January 26, 2024
The collapse of the Whig Party is the last example in American history of a national party to commit suicide. Prior to that, the first party in America to implode was the Federalist Party. They became the Whigs and the Jeffersonian Republicans became the Democratic Party. Factions destroy political parties. Although they do not destroy parties in and of themselves; it is the intransigent members of the factions who refuse to compromise to win elections that drives a stake into a Party's heart. That is what happened to the Federalists, the Jeffersonian Republicans and the Whigs. It almost happened to the Democrats too during the 1920's, but they rallied around Roosevelt and lived to fight another day.
It is happening to the Republican Party right now. In the state of Missouri, the Republican Party holds all the aces. Yet, in the State Senate the Freedom Caucus, the same name used by the "Chaos” Caucus in the US House of Representatives, has brought state government to a standstill. The Republican Majority Leader wants to expel the lead troublemaker from the State Senate, because he and his buddies are undermining the Republican Governor’s agenda. Get this: because they want a constitutional amendment to make it harder for the state's citizens to get ballot initiatives before the voters. Blatantly anti-democratic. This same crew has its vipers in every state's Republican Party.
This crew will tell you, and it is true, that the word democracy does not occur in any of our founding documents. I thought this battle was fought and won by Andrew Jackson, even though United States Senators were not popularly elected until early in the 20th Century. Most of us believe we are a constitutional democracy not merely a representative republic.
The schism exists in other states, too. Michigan's Republican Party is in shambles. The faction that took over the Party after the Republicans lost control over the state's political offices in 2020 has been voted out by the state Republican Committee. They refuse to leave. The Republican Party had a hammer lock on Michigan for thirty years. Similar chaos exists in the Republican Parties of Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida and Pennsylvania. There may be more, but these are the ones that I have been watching from afar.
Sooner or later, it’s “shit or get off the pot” time. Sooner or later the members in the Party will either acquiesce to the rabble amongst them, expel them for a generation, or dissolve the Party and coalesce around a new political machine. These kinds of shenanigans do not sit well with, and absolutely alienate, rank-and-file party voters.
I lift a glass (in temperance) to the demise of the Republican Party. Hope I am still alive when it finally resolves itself. Or dissolves itself.
