It is no secret that a fundamental shift has occurred in the Republican Party platform since Donald Trump announced his candidacy six years ago. His omnipresence has had effects at every level of government in the United States and continues to consume domestic and international headspace, even since his election loss and the beginning of the Biden Administration. Moving on from the Trump presidency and simply letting it fade into history would, however, be a mistake. The question then becomes what is next? Next for the Republican Party and next for our democracy.
The beauty, or issue, with American politics is that the next election is always right around the corner. Many pieces have already been written about what the Republican platform will look like in 2022 and 2024 and how much effect “Trumpism” will have on it. For those of us who saw the Trump presidency as more than a treasure trove for political satire and memes, it is apparent that Donald Trump continues to be a formidable force within the Republican Party and that his influence may only be growing since he left office. One need look no further than the speech Trump gave during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this past weekend. A straw poll taken at the even showed strong continued support for Donald Trump. According to Politico, 95% of respondents advocated that Republicans should continue to push Trump’s political agenda, 68% called on Trump to run again in 2024 and 55% choose him as their top candidate above other potential contenders such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Trump’s continued popularity has also led to multiple establishment Republican politicians being chastised and even censured for opposing him. Censures of longstanding critics, such as Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger, Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse and Utah Senator Mitt Romney are less surprising, but the censure of North Carolina’s senior Senator Richard Burr certainly raised eyebrows. These censures by state Republican officials mean that Trump may have been the most visible embodiment of a concerning shift in the Republican Party, but that his agenda is not a flash in the pan.
The reason this shift is especially concerning, apart from some of the questionable policies being pushed and the at times open embrace of fringe conspiracy theories, is that the punishment of those who are willing to speak out against “Trumpism” erodes the gatekeeping function that political parties provide. The current modus operandi in the Republican Party is to ostracize anyone who speaks out against Donald Trump and his policies. As a result, powerful Republican figures such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy routinely contorted themselves to justify Trump’s and his administration’s actions during his presidency. This stands in stark contrast to previous gatekeeping performed by American political parties who successfully blocked the candidacies of figures such as Henry Ford and even attempts at gatekeeping made by Republicans during the 2016 Republican primary.
It appears that the Republican Party is now not only ignoring historical precedent of gatekeeping in our political system but openly welcoming problematic figures into their ranks. This is not new in the House of Representatives where Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn, and Lauren Boebert are the latest installment. However, the silencing of dissenting voices in the Senate could be the beginning of a trend that sees the voices of Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and freshman Senator Tommy Tuberville further elevated. The party establishment, who traditionally served as a moderating force, are encouraging candidates who are supportive of Donald Trump’s policies. At times, this encouragement has been at the expense of more established incumbents, a relatively rare occurrence in American politics.
To be fair, there are some in the party who are unwilling to simply accept this new reality of “Trumpism” as the face of the conservative movement. The sitting politicians mentioned above and numerous voices in the media and at think-tanks have spoken about the need for the Republican Party to expand its voter base and that Trump’s agenda may not be the most effective route to do so. Unfortunately, these voices are in the minority.
Looking ahead to 2022 and 2024, it currently seems clear that the Republican Party is not interested in keeping candidates who openly support conspiracy theories that undermine democratic norms off the ticket which could ultimately harm not only the party, but American democracy writ large. The party truly stands at a crossroads. Will it continue to bet on the strength of Trumpism and the grassroots movement that has grown from it or will the party establishment retake its position as gatekeepers, seek to course correct and return the platform to its more traditional roots? The midterm elections will likely give us prime insight into what direction the party has chosen.
Great analysis, Connor! While I have my personal doubts about Trump’s political viability in 2024, he and other gadflies such as Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz will absolutely remain an important force in conservative politics for the foreseeable future. What concerns me the most, however, is the Republican party’s unequivocal success in state legislatures and executive branches in 2020. 22 states are fully under Republican control with 11 others split between Republicans and Democrats. During the upcoming redistricting process, the Republicans will surely wring every last square inch out of the territory they can redraw. The party spent the last four years as one practicing minority rule and there is no doubt in my mind they will spend the next decade focusing on perpetuating that advantage. I think Republicans at the state level will use national politicians as useful propagandists while they funnel a steady stream of extremist candidates into state legislatures who may then make the leap into national politics. I think the party is definitely in a “wait and see” pattern with regard to their platform. If they can win with a minority without changing their message, they will continue to do just that.
