Why the Republican Party Should Not Unite – Yet

Why The Republican Party Can't Unite

The lack of unity in the Republican Party isn’t our biggest problem. The problem is that we are trying to unify when unity is not only damaging, but impossible.

Why Isn’t the Formula Working?

There are two things that turn a mob into an army: strategy and discipline. Political movements are the same way. If you don’t want to be political barbarians, you’ve got to get yourselves organized around a plan, and everyone has to go along with it.

So what’s wrong with the Republican Party? We are doing so much right: we have organization, infrastructure, strategists, talking heads, pundits, money and the whole nine yards. The problem must be that we just have a lot of barbaric conservatives running rings and circles around our helpless generals (poor Boehner. Bless his heart.).

The solution must be discipline! We need to remember we’re all in the same army, under the same big tent, and we need to cooperate with our leaders or civilization will end!

Right?

Wrong.

The Overlooked Precursor to Strategy

The problem is that we don’t agree on what victory actually looks like. If you were to ask Lindsey Graham, John Boehner, and Rand Paul what the Republican Party’s goals for our country should be, you’d get three distinct answers. (Well, maybe two.)

The fact is, you can’t unite in strategy until everyone agrees on where you want to end up. If there’s disagreement over that, you’re not even all on the same side.

This is why “working together” is premature. There’s a civil war raging in the Republican Party between Lindsey Graham’s “big tent” ideology (where there’s room under the tent for everyone – except Ron Paul. See, even he doesn’t really want unity.), and Jim DeMint’s “I’d rather have 40 Rubios than 60 Specters in the Senate” ideology. (Side note: South Carolina sure knows how to pick Senators, huh?)

There’s no common ground when the two groups want to go in opposite directions.

Solution: Decide Who We Want to Be

So what do we do? Let them fight it out.

One group will take control of the GOP, and the other will leave and form a third party. Then things will get interesting. The last time a major third party was born was when the Republican Party split off from the Whig party. The Whigs disappeared soon after that and were absorbed into the party they really belonged to: the Democrats.

What’s happened once will likely happen again.  There will always be two parties: one dedicated to liberty, and the other dedicated to socialism. The formation of a major third party just helps to reorganize everyone into the camp they actually belong to, after which one of the parties will disappear.

In the meantime, the worst thing we can do is to call for unity in the GOP. There is hope for the party if we can reclaim our focus around the principles we were founded on to begin with. Once that happens, the GOP might actually get somewhere.

6 comments

  1. Of course, there’s also the claims that the ‘civil war’ within the GOP will crush it’s chances to re-form any significant power in either house. Which is, of course, where the call to oust the tea party comes from; an attempt to cut off a (supposedly) gangrenous limb.

    Besides, aren’t you just calling for unity via bloodletting, rather than calm and careful discussion?

    1. Again, my point is that we can have no real political victory until we decide who we are. Think about it from a marketing perspective. It’s premature to take to the airways and try to convince people to buy when we’re not even sure what our product is.

      As far as “bloodletting” goes, I think (and hope) “calm and careful discussion” will be a part of the process. I used the term “fighting it out” as an analogy.

      Thanks for commenting!

      1. I think the Tea Party has made it’s particular product pretty clear; they’re anti-taxes on tea and stamps.

        Other than that, they seem ineffective except within their own hyper-reality. Which, I mean, they’re welcome to, but it confuses me when they insist on being an element of the GOP.

        As for a ‘political victory’; it’s confusing to me that the further right you go, the more important it is to be the only voice speaking. Which is not to tout the virtues of the babbling choir of the super-left, of course, but the need to shove (and shove, and shove) for ‘victory’, rather than acknowledging that maybe ‘unity’ isn’t the way to get there. Seems more like ‘clarity’ would be your goal if that’s what you wanted.

  2. Anti-taxes on tea and stamps?? LOL!!

    Anyhow, talking it out helps only when you differ in ideas, but share the same values and priorities.

    The Texas Alliance for Life and the Texas Right to Life should talk about the differences they have, for instance, but it would do no good for the Texas Alliance for Life to sit down to the table with Planned Parenthood. Those two organizations have radically different priorities, goals, and values.

    I could be wrong, but I think those same types of differences (just not the same exact ones and to the same degree) are what we’re looking at within the GOP.

    We’ve seen this play out in history before. Talking is worth a try, but I don’t think it will do any good because the differences go deeper than ideas.

  3. “We believe in a Big Tent Republican Party that’s inclusive of all ideas.”

    “We have some ideas and would like to be part of the Republican Party.”

    “Die, infidel teabagger scum!”

  4. Interesting article.

    It’s probably foolish for us to expect any kind of long term planning from a politician, but neither party has explained where we are heading as a society. All we know is low taxes… diversity… opportunity… choice…

    Lots of words with no meaning – lots of plans with no goal.

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