It’s always a good idea, I think, to marry someone smarter than you are. I did, but unfortunately my wife did not.

Anyway, she was pondering the situation at the US Supreme Court the other day and mused about the future of the GOP after Roe v. Wade gets overturned (which I surely think it will be) by the Trump Court (traditionally, you would call this the “Roberts Court” after the Chief Justice, but given the three Trump appointees, two of which were legitimate, I think it is far more honest to call it the Trump Court, but I digress…).

I thought her idea would make for a good column, and when I read Colorado Politics this morning, I saw a great way to tie a CP story to my reveries regarding the future of the Republican party. There is a story regarding the GOP in El Paso County – where I live  – and the proposal from their county central committee.

The committee, it seems, has had it with GOPers who are not sufficiently loyal to, well, Trump and his big lie about winning the 2020 election. Ignoring the dozens of court cases (many before Trump-appointed judges) and the GOP-led recounts in Arizona and elsewhere, and the total lack of actual evidence of any voter fraud, the committee thinks it would be a good idea to excommunicate any so-called Republican who does not toe the Trump lie line.

A cynical observer might suggest that this effort is, at least in part, an effort to deflect attention from other issues plaguing the local party, such as possibly illegal political donations of party funds, but I suspect that many of the folks behind this effort are truly fervent and true believers in all things Trump (except, apparently, vaccines, but I digress yet again…).

An offending Republican would, after being voted out by two-thirds of the committee, be publicly censured (not clear if a woman ringing a bell and yelling “shame!” would follow the person), and he or she would be removed from party recognition for at least three years. That last part is likely illegal, as in Colorado you can register yourself as a member of any party you choose, but legal impediments do not seem to be seen as a burden within the so-called law-and-order party.

It is not at all clear if the proposal will be fully approved by the membership, but the mere fact such a proposal can be made and then seriously considered points to something I’ve written about many times: the normalization of horrible behavior and beliefs within the GOP.

And that brings me to my wife’s ponderings.

One of the most powerful things that can unite people in a political party is a single issue that is seen as both central to their belief systems and utterly beyond any compromise. And since 1973, for many Republicans, that issue is abortion. They will ignore issues that directly impact their lives (and wallets) and will obsess over making sure no woman has a right to choose.

During my own run for the US congress back in 2008, I ran across a number of GOPers who told me they didn’t care about a candidate’s view on any issue other than abortion. If a candidate was pro-choice, regardless of any other issue position, they would vote against that candidate. And if the candidate was in favor of overturning Roe, nothing else mattered and they were going to get those peoples’ votes. So anti-abortion stances have been pretty well hardwired into the GOP for the past nearly 50 years.

But what will happen to the GOP when Roe is overturned?

I try to be a realist, and frankly, as I noted above, I’m firmly convinced that this Trump court will overturn Roe. It’s not clear if the court will do it in a single decision, or if they will use Texas and other cases to undercut Roe a bit here and a bit there – but, ultimately, I’m sure the Roe precedent will be overturned.

So where does that leave the GOP?

What, exactly, does the GOP stand for, other than on abortion?

Well, lots of things, I guess, but the range of views within the party are quite wide. Without abortion anger to hold things together, how does a party that claims both Mitt Romney and that guy carrying a Confederate flag through the capitol as members keep things together?

A page out of their playbook (and, frankly, from the playbook of any despot) is to find another villain to focus on. As Trump’s big lie inevitably fizzles out as a unifying cause, I’m guessing the GOP will next turn on immigrants as a tangible “threat” to be addressed. But I’m not entirely sure that anti-immigrant vitriol is enough to bind the diverse views of GOPers together.

The national GOP leaders will be faced with trying to find a way to include “regular” GOPers like Romney with those on the radical right, like an actual GOP candidate for office in Michigan who is urging his supporters to bring guns to their polling places (to what, shoot the grandmothers who check people in?) and to actually unplug voting machines if they think something sneaky is going on. The GOP must keep their middle, and must pick up some independent votes, all the while keeping faith with that radical element. There simply are not enough Republicans nationally to win elections – they need moderates and independents, and they need the crazies.

The GOP would be wise to remember the Whig party of the 19th century, which collapsed due to being pulled apart at both extremes.

It is profoundly ironic that the very issue that unites the GOP may well prove to ultimately be its undoing.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.