did on Supreme Court nominations to win Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation.
McConnell has balked at this, fearing what Democrats might achieve if they capture the Senate and propose a barrage of liberal legislation. Democrats will surely get rid of the filibuster once given the opportunity.
Republican strategist Jeffrey Bell says McConnell cannot thwart Democratic obstructionism without changing the rules in the Senate. “The American people aren’t up for business as usual,” Bell says. Nor is Trump.
McConnell is wary of eliminating the Senate rule that allows 30 hours of debate on nominations. But he won’t let Democrats abuse it. And McConnell says he can find time for 30 hours for every judicial nomination if necessary.
But it’s not necessary. Bell points out that the debates are shams. The nominee is often not discussed. Nor is the rule mentioned in the Constitution. It’s merely a Senate contrivance that McConnell could abandon.
And then there are “blue slips,” playthings that permit a senator to block a judicial nominee from his state. It’s being abused currently by Democrat Al Franken in an effort to blackball the nomination of Minnesota supreme court justice David Stras to a federal appeals court. McConnell could crack down on this practice. It’s not even a rule.
McConnell is certainly not afraid of taking a brave stand. In 2016, he decided that President Obama would not be allowed to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in his last year in office. Democrats screamed, but McConnell never gave in. And the empty seat, which had been Antonin Scalia’s, was filled by Neil Gorsuch.
Years ago, economist Herb Stein authored what became known as Stein’s Law. “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop,” he said. It’s time to stop all those rules and practices that are being exploited to keep conservatives off federal courts.
McConnell is the leader to do it. As a welcome side effect, his critics would be dumbfounded. Tactics to blackball conservative nominees would be barred. Justice would improve. And the split between the Trump wing and leadership wing would fade away.
Fred Barnes is an executive editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
