After Dan Newhouse Voted To Impeach Trump, Conservatism In Central Washington Is Being Redefined

That said, there is a difference — their understanding of conservativism.

This year, Klippert sponsored four bills to improve “election security” in Washington, including one to get rid of the state’s vote-by-mail system.

“There’s a lot here that leads me to believe that something’s going wrong. But I don’t have enough probable cause to make an arrest and say: You did it. And here’s the evidence to support it.”

In other words, Klippert suspects a crime has occurred – election fraud. But he has no evidence that any crime occurred.

Many other Republicans, including Washington’s Secretary of State Kim Wyman, do not share Klippert’s view that election fraud occurred. And others disagree that Dan Newhouse should be primaried over his Trump impeachment vote.

Benton County Republican precinct committee officer Josh Skipper said the call for impeachment is a “loyalty test to one person,” which is not “true conservativism.”

“Conservatism is about adherence to the Constitution and a true set of ideals that were founded from Edmund Burke to Russell Kirk and beyond,” he said.

Skipper sees himself as an old school Conservative. He thinks our election security in Washington State could be tightened, but he doesn’t see evidence of widespread fraud, and he worries about Republicans spreading conspiracy theories.

“I don’t fall into that group. I wish we would just go the route of rejecting conspiracy theories entirely,” he said.

Rationalists and intuitionalists

Eric Oliver is a political science professor at the University of Chicago, whose research has led him to believe the growing rift within the Republican Party is less about politics than about different belief systems.

“On one pole, are people we call ‘rationalists,’ who have kind of an enlightenment-style worldview. They believe in facts, reason, logical deduction,” Oliver said. “The other end of this spectrum are people we call ‘intuitionists.’ And these are people who have kind of a pre-enlightenment worldview. They rely a lot on symbols and metaphors, and gut feelings.”

According to Oliver, there’s a very similar split among Democrats, where “intuitionists” have “high rates of vaccine hesitancy, and interest in natural remedies and natural health.”

Oliver said the intuitionists in the Republican Party (including conspiracy theorists) are more ascendant for now. But he believes their electoral success will wane, and sooner or later the pendulum will swing back toward conservativism grounded in issues.

“Parties ultimately are organizations that try to build winning coalitions for candidates to gain office. And if you keep doubling down on these types of fringe candidates, or this fringe rhetoric without actually being able to provide meaningful policy opportunities for Americans, it’s hard to see how that becomes a winning strategy,” he said.