Yesterday, Republican pollster Whit Ayers said on PBS, “Whether the GOP retains its uneasy alliance between the governing faction and the populist faction depends on some things that we don’t know about yet.” Let’s be clear. The “populist faction” of the GOP is largely white nationalists and they are dominant in the party right now. The so-called “governing faction” is ceding power to them in the wake of Donald Trump. 

The populist faction of the GOP is authoritarian, poorly educated, and susceptible to disinformation. The governing faction is cynical, trying to exploit the ignorance of the populist in order to maintain power. The relationship has blown up, leaving the populist ascendant and the governing faction with little but bad choices. They appear to be embracing the worst of them.

For decades, Democrats have criticized the racist, homophobic, and xenophobic predilections of the populist wing of the party. Instead of dealing with the problem, the governing faction ignored and denied it, accusing Democrats of making baseless claims. Now, their state of denial has been exposed and the magnitude of the problem leaves our democracy in peril. The party that spent the 1980s and 1990s lecturing the country about personal responsibility now shuns any accountability. 

After a brief moment of conscience, the GOP appears to have retreated to its default position. Mitch McConnell seemed to signal that he was willing to hold Trump accountable for his actions, but then voted against an impeachment trial in the Senate, indicating that Republicans will vote against conviction. On the House side, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy went to Mar-a-Lago to touch base with the boss. It’s still Trump’s party.

Trump will likely emerge from the impeachment proceedings stronger than in the aftermath of his assault on the Capitol. The populist wing is pressing its advantage, attacking members of their party for daring to call out bad, even seditious, behavior. They have doubled-down on the lie of a stolen election and few people in the GOP leadership or conservative media are willing to call them out. Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity have replaced William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan as Republican patron saints. 

The emerging leaders of the GOP are people like Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, and North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn. While they are ridiculed by the left and criticized in the media, they are heroes to many on the right because they tell their audience what they want to hear. And they often want to hear lies and conspiracy theories that nobody in the governing wing will debunk. 

The current situation in the GOP exposes the cynicism, dog whistles, and denials that have driven the governing wing of the party. Clearly, law and order only applies to people who don’t look like them. Otherwise, they would be demanding accountability for the people who instigated the attack on the Capitol, not just the attackers. They don’t care about media bias or they would be denouncing Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity for fanning the flames. They don’t really believe in election fraud, but instead of denouncing the lies of Trump and his enablers, they’re demanding more laws to make voting more difficult. The populist wing of the GOP is the party of White nationalism. The governing wing of the GOP is party of cynics.