By Robert Bobb
There are numerous political divides in the United States. In Arizona, the most consequential is rarely directly discussed. That is the divide between political leaders whose primary interest is in tossing rhetorical Molotov cocktails at opponents, on the one hand. And, on the other, those of whatever ideological orientation – liberal, conservative, centrist – who have a pragmatic interest in governing.
This divide is most acute in the Republican Party. At the national level, there are policy differences between the ascendant MAGA populist nationalists and pragmatic conservatives interested in governing, such as tariffs and industrial policy.
There are also tactical differences. When Kyrsten Sinema helped forge a bipartisan proposal to sharply reduce abuses of the asylum system on immigration, pragmatic conservatives were initially willing to go along as a step in the right direction. MAGA members of Congress denounced it, even before Donald Trump, openly wanting to preserve the issue for his presidential ambitions, pulled the rug out from under the effort.
Now, the issues that divide the MAGA populists and the pragmatic conservatives at the national level are irrelevant at the state and local level. And the tactical differences are not nearly as frequent or important. Yet the division in GOP state and local politics in Arizona is, if anything, even sharper and more bitter than at the national level.
