For Republicans old enough to remember President Ronald Reagan’s once-sacred 11th commandment — “Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican” — last week’s bitter GOP infighting for leadership positions during the 2025-2026 session of the state Legislature could have looked like a sin against party unity.

But according to longtime Palmetto State political observers, like Beaufort Republican Sen. Tom Davis, it was just the inevitable consequence of the Republican Party’s now unchallenged power in South Carolina — and a clear sign of the things to come.

“The bigger a majority party gets, the more likely it is to become divided,” Davis told the Charleston City Paper this week. “Eventually you start debating among yourselves instead of debating with the other side, because it stands to reason that whatever you promote will pass.”

As a result, Davis says, the larger a majority grows and the longer it stays in power, the harder it is to stay focused on issues with strong support across all wings of the party.

“Everyone comes to Columbia with different priorities,” Davis said, noting that the current Republican majority is made up of social conservatives, libertarian conservatives and populist conservatives. “So you start with the issues that everyone agrees on, but sooner or later you get to a point where you’ve exhausted them and then it’s a question of which faction will dominate on the remaining issues.”

And that broader intraparty struggle, most political observers say, is what South Carolinians saw begin to play out last week in the General Assembly — particularly in the House, where Speaker Murrell Smith , R-Sumter, had to fend off a leadership challenge. from members of the relatively small but far-right SC Freedom Caucus.

A far-right perspective

Controversial since its inception in 2022, the 17-member SC House Freedom Caucus has quickly risen to prominence in Palmetto State politics by publicly accusing GOP leaders of betraying conservative principles in service of this which he calls a moderate and “one-party” program.

Tensions stemming from these accusations have flared repeatedly in the House during the 2023-24 session, with one GOP member going so far as to don a tinfoil hat to mock the group’s support for legal tender to gold and silver in the State.