Still, most ordinary Republican Party voters have shown little sign of abandoning Trump and his political movement. And in the past week, top GOP lawmakers have started to reconcile that fact.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, voted on Tuesday with all but five members of his party in the Senate to reject Trump’s impeachment process, even after personally indicating to colleagues that he felt the former president deserved to be are deposed.
This dynamic – from Democrats joined by most independents, but Republicans on the other – is reflected in some key results of a Pew Research Center poll released last week. Pew asked the Americans to weigh up their top priorities for the new administration. In some respects, the partial differences were not particularly great. But on the most talked about matters facing the country, Republicans and Democrats are resolutely split up.
While a majority in both parties felt it was important for the federal government to confront the coronavirus pandemic, Democrats and independents leaning towards the Democratic Party were 33 percentage points more likely to say so than Republicans and GOP-leaning independents. On climate change, a top priority for the Biden administration, the split was even greater: Three out of five Democrats thought it was an urgent concern, but only 14 percent of Republicans did.
There was a similar rift regarding racial justice. While 72 percent of Democrats said addressing race issues should be a top priority, only 24 percent of Republicans said it. While there have always been differences between Republicans and Democrats about the importance of tackling racial inequalities – and about the role of the federal government in doing so – the gap may now be wider than ever.
That’s partly because Democrats and democratically-leaning independent voters, especially whites, have developed a lot on these issues in recent years. Meanwhile, instigated by Trump’s policies of hostility, Republicans have only become more skeptical of arguments for racial justice.
Of the major policy issues facing the country, only one – dealing with the economy and jobs – a vast majority of both sides said the government should invest a lot of energy. Eighty-five percent of Republicans said dealing with the economy should be a top priority, as are 75 percent of Democrats.