Yet most of the Republican Party voters showed little sign that he had left Trump and his political movement. And over the past week, the best GOP legislators have identified with it.
Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, voted with all but five members of the Senate on Tuesday to dismiss Trump’s indictment, even after privately indicating to colleagues that he thinks the former president deserves to be arrested. .
This dynamic – of Democrats being joined by most independents but Republicans on the other – plays some important results from a Pew Research Center poll released last week. Pew asked Americans to consider their top priorities for the new government. On some issues, the biased differences were not particularly strong. But on the most debated issues facing the country, Republicans and Democrats tore decisively.
Although a majority in both parties considered it important for the federal government to confront the coronavirus pandemic, Democrats and Independents leaning toward 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 government, the rift was even greater: three out of five Democrats thought it was an urgent matter, but only 14 percent of Republicans did.
There was a similar divide over racial justice. While 72 percent of Democrats said it should be important to address race issues, only 24 percent of Republicans said so. While there have always been differences between Republicans and Democrats over the importance of tackling racial differences – and over the role of the federal government in doing so – the gap may be wider now than ever before.
This is partly because Democrats and independent Democratic voters, especially white people, have evolved a lot over these issues over the past few years. Meanwhile, Republicans, who are being exploited by Trump’s hostility policies, have only become more skeptical about arguments for racial justice.
Of the most important policy issues facing the country, only about one – dealing with the economy and jobs – a wide majority in both parties 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 did 75 percent of Democrats.