Westneat: Republicans breaking up

When I saw this at the time, I wondered: Is this really the course the Republican Party is taking? Fetishizing the overrunning of the Capitol for a lie — even raising money off it?

Since then of course, Gaetz has gone on to become world infamous for ousting a speaker of the House for the first time in U.S. history. That prompted the ex-speaker, Kevin McCarthy, to reflect on the nature of these Gaetz-type rebels in his party’s midst: “They are not conservatives. They don’t get to say they’re conservative because they’re angry and they’re chaotic. That’s not the party I belong to.”

Isn’t it? Is the Republican Party splitting apart?

“Maybe this is the beginning of a breakup, and the spinoff of some kind of MAGA party,” says Chris Vance, the former Washington state GOP chair, who left the party when Trump was elected.

It’s an intriguing idea. The polling outfit Gallup released a survey recently showing 63 percent of Americans believe a third major party is needed, the highest they’ve ever recorded. Third-party hankering is soaring among Republicans especially.

“It’s ultimately a story about changing demographics, about race, culture and religion,” Vance said. “When the party was Reagan’s in 1980, America was 80 percent white and 90 percent Christian. We’re just not that country anymore. The party has not been able to handle it.”

It does seem we are a country of multitudes pinned in a two-party vise. Of course the reason Republicans will bend into pretzels to keep their normie and MAGA factions glued together is because they lose power if they don’t.

After watching the rise of the progressive left in Seattle about 10 years ago, I thought the Democratic Party might be first to crack up. But Democrats have been unusually unified of late — maybe as a defense response to what they see as an existential threat to democracy coming from the MAGA right.

I keep writing about stuff splitting. About Seattle sorting into inequality silos. About the education and urban-rural gaps widening. Now at least one party seems to be ripping apart. It’s all related.

A group that’s trying to fix this contacted me last week. Called “Fix Our House,” it was co-founded two years ago by a former staffer for U.S. Sen. Patty Murray. The premise is that while it’d be nice if a major party like the GOP didn’t allow itself to be held hostage by rogues like the Great Gaetzby, systemically, it’s really our winner-take-all voting that’s to blame.

They propose switching to “proportional representation” — awarding seats in Congress based on a party’s share of the vote. In Washington, instead of 10 congressional districts, they propose we might have two, with five representatives serving each. In recent elections, Democrats have won about 60 percent of the vote, so they theoretically would have six members, while Republicans might win four. Because it’s no longer winner-take-all, though, third and fourth parties would spring up.

Voila — a multiparty system, with more voices represented. Compromise and coalition-building would be mandatory, rather than detested and punished.

Did you know that deep-blue Washington has more Republican voters living in it than all but six of the red states? So all you voters out there who feel like you have no home could maybe find one — and perhaps feel less alienated.

Would this lead to a functioning government again? I don’t know. It’s possible it’d be even loonier than what we have now. But face it, the center’s no longer holding. We’re cracking up anyway. Might as well lean into it.