The GOP civil war over the Supreme Court

The Republican Party's feuding factions have very different ideas about the ideal justice

The Supreme Court building and and elephant.
(Image credit: Illustrated | trekandshoot/iStock, DaddyBit/iStock)

The aging sclerotic elephant of the Republican Party has two tusks. One is for business, large and small, for muddled suburban prejudices and lower taxes, for the Koch brothers and the Cato Institute; the other is given over to those consumed by sincere (if frequently misguided) reaction, opposition to same-sex marriage, drugs, liberal intolerance of religion, and, above all, abortion.

It is not the case that each of these sub-parties rejects the fundamental tenets of the other (though abandoning or at least ignoring the yucky causes looks increasingly like a goer for blue-state Republican hopefuls); rather, they disagree about the fundamental importance of each. It is a question, above all, of priorities.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.