The Great Divide in the GOP

There is a great divide in the Utah GOP. Sometimes it is so bad that people liken it to a civil war. So, what is going on?

Decades ago my county was predominantly Democrat. Today Republicans hold every partisan seat. How did that happen? How did we become a one-party county? (And pretty much a one-party state?)

The Democrat Party has been infiltrated with Socialists, which caused their party to shift further to the left. As a result, many Democrats left their party and joined the Republican Party. That caused the Democratic Party to shift even further to the left and it also caused the Republican Party to shift to the left.

Not very many people in this state want to be Democrats anymore. So, their choices are to be:

• Unaffiliated (which many do, because they can still vote Democrat without having to claim to be a Democrat)
• Affiliated with a 3^rd Party, yet none of them win elections in Utah
• Affiliate Republican (the most predominant party in the state)

Many have chosen the 3^rd option, so today the Republican party has a great divide. You have the Platform Republicans, who actually support the party platform, and you have the Republicans in name only (RINOs), who are in the party for a variety of reasons other than supporting the platform.

Reasons to be a Republican, even if you don’t support the platform, include things like:

• It is difficult to get elected in this state if you aren’t a Republican
• It is too distasteful to be a member of another party for one reason or another
• You don’t support abortion, so you can’t bring yourself to be a Democrat or Libertarian
• The party you align with more, doesn’t have enough sway in the state
• It isn’t popular to be a member of another party
• You want to vote in the Republican Primary for the least Republican candidate
• You want to take over the Republican Party and change it

There are many different Factions of the Party trying to take over.

This has created a bunch of RINOs in a One-Party State where even someone like Bernie Sanders could run as a Republican.