Republicans Are Their Own Worst Enemy
The Republican Party is deteriorating, and it has only itself to blame. Despite Joe Biden’s consistently low approval ratings and high inflation rates throughout his administration, Republicans have not successfully taken advantage of this to become the dominant party. The GOP is imploding due to its incompetent leadership in the face of the Democrats’ well-oiled machine. I’ve identified four (of many) pressing ways the GOP has done this to itself over the past few years.
1) Trump’s Staying Power
Despite Trump having left the Oval Office nearly three years ago, his faction holds strong across the party. According to FiveThirtyEight, Trump is averaging 58% of the Republican voters in the polls for the primary, light years ahead of all other candidates, and it’s almost certain he will be the nominee. Regardless of how much power he appears to have among the GOP, he’s had consistent unfavorable opinion ratings for most of his political career. Trump currently has a 54.6% unfavorability rating, and ever since he left office, his unfavorability rating has consistently remained above 50%. Evidently, much of the country has a strong “anyone but Trump” sentiment, which is partially why he lost the 2020 election and also why he will likely lose again. Republicans inside and outside of government need to let Trump go and move on to the next figure.
2) Far Right Supreme Court
Five of the nine Supreme Court justices — Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett, Alito, and Thomas — are vehemently conservative. Partisanship should remain absent from the Court’s rulings, but the dramatic right-leaning decisions made in the past few years indicate it isn’t. The one-two punch seen in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and Harvard and SFFA vs. UNC cases shook the country. The overturning of Roe v. Wade and the elimination of affirmative action are major wins for the Republicans and major losses for the Democrats. While these are ideological victories for Republicans, they also bring massive consequences for future elections. They will heighten tensions between the parties and fuel the Democrats to fight the GOP even harder, and will likely repel potential right-leaning independent voters. More significantly, it may further narrow the demographic of the GOP to predominantly white Christians, just when its Hispanic voter base was beginning to expand. 85% of Republican voters in 2022 were white according to Pew Research Center. As diversity in the U.S. continues to grow, the GOP’s base of support will shrink. The Supreme Court’s radical decisions are preventing the Republican Party from moving forward with the changing times, something it must do to remain relevant.
3) McCarthy Debacle
“If somebody wants to remove me because I want to be the adult in the room, go ahead and try.” These were Kevin McCarthy’s not-so-famous last words as Speaker of the House on September 30th, 2023. After negotiating across the aisle to pass a spending bill to prevent a government shutdown, McCarthy was voted out on October 3 when several house Republicans were outraged by his collaboration with Democrats. A Speaker had never been voted out of their seat in the history of American politics before, let alone by members of their own party. In addition, this development comes even after the brutal battle to elect McCarthy as the Speaker of the House back in January 2023. The House Republicans demonstrated incompetence from the very start of their majority in the 118th Congress. If they cannot run themselves, how can they run the country? While the Supreme Court is a regressive look for the GOP, the disorganization in the House is just a pathetic one.
4) Gerontocracy
On September 13, Senator Mitt Romney announced he would not seek reelection, partially due to his age of 76 years. This is a surprisingly selfless decision, one which many elderly long-serving politicians should — but likely will not — also make. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is 81, experiencing freezing episodes in televised press briefings. In the 2022 elections, Democrats had a whopping 68% share of the 18-29 demographic, 31 points above Republicans, according to the Pew Research Center. In order for the GOP to move forward from the MAGA-era and bring in more of the young demographic they are sorely lacking, they must bring newer, youthful voices to the forefront. Republicans not only need to worry about their present voter base, but also their future voter base.
The GOP is in grave danger of extinction by continuing its clumsy and radical actions. While it would take many, many decades for the party to fully dissolve, Republicans will persistently lose elections as they further isolate themselves from voters. This is a matter of leadership, not of partisanship, and Republicans need proper leaders.
Eric Zimmerman ‘27 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at e.j.zimmerman@wustl.edu.