“The modern Democratic Party increasingly resembles a coalition without a commanding general,” argue Jesse Arm and Danielle Shapiro, writing for the Manhattan Institute’s “City Journal.”
The party’s elected officials, donors, unions, advocacy groups, activist networks, and online influencers often pull in different directions, with no leader possessing the authority or willingness to impose discipline. As a result, candidates who the party might have successfully sidelined in the past can now rise largely unchecked through activist ecosystems and fractured primaries.
Arm and Shapiro cite Democrat Adam Hamaway as an example, who will most likely be elected to New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District in the House of Representatives. Hamaway interned for a foundation that may have been an Al Qaeda front, and he allegedly lied in court to protect Omar Abdel Rahman, the man who inspired the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The implication is that, in the past, a more united and better-led Democratic party would have successfully stunted Hamaway’s political ambitions.
But is the Republican party faring much better? Arm and Shapiro argue that Trump provides party discipline and unity because he has “a willingness and an ability to discipline bad actors.” That might be true for the moment, but the era led by Trump himself is passing, and I suspect the Republican party will soon face a similar crisis of leadership and candidate vetting.
The right is having to confront its own demons. It’s beginning to buckle over internal conflicts that will make building a consensus of support around Trump’s successor increasingly difficult.
As Fortune magazine commented regarding Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference, late last year, where sparks flew openly between various factions of the right, “The raw bitterness on the opening night of the four-day conference reflected deep divisions over the meaning of ‘America First’ and next steps for the ‘Make America Great Again’ movement defined more by the force of Trump’s personality than loyalty to a particular ideological project.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s approval ratings have taken a hit – especially in the backwash of the military action against Iran. Trump’s decision to go to war left a huge swath of his supporters dumbfounded with a sense of betrayal. After all, Trump consistently campaigned on a peace platform, routinely criticizing American intervention in the Middle East. That’s a big reason why many of his supporters voted for him in 2016 and 2024.
I believe both parties face a major reckoning. Both are deeply beleaguered and embattled.
Democrats are still reeling from their discredited gender ideology campaign, the frankly embarrassing presidency of Biden (where the best candidate the party could produce manifested age-related mental decline on national TV), along with the resurgence of Trump, a chaotic figure they just don’t seem to have an answer for.
Meanwhile, the right currently risks disintegrating over the death of Charlie Kirk, the Israel issue, the Iran War betrayal by Trump, and the fractious rhetoric of its more outspoken figures.
Part of the problem is that both parties have become so obsessed with attacking both one another and other members of their own groups that they’ve lost sight of any guiding principles. What are the actual values that define a Democrat or a Republican? At this point, most of us would struggle to answer that simple question.
Conservatives must seize this moment to move from inter and intra-party warfare to something more constructive and politically astute: the articulation or re-articulation of a clear, positive political, social, and cultural vision. While critique has its place, it only gets you so far. Conservatives must stop attacking and start building.
A recent Pew poll reveals that the political makeup of America is a lot more complicated than the simplistic Democrat/Republican binary would suggest. Pew identifies nine distinct political groups or tendencies. “[B]eneath that familiar red-blue partisan divide is a much more nuanced picture: Many Americans hold a complex mix of values and beliefs that don’t always fit neatly into either major party.”
Maybe it’s time that the two powerhouse parties recognize this fact. We’re sailing into uncharted waters. The successful political actors of the future will be those who recognize that the simple left/right divide no longer works, that both the Democratic and Republican parties may be breaking down into tribalism and incoherence, and that people need to align around real values instead of just party lines.
The successful political movement will be the one that looks past this false binary and organizes itself around clear principles and level-headed leadership. It will be the group that manages to unite its followers not merely around hatred for something (or someone), but rather around love for something.
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This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal.
Image credit: Public Domain Pictures
