A looming Republican civil war?

As many of my ideological soulmates make grudging moves towards joining the Kerry camp, and as GOP lawmakers fail to pass a (nonbinding) budget resolution, Andrew Sullivan predicts the future of the Republican Party:

The current tussle in the Congress over the budget is just a precursor to what I think will be outright Republican civil war after this election. If Bush wins, it will cripple his ability to get anything done. If he loses, the recriminations will get vicious. The fiscal conservatives will be fighting the “deficits-don’t-matter” crowd. The realists will be out to topple the neocons. The Santorum-Ashcroft axis will continue to wage war on any Republicans not interested in legislating either the Old Testament or the dictates of the Vatican. (The FMA battle now looks more and more like an attempt by Santorum to identify Republican social moderates so he can use primary hardliners to challenge them in the future.) The battle lines are deep and sharp – and the future of American conservatism is at stake. Bush has proven himself unable to unite a party that includes Tom DeLay as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger, John McCain and Bill Frist. Whether the coming civil war is about who lost the election, or who will exploit the victory, it’s going to be nasty and enduring. No single party can be both for individual liberty and for theologically-based social policy; both for fiscal balance and drunken-sailor spending; both for interventionism abroad and against moralism in foreign policy. The incoherence is just too deep, the tensions too strained. And with the war on terror itself a point of contention among conservatives, geo-politics will not be able to keep the coalition in one piece.

I partly agree with Andrew but partly disagree. He’s wrong about what happens if Bush wins. Nothing eases internal party divisions like winning, and I find it hard to believe that the fissures that Andrew highlights would burst open if Bush were to win re-election. Indeed, it’s telling that the Bush administration has decided to award prime time slots at the GOP convention to a lot of Republicans that have had strained relations with the White House. It’s also telling that they’ve accepted. I agree with Andrew about what happens if Bush loses — but if anything, I think the internecine conflict will be bloodier than he projects. The reason is that the disgruntled Republicans are a motley lot, and might be alienated from each other just as much as they feel alienated from the White House. On the foreign policy front, the realists are disenchanted with the Bush team for listening to the neocons, the neocons are upset that the realists seem to be in charge, and the remaining “internationalists” are upset with both of the other groups. On fiscal matters, libertarians are upset at the growth of the federal government while moderates are upset at the growth of the budget deficit. This doesn’t even touch on social issues. If Bush loses, there’s going to be a fight — but the battle lines are going to be very, very messy. UPDATE: Chris Lawrence makes an interesting counterpoint:

If Bush loses, chances are many of the “moderate” Republicans will lose too—moderates tend to be in more competitive House seats—so, if anything, a Bush loss should lead to a more coherent and socially conservative party, who no doubt will be determined to make a Kerry administration the least productive administration in American history.