Whatever their failings in proposing their own agenda or rolling back past Democratic victories, today’s Republicans have no such lack of strength or will to oppose the increasingly radical Democratic agenda. The party in Washington has maintained a united front against most of Joe Biden’s legislative agenda, including the Build Back Better boondoggle, the attempted takeovers of state election law, and the crusade against the filibuster. The party at the state level has gone on offense against left-wing indoctrination in schools. Republicans also have a Supreme Court majority, with six justices appointed by Republican presidents; the Whigs only ever got one justice confirmed. Today’s Democrats, unlike their forbears in the 1850s, cannot go on offense in the courts.
The Whigs were collapsing at the ballot box, heading for extinction in states where they had been competitive for years. Republicans, by contrast, won back a governorship and a state assembly in Democrat-held Virginia, highlighting a strong showing in blue states last November. With historically favorable numbers in generic-ballot polls, Republicans increasingly seem well positioned for a wave election in 2022 and a possible reclaiming of the White House in 2024. Everything is breaking the party’s way.
The Whigs were left leaderless by deaths and political suicides. Today’s Republicans suffer more from a former president who won’t go away and from a bumper crop of prominent people itching to take their turns once he’s gone. It is the Democrats who are leaning on a president who will turn 80 in November because he has a desperately bad bench behind him.
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