The great Republican divide can be healed

Republicans could do worse than look to Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party to model a way forward.

After a rollercoaster decade, the US Republican Party is barely recognisable. The compassionate conservatism of President Bush, followed by relative moderates John McCain and Mitt Romney as presidential nominees, feels a long time ago now. This is exemplified with Romney being loudly booed and heckled at his own conference, showing just how far the party has moved from him. Just last week, Congresswoman Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, was removed from her leadership role by her colleagues for challenging Trump, a strong sign that Republicans are continuing with their harmful “stolen election” rhetoric. The current dominating force for the Republican Party remains the deeply divisive populism advocated by former President Donald Trump. As president, Trump went against every conventional election wisdom, including his predecessors’ requests to secure support from minority groups and the middle classes. Instead, he based his campaign for power on an unscripted rant which unexpectedly worked, defeating the well-qualified but robotic Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton, in 2016. The Republicans were briefly triumphant, but their political fortunes have since rapidly deteriorated, losing the House of Representatives in 2018, before further defeats in the Senate and the presidency. Trump had the opportunity, when elected, to consolidate his grip by managing the nation competently. He failed to do so and has left his party in a tattered state.