"One is the group of traditional post-World War II conservatives, who, with the likes of William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan, wrested control of the GOP from the Harding-Coolidge faction who owned (and almost destroyed) the party before the Second World War—call them the OG-GOP. The other is a group of political left-behinds who almost certainly would have voted for Democrats in decades past—and many actually did so—before the Democrats became the party of woke coastal elites and petty authoritarians. Working class, big on industrial policy, suspicious of free trade, hostile to immigration, tolerant of big government, skeptical of American intervention overseas—this is the other, Neo-GOP.The Democrats will eventually face the same thing, as the Bernie Bros and Warren-philes age into the numerical majority of the party.
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The crux of the problem is that these two parts of the GOP can’t be reconciled. It doesn’t boil down to Trump and Never Trump—this is as much a disagreement about substance as anything else, though no one wants to admit that for fear of offending Jekyll, Hyde, or both. OG-GOP recognizes that bullying corporations drives them offshore, taking jobs along with them. Neo-GOP is grossed out, Warren Buffett style, that the superrich don’t pay more taxes. OG-GOP understands that while it has some serious warts, free trade is actually at the root of American prosperity. Neo-GOP thinks free trade is great for elites with Teslas and is furious their jobs have gone to Mexico or Vietnam or India. Both have legitimate points and grievances."
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