GOP civil war goes nuclear

The theological and political fault lines in the New American Right are no longer just cracking; they are splitting wide open. Institutions that once held the movement together are unraveling at the seams in real time.

In a dramatic escalation of the GOP civil war, former Vice President Mike Pence’s organization, Advancing American Freedom, has poached more than a dozen top staffers from the Heritage Foundation.

What has in the past few years merely been ideological disputes mostly hidden away in the dark corners on the New Right web is now a visible, institutional rupture driven by a deep and irreconcilable theological incompatibility.

The issue? Disputes over “the Jews” and the United States’ long-standing partnership with the state of Israel. The fight has officially burst into the open as a public spectacle, with the “Old Guard” Christian Right and the rising “New Right” ethno-nationalists accusing each other of treason and heresy.

According to reports from Axios and Politico, the exodus includes leaders from Heritage’s legal, economic and data teams. These defections come on the heels of Heritage President Kevin Roberts’ disastrous defense of Tucker Carlson’s platforming of Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes — a defense rooted in the “No Enemies to the Right” strategy — that has backfired spectacularly.

While Heritage spokespeople have dismissed the defectors as “disloyal” and claim their exit “clears the way,” the reality is far starker. This is nothing more serious than top conservative leaders abandoning a sinking ship of “heresy,” and Pence has provided the lifeboat of Reaganite and Zionist orthodoxy.

To understand why this is happening, look beyond the headlines of “infighting” and define the theological stakes.

The Heritage Foundation under Kevin Roberts has increasingly aligned itself with the Carlson-Fuentes wing of the New Right. This faction espouses a worldview that openly embraces isolationism, protectionism and a “blood-and-soil” nationalism that views women as subordinates and Jewish influence on foreign policy as a subversive threat to America’s interests (and its white citizens).

This stands in direct opposition to the worldview of Pence, the fleeing staffers and the overwhelming majority of white American evangelicals, which is grounded in Christian Zionism.

Christian Zionism is not merely political support for Israel; it is a movement that interprets the Bible as predicting the gathering of Jews in Israel prior to Jesus Christ’s return, viewing the modern state of Israel as a fulfilment of prophecy. Historically, this movement emerged in the 1820s and has been a dominant force in American evangelicalism, believing God’s covenant with the Jewish people is eternal and irrevocable.

For Christian Zionists like Pence — and the millions of evangelicals he represents — supporting Israel is a mandate from God. Conversely, the “New Right” flirtation with antisemitism isn’t just bad politics; it is, as Christian Zionists view it, a direct rebellion against God’s covenant.

Kevin Roberts attempted to hold this coalition together by claiming the dispute was merely a difference in foreign policy. He tried to apply the “No Enemies to the Right” philosophy to shield Carlson and Fuentes, hoping to keep the “America First” isolationists and the evangelical Zionists in the same tent.

That tent has collapsed.

Pence told the Wall Street Journal the defectors left because Heritage was “willing to tolerate antisemitism” and embraced “elements of isolationism.” This confirms what I wrote in previous analyses: The Christian Zionist wing of the party will not — and cannot — coexist with the white ethno-nationalist wing.

The “New Right” has tried to reframe American conservatism around a European-style nationalism, one that is increasingly hostile to the “liberal” democratic order and open to the “strongman” dynamics described in my piece on the alliance being OK with bringing back slavery. But in doing so, they alienated the very base that built the modern Religious Right: Zionist white evangelicals who put Trump in the White House on the issues of abortion and allyship with Israel.

The mass migration of staff from Heritage to AAF signals the “old guard” — the institutionalists, the Reaganites and the Christian Zionists — are done trying to “save” Heritage from itself. They have built an opposing counter-structure and theological system.

Heritage may claim it is “building the team … for tomorrow’s victories,” but by purging the institutional knowledge and aligning with the fringe, Heritage is betting everything on a populist energy that is theological quicksand.

Meanwhile, Pence is consolidating what Groypers have dubbed the “normie” and “Boomer” evangelical voting bloc and donor class that views the Carlson-Fuentes turn as repulsive and incompatible with true conservatism.

We are witnessing a stunning kind of great “sorting” between “wheat” and “chaff.”

On one side is the “blood and soil” integralism of the New Right, which views the church as a vehicle for ethnic and national power. On the other is the dispensationalist Christian Zionist Right, which views the nation of Israel as the vehicle for biblical prophecy.

These two theologies no longer can break bread at the same table. And as this week’s news confirms, they no longer can work in the same building under the same think tank.

 

David Bumgardner is a writer, theologian and educator living in Columbus, Ohio. He is a former BNG Clemons Fellow and a graduate of Texas Baptist College at Southwestern Seminary. He is a licensed commissioned pastor and holds an evangelism license through the Anglican Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Diocese of Boga, and Missio Mosaic, an ecumenical missional society and religious order. He is awaiting the conferral of his master of arts in practical theology degree from Winebrenner Theological Seminary.