A leader of the conservative tea party movement, which has alternately energized and divided Republicans, told
Newsmax TV on Tuesday that right now it's the divisions that are becoming pronounced — and could result in a permanent rupture before the next presidential election.
Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner that "instead of a huge Republican majority" beginning in the next Congress in January, "you're going to see the GOP shattered in 2015, and we might see the GOP in 2016 go the way of the Whig Party in the 1850s."
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Phillips offered no proof that a mass exodus of conservatives toward a new third party is imminent, but said last week's budget negotiations prove Republican leaders in Washington are already ignoring the conservatives who mobilized on Nov. 4 and helped the GOP to stunning victories.
The $1.1 trillion budget passed last week by the House and Senate, with Republican support, provides partial or full-year funding in 2015 for some of President Barack Obama's top priorities, including the Affordable Care Act and an executive order allowing millions of illegal aliens to stay.
"What little the Republicans ran on this past year [in the midterm elections], one of the things was, 'Oh, we're going to stand up against Barack Obama and his [executive] amnesty [for illegals],'" said Phillips.
"Well what's the first thing they did when they get back to Washington? They haul up [House Speaker] John Boehner's freshly laundered white flag of surrender and give up," he said.
Phillips brushed aside the idea that Republicans strategically saved their powder for the next Congress, when they will control both chambers and enjoy more leverage over the White House.
"It is strategic, but not in the way you think," Phillips said of the budget and its immigration provisions.
"This is the end game of the great Republican civil war that has been going on for years now, and this is the victory of the Chamber of Commerce wing of the Republican Party. So, in a lot of ways, this is very strategic."
The only pushback to the budget and funding of amnesty came in the Senate, from Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, said Phillips, alluding to a
floor challenge led by Cruz that delayed, but did not derail, Senate approval of the budget.
"These are the guys who are standing up for the principles that the Republicans at least allegedly believe — the key word there being 'allegedly,'" said Phillips.
Asked whether disappointment with the budget is reason enough to abandon the GOP, Phillips said, "If the Republican Party is not going to stand up against Obama, then please tell me what good they serve?
"Why do we go out and carry yard signs and man phone banks and make contributions and do the heavy lifting of an election to send a message to Washington, if the Republicans will not stand up to Obama?" he said.
Looking ahead, Phillips said tea party supporters have two years to make adjustments. One step, he said, "is to start challenging a lot of these [Republican] incumbents who have gone off the reservation," and he promised that some GOP lawmakers will be "primaried" by more conservative opponents.
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