The GOP and MAGA

I've been interested in politics since I was in elementary school. I studied politics in college and graduate school. I taught high school students politics and international relations for thirty-five years. So I've been interested in the study of the subject, but also involved in the practice of it for a long time. Less so for the last ten years or so. I consider myself a Reagan conservative. That means I'm not at home in today's GOP. Nick Catoggio in "The Invaders" describes two GOP factions, with one of which I am not comfortable. The other worries me even more:

Broadly speaking, the current GOP coalition consists of two groups, according to the Manhattan Institute report. Roughly two-thirds of the party are “Core Republicans,” loyalists who’ve been voting for Team Red since Trump’s first run in 2016 or earlier. But a sizable minority of 29 percent are “New Entrants,” people who voted Republican for president for the first time only recently.

Those groups have very different beliefs.

Not about everything. Both strongly support Trump, both favor “peace through strength,” both want to deport illegal immigrants, both overwhelmingly think Western society is too “feminine.” But on practically everything else, the latecomers to the party are conspicuously distinct. And not in a good way: “The … New Entrant bloc is more likely to express tolerance for racist or antisemitic speech, more likely to support political violence, more conspiratorial, and—on core policy questions—considerably more liberal than the party’s traditional base.”

One of the splashiest results came when respondents were asked about common conspiracy theories involving six topics: the 2020 election, the September 11 attacks, the moon landing, the Holocaust, whether vaccines cause autism, and whether COVID leaked from a lab. Among Core Republicans, just 11 percent believe in at least five of those six. Among New Entrants, 34 percent do.

The gap was even wider on the question of whether political violence is sometimes justified. Core Republicans split 20-80; New Entrants split … 54-46. The newbies are also far more prone to hold prejudiced opinions (or to admit it, at least). Fully 32 percent cop to expressing racist views versus 8 percent in the Core Republican group. Reading that might lead you to assume that New Entrants are a horde of Bircher-type radical reactionaries galvanized by Trump’s ascendance in the GOP. Not so. They’re actually more likely than Core Republicans to support increasing high-skilled immigration and less likely to favor deporting illegals; banning diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; and fighting for “traditional values.” They’re far more liberal on whether children should be eligible to receive transgender medical procedures, with 49 percent opposed to the practice versus 83 percent of Core Republicans. And they’re much more likely to favor raising taxes over cutting spending, splitting 48-47 on that question compared to 26-71 among longtime party stalwarts.

All told, compared to traditional conservatives, they’re a considerably better bet to be kooks, bigots, and, er, progressive. They’re also “younger, more racially diverse, and more likely to have voted for Democratic candidates in the recent past,” in the Manhattan Institute’s words. .... (more)

Nick Catoggio, "The Invaders," The Dispatch, Dec. 5, 2025.