Factions in the Republican Party (United States)
[15] The conservative wing grew out of the 1950s and 1960s, with its initial leaders being Senator Robert A. Taft, Russell Kirk, and William F. Buckley Jr. Its central tenets include the promotion of individual liberty and free-market economics and opposition to labor unions, high taxes, and government regulation.
[18][19][20] In economic policy, conservatives call for a large reduction in government spending, less regulation of the economy, and privatization or changes to Social Security.
Before 1930, the Northeastern industrialist faction of the GOP was strongly committed to high tariffs, a political stance that returned to popularity in many conservative circles during the Trump presidency.
They are amenable to unilateral military action when they believe it serves a morally valid purpose (such as the spread of democracy or deterrence of human rights abuses abroad).
During and after Donald Trump's presidency, neoconservatism has declined and non-interventionism and right-wing populism has grown among elected federal Republican officeholders.
[54] In the United States, the Christian right is an informal coalition formed around a core of evangelical Protestants and conservative Roman Catholics, as well as a large number of Latter-day Saints (Mormons).
[67] Libertarian conservatives in the 21st century favor cutting taxes and regulations, repealing the Affordable Care Act, and protecting gun rights.
[80] Trump's 2024 campaign featured greater influence from technolibertarian elements, particularly Elon Musk, who was subsequently nominated to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
[90] While they sometimes share the economic views of other Republicans (i.e. lower taxes, deregulation, and welfare reform), moderate Republicans differ in that some support affirmative action,[91] LGBT rights and same-sex marriage, legal access to and even public funding for abortion, gun control laws, more environmental regulation and action on climate change, fewer restrictions on immigration and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and embryonic stem cell research.
[94][95][96] Prominent 21st century moderate Republicans include Senators John McCain of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine[97][98][99][100] and several current or former governors of northeastern states, such as Charlie Baker of Massachusetts[101] and Phil Scott of Vermont.
[117][118][119] Rachel Kleinfeld, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, characterizes Trumpism as an authoritarian, antidemocratic movement which has successfully weaponized cultural issues, and that cultivates a narrative placing white people, Christians, and men at the top of a status hierarchy as its response to the so-called "Great Replacement" theory, a claim that minorities, immigrants, and women, enabled by Democrats, Jews, and elites, are displacing white people, Christians, and men from their "rightful" positions in American society.
[141][142] When conservative columnist George Will advised voters of all ideologies to vote for Democratic candidates in the Senate and House elections of November 2018,[143] political writer Dan McLaughlin at the National Review responded that doing so would make the Trumpist faction even more powerful within the Republican party.
[144] Anticipating Trump's defeat in the U.S. presidential election held on November 3, 2020, Peter Feaver wrote in Foreign Policy magazine: "With victory having been so close, the Trumpist faction in the party will be empowered and in no mood to compromise or reform.
[149] In a speech he gave on November 2, 2022, at Washington's Union Station near the U.S. Capitol, President Biden asserted that "the pro-Trump faction" of the Republican Party is trying to undermine the U.S. electoral system and suppress voting rights.
[155] Representative Adam Kinzinger decided to retire at the end of his term, while Murkowski faced a pro-Trump primary challenge in 2022 against Kelly Tshibaka whom she defeated.
[160] Representative Anthony Gonzalez, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the Capitol riot, called him "a cancer" while announcing his retirement.
[161] Former Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie, who was running against Trump in the 2024 Republican primaries, called him "a lonely, self-consumed, self-serving, mirror hog" in his presidential announcement.
They represented "traditional" Republicans who favored machine politics and opposed the civil service reforms of Rutherford B. Hayes and the more progressive Half-Breeds.
Generally speaking, politicians labeled Half-Breeds were moderates or progressives who opposed the machine politics of the Stalwarts and advanced civil service reforms.
[182] After winning major victories in the 1866 congressional elections, the Radicals took over Reconstruction, pushing through new legislation protecting the civil rights of African Americans.
As Southern Democrats retook control in the South and enthusiasm for continued Reconstruction declined in the North, their influence within the GOP waned.
Theodore Roosevelt, an early leader of the progressive movement, advanced a "Square Deal" domestic program as president (1901–09) that was built on the goals of controlling corporations, protecting consumers, and conserving natural resources.
This opposition most noticeably directed to the New Deal, which was variously derided by Old Guard lawmakers as communist, socialist, or overreaching, seeing its programs as unwanted, unconstitutional, unwise, and politically unprofitable.
[187] To counter the New Deal, Republicans of the Old Guard espoused Americanism, which entailed a strict construction of the Constitution, fiscal responsibility, and state and local over federal regulation.
This also entailed economic self-sufficiency, prioritizing American financial interests, and thus partially informed the Old Guard’s support for tariffs on imports and opposition to foreign aid.
These included Bruce Fairchild Barton, John W. Bricker, Styles Bridges, Joseph McCarthy, Everett Dirksen,[188] Walter Judd,[189] and Robert A. Taft.
Massachusetts Republican Elliot Richardson (who served in several cabinet positions during the Richard Nixon administration) and writer and academic Michael Lind argued that the liberalism of Democratic President Bill Clinton and the rest of the New Democrat movement were in many ways to the right of Dwight Eisenhower, Rockefeller, and John Lindsay, Republican Congressman and Mayor of New York City in the late 1960s.
[199][200] Members of the movement have called for lower taxes, and for a reduction of the national debt of the United States and federal budget deficit through decreased government spending.
[209] Politicians associated with the Tea Party include former Representatives Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann and Allen West,[210][211] Senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul and Tim Scott,[212][213][214] former Senator Jim DeMint,[213] former acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney,[215] and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
[211] Although there has never been any one clear founder or leader of the movement, Palin scored highest in a 2010 Washington Post poll asking Tea Party organizers "which national figure best represents your groups?".
