Today's Republicans make Jesse Helms look like a moderate

The GOP becoming captured by the far right has made American politics far more divisive

For many years, ultra conservative Republican Jesse Helms represented North Carolina in the U.S. Senate. Helms had been reelected many times in tough election campaigns by practicing hard right politics. In fact, there was a book about him, and his brand of right wing politics, called Hard Right. Jesse Helms was an unreformed white nationalist segregationist extremely conservative politician. He would routinely practice the politics of scapegoating and demonizing the others as hard right Republicans generally do. In the case of Helms, the others were African-American voters and Democrats in general that he would demonize. For example, anytime that the Reverend Jesse Jackson would come to the state to register voters, Helms would rail against this and stir up resentment on the part of lower income and working class white voters in his base. His politics were very divisive, but they succeeded in getting him reelected several times

.

Politics in America today has become much more partisan, tribalist, and sectarian precisely because of the practice of hard right politics by the far right MAGA faction that has gained almost full control over today's Republican Party. For example, the Voting Rights Act was reauthorized in the United States Senate during the presidency of George W. Bush by a 98 to nothing vote. Several key provisions of the same Voting Rights Act were gutted by an activist far right majority of the Supreme Court since then. Efforts to restore these key provisions of the Voting Rights Act have failed in the Senate because most Republicans, including some Senators who voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act back then, have consistently opposed enacting such voting rights legislation.

It is almost entirely the change in the Republican Party since 20 years ago that has caused our politics to become much more partisan, tribalist, and sectarian. A perfect example of that is Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who used to be a fairly moderate establishment Republican and was one of those Senators that voted to authorize the Voting Rights Act during the George W. Bush presidency. Largely due to his desire for political survival in the era of the Trump Republican party, Grassley has become far more partisan, tribalist, and sectarian then he was 15 or 20 years ago. Today you can hardly tell the difference between someone like Grassley versus a hard right Republican like Josh Hawley or Tommy Tuberville. The fact that Republicans are so loyal to the hard right MAGA politics of today's Republican Party clearly establishes, empirically and objectively, that today's Republicans are far more partisan, tribalist, and sectarian than Republicans of 20 years ago. A lot has been written on the subject including recent books by people like conservative Charles Sykes and former Republican consultant Tim Miller.

We see the increasingly partisan, tribalist, and sectarian direction of our politics, especially on the far right of the Republican Party that dominates the GOP, and the politics of politicians like Ron DeSantis, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, and Jim Jordan. Every one of these members of Congress practices the politics of hard right by scapegoating the others, who may be members of the LGBTQ community, racial minorities, drag queens, or whoever else they choose to scapegoat and demonize in their continued quest of manufactured culture wars in pursuit of hard right politics. In fact, at least 95 percent of the degree to which our politics has become increasingly partisan, tribalist, and sectarian is due to this rise of the far right MAGA movement within the Republican Party.

If Jesse Helms were still alive today, he would be relatively moderate compared to many of today's Republican politicians who have raised hard right politics to an art form beyond anything the former North Carolina senator had ever imagined. The Democrats who serve in office nationally have changed very little in the last 20 years, while the Republican politicians who serve a party that has been captured by the hard right since 20 years ago have changed very much during that time. The far right is much more in control of the GOP than it was back then.