The Many Narratives of Trump and Trumpism — Organisational Change of the Republican Party
I have looked at the contextual circumstances around the rise of Trump. Now, I looked at the organisational weaknesses in American politics and in the Republican Party that created opportunities, which someone like Donald Trump could exploit.
Theda Skocpol and other scholars have looked at how mega-donors have tacked the Republican Party rightwards.
These mega-donors did not donate to the Republican Party, but to specific PACs that they funded. My own thinking here is that this rightward shift in policy issues made the Republican Party less able to respond to actual voters’ needs, and made them less relevant, generating resentment from voters.
The mega-donor funding network has been powerful in the states, where they have been active.
This means that political gridlock will be the norm in the US for a while, and multiplies the chances that another Trump-like figure could come along and enter the political system.
The Republican Party is thus no longer the party of Big Business solely, as this Vox article points out.
It might be compatible with the kind of party the Koch Brothers want the Republican Party to be, but it will exist alongside the other Republican Party that is vehemently anti-immigration and very pro-status quo. In other words, the Alt-Right party.
*post-election update: the alliance between the pro-business movement and the alt-right movement might still hold for a while more. If they keep winning then the coalition will hold.
