Republican senators turn on Donald Trump: can the party survive his polarising presidency?
Some of the president’s ardent supporters are courting Republican primary challengers who are more willing to buck the establishment than line up behind its leaders
Can the traditional Republican Party survive the presidency of Donald Trump?
That existential question, which has nagged at Republicans since Trump’s stunning election one year ago, flared up anew on Tuesday with Arizona Senator Jeff Flake’s announcement that he is retiring from Congress. One of the Republican Party’s most consistent critics of the president, Flake was facing a tough primary challenge in next year’s election from at least one candidate with the backing of some Trump allies.
“There may not be a place for a Republican like me in the current Republican climate or the current Republican Party,” said Flake, a conservative who has worked with Democrats on issues like immigration and the Obama administration’s detente with Cuba.
There may not be a place for a Republican like me in the current Republican climate or the current Republican Party
The senator’s dour assessment of his future in the Republican Party gave voice to worries that have gripped the party heading towards the midterm elections. Trump has shown little loyalty to some sitting senators, and has openly squabbled with Flake and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. Some of the president’s ardent supporters – led by former White House senior adviser Steve Bannon – are actively courting Republican primary challengers who are more willing to buck the Republican establishment in Washington than line up behind its leaders.
Andy Surabian, a senior adviser for the pro-Trump group Great America Alliance, said Flake’s retirement is part of a trend and “should serve as another warning shot to the failed Republican establishment that backed Flake and others like them that their time is up”.
To be sure, intra-party divisions are hardly new for the party, which has struggled for years to reconcile its more moderate, pro-business wing with the growing crop of populists and nationalists that ultimately fuelled Trump’s political rise. Trump’s election may have left Republicans with control of both the White House and Congress but it did nothing to heal the divisions.
If anything, Trump – a former Democrat with no ideological mooring to conservative principles or deep ties to Republican Party leaders – has exacerbated the gulf between millions of Republican voters and the congressional leaders sent to Washington to represent them.
