GOP's conservative coalition is falling apart

Republicans have chosen bigotry over corporate conservatism. And that’s a huge problem for the GOP, because it could signal the biggest fracture of a major party coalition since Southern conservative bolted the Democratic Party 40 years ago.

Corporate donors are growing increasingly alarmed at the GOP’s embrace of voting restrictions, conspiracy theories, and white supremacist dogma because the majority of their customers don’t take kindly to such idiocy. And they won’t patronize companies that support it.

Republicans can blame “cancel culture” all they want, but that ignores the fact that the majority of Americans think conspiracy theories are stupid, voting restrictions are undemocratic, and white supremacy is simply unacceptable in any civilized society.

The GOP can try to take comfort in the fact that millions of small donors who are highly motivated bigots and conspiracy theorists will continue to send their money. But these people don’t have deep pockets, and the more Republicans have skewed the economy toward big corporations, the more dependent they’ve become upon them.

Simply put: Corporate fat cats are getting fatter, and the 99 percent — including those small GOP donors — are getting poorer. Which means they’ll have less money to donate.

Republicans are in the same kind of pickle Democrats found themselves in during the 1960s, when Southern conservatives started leaving the party for the GOP because they couldn’t stomach being in the same party with Northeastern aristocrats. This realignment began with the Civil Rights Act, was fueled by Richard Nixon’s “Southern strategy,” and was cemented by Ronald Reagan’s alliance with the Moral Majority.

But this time, it’s worse. Here’s why:

The realignment of the 1960s and ’70s took place during a time when the parties were at relative parity. From 1960 through 1996, Republicans and Democrats each won five presidential elections, including the popular vote. In six presidential elections since then, Republicans have won the popular vote just once.

Unlike the Democrats back then, they’re starting out in a hole, and if they lose the backing of corporate big shots, it’ll get a whole lot deeper.

The more radicalized the Republican base gets, the less corporate donors will want to be associated with it — and it’s been growing more radicalized since the Tea Party years, with Donald Trump’s rise only accelerating the process.

It remains to be seen whether any corporate pivot away from the GOP endures in the long term. As long as Republicans keep giving them big tax cuts like the one they passed in 2017, that could be enough to offset any public backlash and keep them on board. Plus, the voters’ attention span when it comes to politics is notoriously short. If public pressure on companies eases, they’ll have less reason to distance themselves from Republicans.

On the other hand, the GOP won’t likely be able to offer another $1.9 trillion tax-cut package anytime soon, because they simply won’t be able to afford it. So there’s less incentive for corporations to stay on board and more motivation for them to start pulling the strings.

If and when those strings get tangled up with a bigoted base that’s pulling in the opposite direction, the GOP may have to choose. It can revert to what it once was: a corporate crony that pays lip service to social issues, or it can risk further distancing itself from deep-pocketed donors by going full speed ahead into KKK/neo-fascist/QAnon territory.

The problem lies in the fact that its candidates increasingly can’t win primaries without going the latter route, but can’t win general elections if they do — unless the Democrats mess up so badly the public gives them another look.

That’s why Republicans are doing whatever they can to make Democrats look like failures, rather than promoting their own agenda. They’ve realized their agenda won’t fly with the majority of the American people, and the only things that can save them are voter suppression, sabotage, conspiracy theories, and blame.

Whether that works or not remains to be seen. But don’t underestimate them: It almost worked in 2020, and a cornered animal is the most dangerous kind — even if they’ve backed themselves into that corner.

Stephen H. Provost is a former journalist and author of three books about the Trump presidency, available at www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08RC7L8X1.