I loved your analysis Connor! I agree that Trump and those who agree with him will remain a strong presence within the Republican party. What makes me afraid is if Trumpism completely takes over the entire party and pushes the party all the way to the far-right. Within a democracy, there needs to be a center-right political party in order to ensure that political compromises can occur and that the political parties don’t become alienated from each other and become increasingly more polarized; however, with the Republican party’s shift towards the far-right, we have seen more and more cases of polarization between the parties, such as the increasing number of filibusters occurring in Congress as well as the refusal of the appointment of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland in 2016 under the Obama administration. The United States’ democracy cannot function properly if neither of the major political parties wish to work with each other due to polarization, and Trump’s continuing influence on the Republican party could prevent the situation from stabilizing. Furthermore, a far-right Republican party would cause the political middle to collapse, leaving moderates to be unable to find a major party to side with.
Also notably from your analysis is how Donald Trump has essentially bent the Republican party to his will by attacking Republicans who disagree. Firstly, it is quite obvious that this is a major issue since one of the tactics of a populist authoritarian is silencing their opponents. By censuring major Republican figures such as Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger, Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse and Utah Senator Mitt Romney, Trump basically alienated them within their own party just because they disagree with Trumpism. Since Trump clearly still has influence over the Republican party, more Republican party officials could be pushed out of the Republican party until the only people left are those loyal to Trump. According to a recent Politico article, Donald Trump seems to have confirmed that he will be using his influence in the next midterm election against incumbent Republican senator Lisa Murkowski. Trump should not be allowed to influence the Republican party by condemning fellow party members, and it is largely Republican party officials’ fault for not condemning Trump’s actions and preventing him from harming the party and its members. If the Republican party officials continue to let Trump run amuk within the Republican party in the vain effort to gain the support from his following, then the Republican party will eventually destroy itself. Historically, party officials are meant to be the gatekeepers to ensure that people such as Donald Trump do not gain power within the party, especially not the candidacy, but the Republican party officials seem to not want to do their job. The Republican party officials could have denied the candidacy to Donald Trump during the 2016 primaries. Although they definitely would have received backlash for it, at that time, they knew that Donald Trump didn’t align with the traditional platform of the Republican party and shouldn’t have represented the party within the general election.
I expect that there will be more extremist, Trumpist candidates for the legislature and the presidency within the near future. Potential Republican candidates looking to get elected will most likely want the support from Trump and his following in order to get elected, so more Trumpist candidates will definitely begin to appear. Also, since Trump’s 2016 campaign was a success, new Republican candidates may want to replicate Trump’s populist tactics in order to gain more support from the masses. It’s clear that Trump’s impact on the Republican party will definitely last for a while. With the Republican party becoming the Trump party, there is a likelihood that major party officials may attempt to create a new political party as a sort of “New Republican party”, but it would be highly unlikely that a new party would be able to gain the support that the Republican and Democratic parties have.
The Republican party wants to win and it seems like they are willing to do whatever it takes to receive that win, even at the expense of democratic norms and their own traditional platform. The purpose of a political party is to win positions in order to enact policies, but the Republican party has unfortunately taken their desperation to win seats too far. I don’t know if I’m looking forward to the midterms because the results could lead them to reject Trumpism or double-down on it, and I’m not fully sure which one it will be. All we can do is wait and see what the Republican party does next.
Thank you for the analysis, Connor! There is no doubt that Donald Trump has ushered in a surge of singularized support from his politically populist-oriented rhetoric and alleged support for the working-class man. The Republican Party has rapidly become associated with being a support group for Trump and his agenda, rather than the usual inverse for the overarching political party umbrella. His recent speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference is indeed clearly indicative of this, as he talked about how his movement is not yet over and continued to reject the results of the election despite the evidence brought to light against his false claims.
