The most important battle in politics today is the one within the Republican Party, and the tea party movement didn’t start it. The GOP’s civil war began in 1912 when Teddy Roosevelt made progressivism the governing philosophy of the Republican establishment.
For the 102 years since, the conflict has been between limited-government constitutional conservatives and the proponents of big government — and the big spending that goes with it.
It has been waged with conservative Republicans, such as Sens. Robert A. Taft, Barry Goldwater and Jesse Helms, on one side, and big-government Republicans, such as Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, on the other.
Many thought, wrongly, that the conservatives won with the election of Ronald Reagan and his coalition of economic, national defense and social conservatives. But today’s Republican establishment frequently invokes President Reagan while also pursuing a progressive agenda at odds with his principles. Big-government Republicans today include Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus.