The Fate of Republicans

In a mere ten days, the next leader of the free world will be appointed, and for better or worse we will be shuttled towards the future of America. The latest polls show a tightening race that suggests an unpredictable result until the very end, although that hasn’t stopped some from already declaring victory. Once the dust settles however, the focus will be not on the celebrations of the victor, but the consequences for the defeated. For the Republicans, what those consequences might be is difficult to say.

One can only imagine being House Speaker Paul Ryan or Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus at this moment. They have watched rather helplessly as their best lieutenants – Cruz, Bush, Kasich – were systematically and soundly crushed by a person they had neither anticipated nor wanted, but who now controls their party with the air of an occupying conqueror. Should he lose, as one article asked, will the Republican party as we know it survive?

It’s taken for granted that the two-party system has always existed in American politics, and that these factions have been there since the founding of the country. This is not so. The Republican party was founded by Abraham Lincoln in 1854 to oppose the Democrats during the lead-up to the Civil War, the Democrats themselves only being founded 26 years earlier. They’ve since become ostensibly permanent and unchanging, but the parties today bear almost no semblance to their former selves; Republicans used to draw the bulk of their voter base from the same minorities that are now almost exclusively Democrat, and Republican ideology bares little semblance to the founding principles of the party.

Republicanism in America is a strange concept to both those beyond and within its borders. It represents an ideology that seems either anachronistic or simply illogical, a remnant of times long gone. Popular opinion no longer supports things like opposing gay marriage, promoting gun ownership, and merging devout religion with politics (at least not in the western hemisphere). Yet these are the most well-known tenets of what it means to be a Republican, and as evidenced by their majority in both the Senate and House, tenets that seem to indicate the aforementioned popular opinion may not be so popular in the United States. This majority, however, was secured during an election with the lowest voter turnout since World War 2, a phenomenon not likely to happen again.

Now, as Republicans fluctuate between abandoning their candidate and climbing back on board, and with their party’s already-controversial name bearing the brand of Trump and all it entails, this could mean the end of the party as we know it. What that means for the country, should it happen, is unclear. It won’t spell the collapse of Congress but will certainly mean reforming it. Politicians will retreat to other parties or form new ones as they realise their voter bases have collapsed, and in the short run it will mean a golden age for democratic productivity. In the long run however, it will be interesting to see an America without Lincoln’s legacy, but perhaps that’s now a legacy best left behind.