With no current sign of slowing down or decreasing, Trump’s avid follower base is certainly a concerning force that threatens to disturb the balance of democracy in the United States. His populist ideologies are specifically geared towards setting the Republican party against the Democratic party in the “us versus them” ideology, further polarizing the country. It is also agreed that evidence of said takeover is made clear through Trump’s incredibly pronounced disapproval and bashing of high ranking right wing members and politicians that disagree with his methods and/or direction for the party. An obvious populist tactic, he utilizes the “us versus them” ideology to not only further separate Democrats and Republicans, but also denounce the sections of the right wing party that so much as marginally oppose him. Republican party officials such as Ben Sasse and Mitt Romney have been ostracized to the point where Trump has called to “Get rid of them all”, claiming that “the Republican Party is United…the only division is between a handful of Washington, D.C., establishment political hacks and everybody else all over the country,” (Smith and Vitali). This “uniting” of the right wing party under Trump only further alienized Republicans from inter-party politics.
In addition, Trump also succeeds in pushing the parties apart not only by using the aforementioned tactics, but also by edging the Republican party towards extremist ideas. As Yascha Mounk points out, this upheaval of long-based traditional structures and shift towards radical right wing agendas has been a populist trend since the 90s due to the recent swell of dissatisfaction in the United States government in regards to living standards and governmental indifference to the lower and middle classes. Albeit it not being a new concept, Trump has certainly taken the ball and run with it, which allowed for his dramatic rise to power and consequent takeover of the Republican party.
Said shift is a paradigm of Daniel Ziblatt’s argument of why forms of democratic governments need a strong center right wing political party in order to abstain from democratic backsliding. He claims that the previously stated political ideology is essentially a safeguard against Republicans from moving too far towards the radical right wing conservative agenda. However, it is the absence or diminished authority of the center right wing party that allows for de-democratization, and thus allows for a politician such as Trump to be able to gain a substantial foothold in politics and grow his power. Had more center right ideologists stood their ground, Trump might not have even been put into office after the 2016 presidential election. However, as Connor points out, these voices are indeed in the minority during the current political swing, making it incredibly easy for Trump to continue to push the Republican party further right without much protest from within the party itself.
The question thereby remains of whether or not the center right wing Republicans will take a political stand against Trump and his continued efforts to subvert the rest of the party’s power. Indeed, as Connor points out, the midterm elections will grant insight into what direction the Republican party will be heading towards in reference to the 2024 primaries and national election. However, in order for there to be any foreseeable change in the gravitation of the Republican party towards Trump’s populist agendas, or anybody else’s for that matter, backlash against cultural change would have to dramatically decrease, as that is the primary reason behind support for Populist Authoritarian movements, according to Inglehart and Norris. In addition, there needs to be an increased socioeconomic comfortability among older materialist generations. These generations’ insecurities are causations for general xenophobic political ideas as well as the wideing gap between values of each subsequent generation, which in turn is the root cause for the increased support of Populist Authoritarian movements in today’s day and age. Can this be something that can reasonably be accomplished in a matter of a few years, or will this take the birth of new generations in order to release the nation from the reigns of right wing populist leaders?
Inglehart, Ronald, and Pippa Norris. Trump and the Populist AuthoritarianParties:The Silent Revolutionin Reverse. 2017.
Mounk, Y. (2014, Sep). Pitchfork politics: The populist threat to liberal democracy. Foreign Affairs, 93, 27-I. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.rollins.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/pitchfork-politics-populist-threat-liberal/docview/1559077033/se-2?accountid=13584
Vitali, Ali, and Allan Smith. “Trump CPAC Speech Revives ‘Rigged’ Election Lie, Declares Political Journey ‘Far from over’.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 28 Feb. 2021, http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-cpac-speech-declare-his-political-journey-far-over-n1259093.
Ziblatt, Daniel. Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy. Cambridge University Press, 2019.