Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican and chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, declared recently, “The GOP civil war is canceled.” That’s more a hope than a description of reality. But he rightly makes the point that only the Left will benefit if Republicans keep it up with the circular firing squad.
There are very real differences within the party. Former President Donald Trump has convinced a majority of Republican voters that the 2020 election was stolen, and most Republicans do not believe he bears any responsibility for the Capitol riot. Other Republicans recognize that President Biden won, are appalled by Trump’s refusal to concede, and hold him partially responsible for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
There are also ideological differences over free trade, immigration, regulating Big Tech, foreign interventionism, and economic policy.
These are fundamental questions that get to the heart of what the Republican Party is going to be, but there is plenty of time to hash them out, especially in the 2022 and 2024 primaries.
But at present, a bigger part of working out what the GOP will be is the need for a united effort to stop Biden’s radical agenda. Democrats are near to passing an unnecessary and poorly targeted $1.9 trillion spending bill on top of the $4.1 trillion already passed in the name of combating COVID-19 and its economic damage. Yet even this is just the warm-up act for Biden, who expects then to move on to trillions of dollars more spending on infrastructure, housing, child care, healthcare, climate, and many other issues.
Biden canceled the Keystone pipeline (and thus the jobs that went with it), is pushing to allow biological males to compete in female sports, and is allowing tax dollars to be spent on overseas abortions. He is holding up the reopening of schools at the behest of teachers unions. Biden has rejoined the destructive Paris Agreement and is desperate to make concessions to Iran to get back into a disastrous nuclear agreement.
All Republicans, regardless of their views of Trump, can agree that these are bad policies that should be opposed with all due force. Yet Republicans seem more motivated to attack each other.
On Sunday, Trump made his first major speech since leaving the White House. Much of it stressed unity. He dismissed as “fake news” reports that he was considering forming a third political party and hammered Biden’s policies in a way that even Sen. Mitt Romney would find little to disagree with.
Yet Trump could not stop there. He spent much of the second half of his speech relitigating his weak charges that the 2020 election was stolen. He then moved on to announce an enemies list by rattling off the names of House and Senate members who favored impeachment.
Such a message perpetuates the cycle of bitter public infighting, making it easier for Biden to move full speed ahead with his far-left agenda. It is unhelpful, unnecessary, and unconservative.
