What Did CPAC Tell Us About The Future Of The GOP?

Lee Drutman participated in a FiveThirtyEight chat about the takeaways from the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference.

lee.drutman (Lee Drutman, senior fellow at New America and FiveThirtyEight contributor): I do think, though, that the GOP is divided in terms of policy priorities, which is why there was very little discussion of policy at CPAC. The GOP is not, however, divided in terms of whether or not Trump is still the alpha male of the party. In the absence of a clear challenger, or a clear opposition faction, Trump is still very much in charge.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): There are different blocs in the GOP. In my view, there are: 1) the most Trumpy people (so say Rep. Jim Jordan in the House), 2) the anti-Trump people like Cheney, 3) the rest of the people in the party, who are fairly pro-Trump but may not be totally on board with everything he says or with him running in 2024. I think Group 3 is most Republicans, and Group 2 is very small.

But, Lee, what do you think are the policy divides? That seems right to me, but I don’t know what the policies are, so I don’t know what the divides are.

lee.drutman: I think the big policy divides are over economics. There is a wing of the party, led by Sen. Josh Hawley, that very much wants to lean into being a “workers party” with higher minimum wage, strong antitrust laws, etc. Then there is a more traditional libertarian economic wing, which is skeptical of all that. These divisions are below the surface, and probably will remain so long as Republicans are in the opposition. But we could see them play out at the state level.

alex: This was an interesting read on how young conservatives are split from Trump and their elders on foreign policy, too.

lee.drutman: On one level, it seems odd that CPAC leaned into “cancel culture,” since that is nowhere near a priority issue for most Americans. But on another level, it makes total sense. It’s a purely symbolic issue that can unite Republicans, and it also taps into a kind of grievance politics that has been successful for Republicans, proving great for fundraising and engagement.