The Five Tribes of the Republicans

Will Rogers famously once said: “I’m not a member of an organized party; I’m a Democrat.” He was a Democrat in the early 1900′s from Oklahoma, but things have not gotten that much better since then. However, for all of our famous issues within the Democratic Party, we are not alone in having problems of disunity. The Republican Party is divided fairly easily as well. There are five easy divisions which follow here

1. The Neocons:

Neoconservatism was founded as a political philosophy in the 1950’s in New York City by a group of anti-Communist liberals, dissatisfied with what they saw as an insufficiently hawkish viewpoint held by the two major parties. They ascended to power under the Reagan years and look back upon those years with his talk of an “Evil Empire”. The Clinton years left them out of power and planning to retake control, which they were able to do under the Bush years, especially with Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld. Their biggest issue by far is a strong and hawkish military presence abroad. The war against the Soviet Union was the defining struggle of that time and our war against “Islamofascism”, which, thanks to YAF we are now aware of this week, is the defining struggle of this time. There is virtually no war that they don’t like. It gets a bit trickier to argue against them sometimes, because many arguments are couched in liberal notions of human rights and democracy. The arguments for invading Iraq were couched this way and sucked in many leading Democrats with that framing. The important thing to remember about how they relate to the following groups is that this is really the only part of the conservative platform that they feel truly strongly about. Famous examples include: Bill Kristol, John McCain, Donald Rumsfeld, Martin Peretz, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Joe Lieberman.

Natural Enemies: Paleocons
Flagship Publication: The Weekly Standard

2. The Theocons:

This is a political group which rose with the rise of the Religious Right in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Their first big political issue was the elimination of school prayer, but by far their biggest issue now is abortion. Their main goal is to make the US into a Christian nation and include recognitions of this Christianity in every government action. They are the GOP’s social crusaders on issues like gay marriage, abortion, end of life issues, and boobs at the Super Bowl. A recent divide has sprung up in the group with a newer generation focused more on issues of social justice like poverty, rather than adhering to the Republican line on issues like government spending. People in the old camp are people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, while some of the more new school evangelicals are people like Rick Warren, Mike Huckabee, and Sam Brownback.

Natural Enemies: Business Conservatives/Fiscal Conservatives
Flagship Publication: The Bible

3. Business Conservatives:

This is affectionately referred to as the Country Club Wing of the Party. They are not particularly rabid on social issues or on military issues. They do however care really strongly about business issues. This means that they are rabidly anti-regulation and anti-taxation. They are very strong believers in the free market and will often take action to dismantle government programs that they view as unnecessarily interfering with the free market. A key difference between them and the next group is that they support subsidizing business and the government getting involved in trade deals. Examples include Mitt Romney (Versions 2.0, 4.0, and 6.0, although this is really where he belong), Steve Forbes, Pete Du Pont, George Bush I

Flagship Publication: The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Investor’s Business Daily
Natural Enemies: Social Conservatives

4. Libertarian Conservatives

This is where it begins to get a bit controversial. This is a wing whose influence is diminishing in the Republican Party. They are strongly against war, against the government getting involved on social issues, and 100% in favor of a free market. This support for an unfettered free market really informs almost every aspect of their policy. Social policy rests on a free market of ideas and the fundamental idea of being left alone as the basis of government action in that arena, leading to a strong concern for civil liberties. They are also against the drug war and in favor of devolving as many decisions as possible on issues like these down to the states. Foreign policy is not strictly isolationist, but focuses on engaging countries in economic realms, rather than in military, while at the same time being strongly against international institutions like the United Nations. Economic policy is their biggest area though, where they are against government action outside of basic infrastructure and police functions. They believe the free market can take care of the rest and strongly favor deregulation in all of its forms. They are also against subsidies and in favor of completely free trade with the rest of the world. Their influence is highly diminished in favor of many of the other sections of the party in today’s Washington as seen by the paltry list of examples: Examples include: Ron Paul (mostly), Congressman Paul Broun (GA)

Flagship Publication: Cato Institute Publications
Natural Enemies: Social Conservatives

5. Paleocons:

This is probably my favorite section for the sheer level of cantankerousness that comes from here. They are strongly pro-life and pro-death penalty. Foreign policy wise, they are highly isolationist. They are against trade and view it as a stealing of American jobs. They also want to pull American troops out from around the world and withdraw America from all of the international institutions we are currently involved in around the world. Their biggest issue in today’s political arena is immigration which they have been rabidly against for a long, long time. They really want a wall built and view any illegal immigration as a direct assault on American sovereignty. Fiscally, they are a bit more liberal. Though anti-tax, they support safety net programs to help out lower and middle income Americans. They are what is commonly referred to as populist with appeals to people on both economic and social issues. They are also more focused on racial issues and are strongly anti-Affirmative Action.

Flagship Publication: The American Conservative
Natural Enemies: Neoconservatives

When seeing the Republican Party like this, it is easy to see the issues that cause fissures in their coalition. Immigration was one of the big ones, pitting the business conservatives and libertarians against the more paleoconservative ones. However, the Republican Party has become remarkably ideologically unified, meaning that even these divisions are simply matters of emphasis and not massive fissures for most of the party, which follows the three-legged stool idea. There has also been a rather successful purging of moderates in the party. Ten years ago, I would have put a division in for moderate Republicans, known as Rockefeller Republicans, who were far more moderate on social issues and fiscally moderate, focused on reducing the debt. However, there is almost a complete lack of them in Congress anymore, especially after their bloodbath in the 2006 elections.

Edited for accuracy