Trump’s Reign Has Broken the Republican Party
Donald Trump’s election win in 2016 rewrote many of the political customs that were in place before then. He ran the most unconventional of campaigns, spending more on hats than on pollsters. Along with this political culture change, he has attracted the total focus of almost all Republican politicians. Now, with Trump’s presidential reign coming to a probable end — there is no better time to restart the party.
Throughout Trump’s presidential term, the Republican Party has revolved more and more around its figurehead. As a result, all of his partisan policies have been adopted by the party itself — for better and for worse. As is the nature of politics, it pays to kiss the ring of the leader. Therefore, all of the Republican aristocracy has rallied behind their polarising president. The result of this realignment, however, is a party full of either radical or static policies — one that will be rendered ineffective without Trump.
Amusingly, the Democratic Party of today resembles the old make-up of the GOP. The upper class — most notably Wall Street and Silicon Valley, are increasingly democratic. Among political donations from tech workers, 84% now go to the Democratic Party. This pattern was already apparent in 2016, and after the 2018 midterms, 41 of the top 50 wealthiest districts were controlled by Democrats.
The midterms ensured that the Democratic Party reclaimed the House; in November they may well reclaim the Senate and the presidency itself. Cyclical shifts in voter loyalty between parties is also hardly an exception — Nixon claimed lifelong Democrat voters in the suburbs after the fallout from the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. The Republican Party must engineer a similar swing within their own party in order to realign themselves once again with the American people.
A successful reinvention of the party must be centred around the changing demographic of working Americans. Gone is the era of lifelong jobs, easy housing markets, and early family lives — all in one neatly packaged white ‘American Dream’. Today’s working-class and middle-class come from different races, backgrounds, sexualities, and beliefs. This means the GOP must cease to practise polarisation politics, and instead listen to what the current generation is saying. If America is to avoid becoming a static and ageing society like modern Japan, then they must make it easier to settle into good-paying jobs and move up the economic ladder. Competing against the overinflated “Big Blue Tent” across the aisle, the Republican Party must seize the opportunity to become accessible to the average American — while internal politics confuse Democratic Party policy.
Even lifelong Republican conservatives are beginning to reject the “let the market rip” ideology that the rich can be trusted to govern themselves. America’s younger generations especially reject the very notion of capitalism, and believing that mega-companies operate with social impact in mind is indeed a bit of a fairytale. Policies like greater public investments in daycare and skills have been embraced by younger senators such as Missouri’s Josh Hawley and Florida’s Marco Rubio.
The party should also look to favour a reasonable skills-based approach to immigration. Open borders are a political non-starter and have almost never worked in practice — but implementing a Reagan-like approach of allowing long-time residents with clean records to become citizens should not be out of the question. The current strong anti-immigrant stance accomplishes stoking the fire of its ever-ageing base, but this is a shrinking core of voters that will one day soon become a minority. An immigration strategy allowing people with useful skills and good conduct can only be beneficial to America’s economy and society.
A rebuilt Republican party should be one driven by the unified core of the country, rather than the polarised fringes. Tomorrow’s party must look to enable upward mobility and economic security for the nation’s new heart — the increasingly diverse middle and working-class. The GOP used to be a party of the people, and has always succeeded when it has run on a platform of optimism. President Trump promised a law-and-order term, instead he has delivered a fear-and-chaos campaign.
If Trump’s re-election bid ends in (probable) defeat, his party must disappear into ashes and look to rise reborn in 2024. Providing that their younger cohort are able to revolutionise party ideals, the Republicans can enter the next election with a renewed voter base behind them. If not, their self-implosion rallying around the current president will usher in an age of Democrat dominance. For the new-era Republicans: the old king is dead, long live the king.
