Who will win the soul of the GOP?

Will it be the extreme grassroots, or the institutionalised establishment?

I’ve written before about the incoming civil war in the Republican party, best understood as a conflict between the aggressively pro Trump grassroots, that dabble in things like QANON and are very much integrated with far right forces, and the institutionalised GOP establishment, which want a return to neoconservative norms, rather than a continuation of Trump’s authoritarian conservative brand of populism.

The big question on all this is who’s likely to prevail?

The establishment have a lot behind them. They have the majority of the dark money and larger broadcast outlets that have bankrolled conservative delusions and pushed politics to the right for decades, they have more elected representatives, and they have real experience of winning and wielding state power.

The grassroots have the leverage of being the GOP’s base, a base which the establishment can’t win without, and a very large chunk (25–30%) of voters. It’s an amalgamation of radicalised Evangelicals, grifters, angry older working class voters, and a racially aggrieved lower middle class. It’s angry, it’s here to stay, and it has the advantage in all the upcoming primaries.

The Republican party is in a bit of a loose loose posture now. Trumpism has destroyed itself, hitting its peak, instead of expanding into a majoritarian enterprise, which could have been achieved (quite scarily) pre-COVID, had the President known how to keep his mouth shut. But at the same time, the neoconservative establishment is devoid of ideas, and literally hasn’t got a hope in hell of winning without the grassroots.

I think we’re likely to see the Trumpist faction do very well, even dominate, in primaries. This’ll make it much harder, what with the damage of the last months, for Republicans to win national power, or retake the Presidency. The realities of politics will mean the establishment has to either ally itself with the extremists, or surrender the ability to win any major state power.