Source: Politics<\/p>\n
When Jim Hendren, a longtime Arkansas state legislator, announced on Thursday that he was leaving the GOP, it marked the latest in a flurry of recent defections from the party.<\/p>\n
Tens of thousands of Republicans across the country have changed their registrations<\/a> in the weeks since the riot at the Capitol \u2014 many of them, like Hendren, becoming independents. Other former party officials are discussing forming a third party.<\/p>\n But if the Republicans\u2019 reasons for leaving the GOP are obvious \u2014 primarily, disdain for former President Donald Trump and his stranglehold on the party \u2014 the sobering reality confronting them on the other side is that there\u2019s really no place to go.<\/p>\n The Democratic Party, which continues to move leftward, isn\u2019t a good ideological fit. Those who want to fight to recapture the GOP from within are vastly outnumbered. Building a third party from scratch requires gigantic sums of money and overcoming a thicket of daunting state laws designed in large part by the two major parties.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, everybody\u2019s just trying to figure out how to coalesce what is a small fraction of the Republican Party \u2014 what do we do with it,\u201d said former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, who unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. \u201cAnd starting a third party is extremely difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n Walsh said he and others who have left the GOP are \u201ckind of in the wilderness.\u201d<\/p>\n For a small but significant subset of the Republican Party, this is the affliction of the post-Trump GOP: Republicans who break with the former president are not only on their own, they are under attack from a base that remains steadfastly <\/b>loyal to him.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I see in the Republican Party is the next four to eight years are going to be a civil war that is going to leave many people homeless,\u201d said Hendren, who is the nephew of Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.<\/p>\n Hendren\u2019s divorce from the party made a splash in dissident circles because, unlike former officials who\u2019ve left the GOP, he was the rare example of one currently holding office. And Hendren is trying to bring people along with him. Last week, Hendren announced the formation of a group, Common Ground Arkansas<\/a>, to <\/b>\u201cprovide a home\u201d for people disaffected with existing party politics. It isn\u2019t a third party, he said, though eventually \u201cit may come to that.\u201d<\/p>\n Republicans nationally are having similar conversations. Earlier this month, Evan McMullin, who ran against Trump as an independent in 2016, and more than 100 other Republicans and former Republican officials and strategists held a widely publicized meeting<\/a> at which they discussed the prospect of a third party or organizing as a faction within the GOP.<\/p>\n Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff in Trump\u2019s Department of Homeland Security who started a group of administration officials and other Republicans working against Trump\u2019s reelection last year, said he and McMullin, with whom he is coordinating, are not \u201cdead set on a third party.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather, he said, \u201cWhat we are dead set on is that something dramatic needs to happen, and there needs to be a very, very clear break from what the GOP has been for the last four years.\u201d<\/p>\n Taylor suggested the effort could take a form similar to that of the Tea Party circa 2010, \u201cbut less to the right\u201d \u2014 what he called a \u201cnationwide movement to bring the party back to the center.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a potential model,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s very, very doable.\u201d<\/p>\n For Taylor and like-minded Republicans and former Republicans, there are some reasons for optimism. According to Gallup<\/a>, nearly two-thirds of Americans, including 63 percent of Republicans, say a third party is needed. That\u2019s the highest level of public support for a third party since Gallup began asking the question in 2003.<\/p>\n Between that public sentiment and the democratizing influence of social media and small-dollar fundraising, the existing party structure has never appeared weaker. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent running against the Democratic Party establishment, made a credible bid <\/b>for winning the Democratic nomination in 2016. Trump, who did win, ran as a party outsider before co-opting the GOP.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is happening is the devolution of the party system,\u201d said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist who was a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project \u2014 which is now itself imploding<\/a> \u2014 before stepping down in December. \u201cThis has been quaking for 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n Even in their diminished state, the Democratic and Republican parties remain the dominant force in politics, with party affiliation tightly tied to voter preferences and legislative voting behavior. And more than 150 years of two-party rule in Washington and the nation\u2019s statehouses have created conditions designed to keep it that way, with strict ballot access rules and an ecosystem of political professionals largely organized around \u2014 and dependent on \u2014 the existing party system.<\/p>\n For Republicans who want out, said John Thomas, a Republican strategist who works on House campaigns across the country, \u201cThat\u2019s the whole problem: Where do they go?\u201d<\/p>\n Talk of a third party, he said, \u201cis not going to last, because you get tired of having no influence. \u2026 At the end of the day, parties are gathered because, collectively, they wield influence. That\u2019s the point. If you can\u2019t wield influence, it doesn\u2019t matter how good you feel about it. It\u2019s about power.\u201d<\/p>\n One big problem for anti-Trump Republicans and former Republicans is that, among conservatives, the power still rests with the former president. Trump\u2019s approval rating among Republicans is holding at about 80 percent<\/a>, with a majority of Republicans hoping he continues to play a major role<\/a> in the party. Politicians who have crossed him, including Sens. Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, have been censured by party officials in their home states.<\/p>\n In the opposition movement, Walsh said, \u201cWe\u2019re primarily talking about strategists and consultants and former Republicans, conservative thinkers who are unhappy, obviously, with the Trump-y party. \u2026 But there\u2019s no grassroots.\u201d<\/p>\n He said, \u201cUntil we develop some sort of constituency, I mean, real voters, it\u2019s just going to be all of us meeting and writing papers and articles, and that\u2019s about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Walsh thinks Republicans who are leaving the party should \u201cplant our flag right now and start a viable third party,\u201d understanding it will take eight to 12 years to grow its membership and accepting Democrats will win elections in the meantime. But he acknowledged \u201cmost of us don\u2019t have great options.\u201d<\/p>\n