Will explained that while it’s unlikely that major legislation will pass in the upcoming election year, splits in the Republican party have historical precedent.

“I don’t see immigration getting done,” Will said. “It’s becoming axiomatic that you can’t get anything done in America during an election year or the year before an election year, which is all years taken together. But about the split in the Republican Party — I mean, what else is new? They split in 1912 between Taft, President Taft and Teddy Roosevelt. They split in ’64 between the Goldwaterites and the Rockefellers. It’s a big country and the Republicans now have what liberals are supposed to admire, which is diversity — except liberals don’t want diversity in thought, and that’s what the Republicans now have, and it makes them rather interesting.”