If you think there’s a stark difference between Democrats and Republicans, take a look at what’s happening inside the GOP itself. There seem to now be two parties: Those who support Donald Trump, and mainstream Republicans.

That’s the takeaway from the public statements of around half a dozen GOP Senators who are appalled at motions in the House by their conservative colleagues to strip committee assignments from members of their own party who voted with Democrats to pass Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill.

Senator and former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney was among the most vocal in his disapproval of the infighting, saying that it was “absolutely nuts” that House leadership would do such a thing:

The infrastructure bill was bipartisan. It was voted for by Mitch McConnell. Republicans were smart to support it.

Romney was among the 19 Senate Republicans who voted for the bill as it passed through the upper chamber. Pointing out that McConnell had also voted for it was Romney’s way of saying that cooperation from Republicans on a bill they could actually get things they wanted in was a perfect method for making it harder in the future for Democrats to bring their own moderates like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema on board for anything further left.

Other GOP Senators called Kevin McCarthy’s move to strip the assignments “ridiculous,” “draconian,” and “counterproductive.”

South Dakota’s John Thune was pragmatic:

We have that situation over here once in a while where somebody votes for something and it’s disappointing to us but the most important vote is always the next vote, not the last vote.

But moderation is not what gets extremist Republicans like Kevin McCarthy, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, or Marjorie Taylor Greene elected. Their constituents expect them to go to Washington and oppose anything that looks even remotely like a win for Democrats, who most of them laughably believe are communists.

Trump’s statements after the bipartisan bill, calling out McConnell and other cooperative Republicans as “RINOs,” certainly have not helped.

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