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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWin or Lose, It's Donald Trump's Republican Party
New York TimesThe panic and excitement attending Donald Trump have always shared an assumption: that his election marked a profound break with the American politics that came before it. During his inaugural address, as he surveyed the national landscape of American carnage, Trump himself invoked the advent of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before. In the years and events that followed the endless soap opera of the White House, the forceful separation of children from their families at the border, the pandemic, Trumps refusal to permit even a passing interest in a peaceful transfer of power it seemed increasingly clear that the world never had.
But for all the attention paid to what Trump represents in American politics, the most salient feature of his ascent within the Republican Party might be what he doesnt represent. When Ronald Reagan overthrew the old order of the Republican Party in the 1980 election, he did so as the figurehead of a conservative movement that had been gestating since the 1950s, with an intellectual framework that William F. Buckley Jr. had been articulating for a quarter-century, with a policy blueprint provided by the Heritage Foundation and with a campaign apparatus that quickly pivoted to the task of converting the new constituencies hed brought into the party to a base durable enough to build on. The total merger of his movement with his party didnt happen immediately, but the key elements of it were in place by the end of his first term, and there was not much ambiguity about what the G.O.P., if it was transforming, was transforming into.
Trumps takeover, by contrast, has been as one-dimensional as it has been total. In the space of one term, the president has co-opted virtually every power center in the Republican Party, from its congressional caucuses to its state parties, its think tanks to its political action committees. But though he has disassembled much of the old order, he has built very little in its place. You end up with this weird paradox where he stands to haunt the G.O.P. for many years to come, but on the substance its like he was never even there, said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist.
During Trumps presidency, his party has become host to new species of fringe figures. Laura Loomer, a self-identified #ProudIslamophobe and erstwhile Infowars contributor who has been banned from Twitter and Facebook, earned presidential praise and a campaign-trail cameo from Trumps daughter-in-law, Lara Trump for winning her Florida congressional districts Republican primary in August. There is also Marjorie Taylor Greene, the partys current nominee in the race for Georgias 14th district, whose embrace of the QAnon conspiracy theory and litany of racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic statements didnt dissuade Trump from calling her a future Republican star, or Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republicans leader in the House, from pledging to give her committee assignments should she win in November.
But for all the attention paid to what Trump represents in American politics, the most salient feature of his ascent within the Republican Party might be what he doesnt represent. When Ronald Reagan overthrew the old order of the Republican Party in the 1980 election, he did so as the figurehead of a conservative movement that had been gestating since the 1950s, with an intellectual framework that William F. Buckley Jr. had been articulating for a quarter-century, with a policy blueprint provided by the Heritage Foundation and with a campaign apparatus that quickly pivoted to the task of converting the new constituencies hed brought into the party to a base durable enough to build on. The total merger of his movement with his party didnt happen immediately, but the key elements of it were in place by the end of his first term, and there was not much ambiguity about what the G.O.P., if it was transforming, was transforming into.
Trumps takeover, by contrast, has been as one-dimensional as it has been total. In the space of one term, the president has co-opted virtually every power center in the Republican Party, from its congressional caucuses to its state parties, its think tanks to its political action committees. But though he has disassembled much of the old order, he has built very little in its place. You end up with this weird paradox where he stands to haunt the G.O.P. for many years to come, but on the substance its like he was never even there, said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist.
During Trumps presidency, his party has become host to new species of fringe figures. Laura Loomer, a self-identified #ProudIslamophobe and erstwhile Infowars contributor who has been banned from Twitter and Facebook, earned presidential praise and a campaign-trail cameo from Trumps daughter-in-law, Lara Trump for winning her Florida congressional districts Republican primary in August. There is also Marjorie Taylor Greene, the partys current nominee in the race for Georgias 14th district, whose embrace of the QAnon conspiracy theory and litany of racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic statements didnt dissuade Trump from calling her a future Republican star, or Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republicans leader in the House, from pledging to give her committee assignments should she win in November.
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Win or Lose, It's Donald Trump's Republican Party (Original Post)
brooklynite
Oct 2020
OP
kentuck
(111,110 posts)1. Yes. Even if he loses, he will not give up his hold on the Republican base.
They will either have to join with him or split from their Party. In a way, this election is like a death match for the political Parties. The one that loses could be in the wilderness a long time.
Aviation Pro
(12,186 posts)2. And we will use Shitbag against them....
...in 2022.