My observation are thus:
I see strong parallels between the ending of the
Whig party in the early 1850s and the Republican party today. Even back then, the Whig party appealed more to the professional and business classes as opposed to the Democrats, who appealed to the poor by ridiculing Whig pretensions. Just as with the Republican party today, the Whig party suffered from factionalism. And as with the Republican party's internal divisions over abortion rights today in which the party's official platform is pro-life even though there are factions within the party which are pro-choice, the Whigs were fractured over the issue of slavery, and whether or not slavery should be allowed to expand into the territories or contained within the southern states. In short, the Whigs had (for the time) a "big tent," and it killed them.
The Republican party which sprang from its ruins was ideologically anti-slavery. Party members were not in agreement on
how slavery ought to be eradicated, but
all agreed that eradication was the long term goal. This gave the party a unifying principle around which to coalesce despite whatever other views the members held as individuals, and it served them well. The Republican party is today divided between social conservatives and social liberals. As if that isn't enough, the party is also divided between big government conservatives and small government conservatives; between neocons and paleocons; between globalists and isolationists; between socially liberal fiscal conservatives and socially conservative fiscal liberals; between those who are hard core 2nd Amendment defenders and those who can live with "reasonable restrictions;" etc., etc. It is no wonder that people are considering abandoning the party. The party no longer knows what it stands for. The party no longer has a single unifying principle around which people will rally.
"Big Tent" policies only work in one arena, and that is Christian evangelism. Paul wrote that he was all things to all people in the pursuit of winning souls for the Kingdom. It works in that arena because religious matters are necessarily matters of the heart, and winning souls for your faith is a matter of individual relationships. That doesn't work when you are talking about a political party with membership numbering well over 100 million which is trying to find a unifying principle or
set of principles around which to coalesce.
Because of this, I think that the Republican party is facing a fundamental choice in which it must clearly, and unequivocally restate its principles regarding a few, non-negotiable, core values;
or face extinction. The politicians the party supports must pledge to promote
and act on those core values without compromise. Period. This is necessary not only for the promotion of those core values themselves, but also for the purpose of giving party members a set of non-negotiables with which its members can self-identify and around which the party can organize itself internally.
Today, the party
claims social conservatism, but it often supports and helps to elect politicians who are not, and those politicians vote on national social policies. The party
claims fiscal conservatism, but it often supports and helps to elect politicians who are not, and those politicians vote for policies which raid the national treasury. The party
claims defense of the 2nd Amendment, but it often supports and helps to elect politicians who vote for "reasonable restrictions" on that right.
If the Republican party leadership fails to make the choice to
enforce its platform, and also fails to communicate this new direction to the rank and file, then the party will die. It's that simple. Personally, I think we will be seeing the end of the Republican party within most of our lifetimes. The reason I think this is that, increasingly, people are no longer identifying themselves by their party affiliation, but rather they are identifying themselves by their ideological core values. "I'm a conservative," or "I'm a liberal," or "I'm a libertarian." How many times have you heard someone say, "I didn't change. My party abandoned me."
My personal response is that I am probably going to re-register as an Independent now that this election cycle is over. Why? Because I am a conservative first before I am a Republican or any other party affiliation. I don't believe that the Republican party is interested any longer in practicing those conservative core values it claims to uphold. Whenever a party starts to see me as a reliable cog in its machine that will run without squeaking as long as it squirts a little oil my way once in a while, that is the time for me to think about moving on.