“Are Republicans following the path of the Whigs?”
During President Trump's first term, this ask was asked to batch. The answer then: No.
But a year into his second term, the question is worth reconsidering, not so much because the answer is different this time, but because the question illuminates how much our politics has changed in the last decade.
In case you've forgotten (or never knew), the Whigs were one of the two major American parties from the 1830s to the mid-1850s. We'll come back to them in a moment.
A decade ago, the conversation about the Whigs centered on the fact that Trump divided the Republican Party. Republican politicians, particularly Senators Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeff Flake and Bob Corker—would periodically challenge or criticize the Trump White House.
More relevantly, members of the non-MAGA Republican establishment in Congress and in the White House itself constrained Trump and often shaped his policies. For example, the 2017 tax reform was largely crafted and approved by Republican congressional leaders, and tough sanctions against Russia They were driven by members of the administration. In short, Trump's personality divided the right, but his policies, forged through a compromise between MAGA loyalists and traditional Republicans, unified them.
A year into the second Trump administration, things look very different. Now his personality unifies the coalition, while problems divide it.
This administration is monolithically MAGA, perhaps not entirely in ideological terms, but certainly in terms of personal and political loyalty to Trump. The same largely applies to the broader network of right-wing politicians, apparatchiks and “influencers.”
Trump's approval ratings among the general public are catching up all-time lowsbut barely nine in 10 Republicans still approve. Pleading loyalty and support to Trump is a requirement in the Republican primaries.
But in matters like trade, Ukraine and Israel, abortion and, to a certain extent, immigration — the republican coalition is fractured like a broken windshield. Some divisions are generational, as with Israel and even anti-Semitism. Other divisions are fueled by the new Republican voters Trump brought to the coalition. A Manhattan high school survey published this month found that “new entrants” to the Republican Party are three times more likely to believe in various conspiracy theories (34%) than traditional ones (11%).
So what does this have to do with the Whigs? For starters, the Whig Party was formed to oppose a Trump-like president: Andrew Jackson, aka “King Andrew the First.” Opposition to Jackson's “Caesarism” united a diverse coalition under the Whig banner. As Jackson's presidency ended and he faded, the glue holding the coalition together dissolved and trouble divided the Whigs. I say “issues,” but it was really just one issue: slavery.
Slavery irreparably divided the Whigs. Then, the Whigs died and the newly created Republican Party took their place.
There is a lesson here for both sides. When Jackson dominated politics, he defined both Democrats and Whigs. The Whigs also attempted to paint Jackson's successors as would-be dictators. And the Democrats wanted transfer Jackson's cult of personality toward his Democratic successors. Both sides failed. Jackson's polarizing qualities were unique to him.
The ongoing effort by the MAGA right to pre-crown Vice President JD Vance as the next MAGA avatar and Republican presidential candidate reeks of the desperation that comes with the realization that Trump's popularity, like Jackson's, is also not naturally transferable.
In fact, Vance's claims althoughTrump successfully remade the Republican Party by applying a unique “purity test”: loyalty to Donald Trump. You can be anti-Semitic, isolationist, nativist (or not) in Vance's vision of a big tent, but you can't be someone who doesn't want them inside the big tent.
With Trump in the Oval Office, this argument has some political power. Unlike his first term, support for Trump's papers overcomes deep divisions on many issues. When he goes the way of Andrew Jackson, those divisions will remain.
But what is equally important is that opposition to Trump masks similar divisions on the left. In fact, perhaps the biggest divide among Democrats today is the question of whether party leaders are sufficiently “resisting” Trump.
There is no single issue that divides Americans like slavery did in the 1850s, and that's a good thing (unlike some MAGA exaltedI would like to avoid a civil war). Furthermore, neither party is prepared to go the way of the Whigs, in part because the two-party duopoly over election laws and access to the polls is a huge barrier to entry for third parties.
But by the end of 2025, the current coalitions of both parties appear too fragile to survive the post-Trump era intact.
UNKNOWN: @JonahDispatch
