GOP barreling toward 'massive splintering' that will hurt JD Vance: journalist

Signs that the Republican Party may suffer a “massive splintering” once President Donald Trump leaves office are already taking place in Texas, and may very well expand across the nation, journalist and author Jonah Goldberg predicted Sunday on CNN.

At the center of the GOP’s split in Texas is its controversial attorney general Ken Paxton, a devout Trump loyalist who’s often clashed with the state’s more traditional wing of Republicans. That divide, Goldberg argued, was “prologue” to what Republicans can expect after Trump leaves the White House, and one that could ultimately sever the party into two distinct factions.

“Texas basically has two GOPs; there's a MAGA GOP and there's sort of the normie establishment GOP,” Goldberg said. “I think that the problems the GOP is having in Texas is prologue to the problems we're gonna see in a post-Trump era.”

While Trump has undoubtedly reinvigorated the Republican Party after its White House losses in 2008 and 2012, he’s also split the party into two camps that share similar policy views but differ sharply in style.

Some conservative analysts have predicted that Trump’s new coalition will be easily inherited by Vice President JD Vance or another conservative figure. Goldberg, however, argued that Trump’s unique appeal could not be matched by someone like Vance, and that in the absence of Trump, the GOP will almost certainly fracture.

“Everyone wants to talk about how the MAGA coalition, the Trump coalition will simply be inherited by [Vice President] JD Vance,” he said. “We're going to see massive splintering between these different factions of the GOP – we're seeing it right now!”