[The very fact that no issue except Trump himself divides the
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HOW THE GOP CEASED TO BE A PARTY AND BECAME THE CULT OF TRUMP  
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Harold Meyerson
February 18, 2021
The American Prospect
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_ The very fact that no issue except Trump himself divides the
Republicans today reflects the larger fact that issues hardly matter
to today’s GOP. _

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Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, Tolstoy famously
noted, and the Republicans certainly are charting a novel course for
their own. The rift between the Trump camp and the not-quite-so-Trump
camp is a remarkable one for a political party, as it’s not really
about policy or ideology or rival economic interests or any of the
things that usually divide political parties.

It’s certainly not about toeing any party line on policy. Some of
the most die-hard conservative party leaders, like Pennsylvania Sen.
Patrick Toomey and Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, have been censured by
various party committees because they failed to affirm Donald
Trump’s innocence in the matter of the January 6th insurrection.

This bears no resemblance to the previous divisions that have torn, or
almost torn, our political parties apart. The Whigs collapsed because
their Southern and Northern wings diverged on the question of
slavery’s expansion. So, for the same reason, did the Democrats of
1860, who ran two candidates, one Northern, one Southern, for
president (which enabled Republican Abraham Lincoln to win the White
House). Having attended the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago as
the world’s most junior staffer, I witnessed the party tear itself
to pieces over the Vietnam War.

_MORE FROM HAROLD MEYERSON_
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The very fact that no issue except Trump himself divides the
Republicans today reflects the larger fact that issues hardly matter
to today’s GOP. The media have largely glossed over the astonishing
fact that the party neglected to adopt, propose, or even write a
platform in 2020. All that mattered was affirming Trump, which
basically meant affirming the continuation of the constant slander and
vilification he heaped upon all whom he despised. His hatreds were
fueled by his racism, sexism, nativism, and homophobia, but the
racism, sexism, nativism, and homophobia weren’t in themselves what
caused some Republicans to break from Trump. Republicans had long
supported race-based voter suppression, the deportation of
undocumented immigrants, the denial of physical autonomy to women, and
so on—just in a more genteel way.

Trump upped the ante on all of these, but the essence of his
presidency was his own rage-filled posturing on such matters,
subsuming them into his persona as the nation’s
angry-white-man-in-chief. What set him apart was not his commitment to
these policies as such, but to the constant vitriol and violation of
civic norms with which he expressed and personalized them. Those
became the litmus tests that defined Trumpian true believers: Either
you affirmed (actually, relished) Trump’s violations of norms and
open disdain for “the other” as the basis of your political
identity or you weren’t a real Republican. By extension, either you
believed Trump’s Big Lie and his myriad smaller ones, or you
weren’t a real Republican.

Republican elected officials still able to periodically grasp reality
have had to play along with these lies for fear of political
extinction. Those who’ve tried to split the difference—we’re
looking at you, Mitch McConnell—have reaped a whirlwind yet to
descend.

Which is why the Republicans are unhappy in their own way. It’s a
way that’s unique for a political party, but quite common for what
the GOP has become: a cult.

_HAROLD MEYERSON is editor at large of The American Prospect. His
email is [email protected]._

_Your donation keeps The American Prospect free and open for all to
read. Give what you can..._

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