Make America great again? How do we explain Trumpism

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Make America great again? How do we explain Trumpism

Tom Heed

Alexander I. Kubyshkin

Abstract

Introduction. Donald Trump was the nadir for the Republican Party; his election in 2016 and his subsequent tenure as President from 2017 to 2021 was the low point of the evolutionary descent and destruction of the party. When Ronald Reagan was elected the 40th president in 1980 at his inaugural address, he warned the nation: “government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem”. One of his first legislative actions was to cut federal taxes on the wealthiest Americans. From that hour on, the Republican Party set their mantra as “lower taxes and shrink government, at all levels” (except for National Defense). Since Ronald Reagan's Presidency, the Republican Party knows only one policy, cut taxes and shrink government; with that as its most sacred Creed, the party has blocked itself from dealing with any national needs. Methods and materials. The methods used in the article are comparative, analytical, and functional systematic. The materials used were: 1) the official documents of President R. Reagan Library; 2) secondary accounts of contemporary events; 3) the materials of US media and selected articles of political experts. Analysis. The article provides some reflections on the evolutionary political process inside the Republican Party from R. Reagan till D. Trump. The authors analyze the context of political and ideological crisis, the new wave of conservative leaders, and the reasons for the structural crisis of the Republican Party. Special attitude devoted to D. Trump phenomena and the description of his political mind. T. Heed analyzed the main trends of the development Republican Party in the last 30 years. He also selected some historical and current sources from mass media for identification of the controversy inside the GOP. A. Kubyshkin analyzed the connection inside the US party system with global challenges for US policy in the domestic arena and on the international scene. Results. D. Trump's bankruptcy of the Republican Party is perhaps best shown by the platform he ordered for the 2020 campaign. There should be none. This action best describes what T rump did to the GOP. By Trump's command, all the Republican party need offer was Trump. The only campaign slogan needed was to support the beloved leader. Only he could heal the nation. No statement of policies was needed; there were none. The Republican Party was left with only Trump as the one all and be all.

Key words: US political party system, Republican Party evolution, the crisis of political leadership in US, political phenomena of D. Trump, Trumpism ideology.

Сделать Америку снова великой? Как мы понимаем трампизм

Томас Хид

Александр Иванович Кубышкин

Аннотация

presidency trump republican

В статье анализируются основные аспекты эволюции политических процессов внутри Республиканской партии, со времен Р. Рейгана и до президентства Д. Трампа. Президентство Д. Трампа стало периодом упадка для Республиканской партии. Его избрание в 2016 г. и пребывание в Белом доме в качестве Президента с 2017 по 2021 г. были низшей точкой в развитии и разрушении Республиканской партии. На протяжении почти 40 лет Республиканская Партия проводила единую политику, боролась за сокращение налогов и за сокращение вмешательства государства в экономику - свой основной стратегический и священный лозунг. Ныне партия заблокировала себя и в значительной степени перестала отвечать национальным интересам. В основу статьи легли: 1) официальные документы администрации США из Президентской Библиотеки Р. Рейгана; 2) работы политических экспертов и политологов США; 3) актуальные материалы средств массовой информации и аналитические записки американских политических экспертов. Анализируется роль консервативного крыла республиканцев в попытках вывести партию из затяжного внутреннего кризиса. Особое внимание в статье уделяется политическому феномену Д. Трампа и оформлению идеологической платформы его сторонников внутри Республиканской партии и за ее пределами. Т Хид рассматривает основные этапы эволюции Республиканской партии на фоне острого политического и идеологического кризиса партийной системы США. Он также провел систематизацию исторических источников и современных материалов американских массмедиа по проблеме внутрипартийной полемики. А.И. Кубышкин анализирует связь между кризисом Республиканской партии, изменениями в американской внутренней и внешней политике, кризисом традиционных принципов межпартийного сосуществования и возникновением нового варианта правого популизма - трампизма. Политическое банкротство Д. Трампа в его отношениях с Республиканской партией проявилось в отсутствии содержательной платформы во время избирательной кампании 2020 г. Эти события наглядно показали, что Трамп сделал с Великой Старой Партией. Для команды Трампа его кандидатура была единственным, что она могла предложить американским избирателям. По их убеждению и по мнению самого Трампа, только он мог вылечить нацию. Страна, по их заверениям, не нуждалась в каких либо политических программах и декларациях. Трамп выступал как олицетворение всей Республиканской партии, и в этом кроется одна из важнейших причин его политического проигрыша и продолжающегося кризиса республиканцев.

Ключевые слова: партийная система США, политическая эволюция Республиканской партии, кризис политического лидерства в США, политический феномен Д. Трампа, идеология трампизма.

Introduction

When Ronald Reagan was elected the 40th president in 1980 at his inaugural address, he warned the nation: “government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem”. One of his first legislative actions was to cut federal taxes on the wealthiest Americans. From that hour on, the Republican Party set their mantra as “lower taxes and shrink government, at all levels” (except for National Defense) [28].

George H.W. Bush was Reagan's Vice President and ran to succeed him in 1988. His campaign manager was Lee Atwater, a known dirty tricks campaigner. When Bush ran against Michael Dukakis, Atwater ran a blatantly racist ad Governor of Massachusetts Dukakis implemented a policy of weekend furloughs from prison of certain convicted felons.

A black man, Willie Horton, was one of the men furloughed under that program. He failed to return as scheduled from his furlough, raped a young woman and assaulted her boyfriend [23; 31]. Lee Atwater ran endless TV ads implying that Dukakis and his liberal policies were responsible for the rape and assault. The ad suggested that Dukakis was releasing dangerous felons into society with no care as to the danger they may do. George H.W. Bush was not a racist, but Atwater's ad campaign made racism an accepted new norm for future GOP elections [21].

Bush won that election with 53% of the vote, and the Republican Party found a new potent weapon: scaring the electorate with divisive, cultural issues.

Analysis

The devolution of the Republican Party continued during President Clinton's tenure in office. Newt Gingrich was elected to the House of Representatives from Georgia in 1979. His goal was to reshape the Republican Party and, in so doing, laid the foundation blocks for Donald Trump.

Gingrich came to the house intent on change and meant to wreak havoc on the established order. He wanted Republican victory and but even more importantly, Democratic Party destruction. He believed that the Republican Party had settled for compromise for generations: “go along, to get along” was not his vision. He did not see Democratic legislators as colleagues; he saw them as enemies; he would use language to demonize and dehumanize them. He urged all Republicans to brand all Democrats as radicals, Socialists, Communists, un-Americans, any invective that would excite emotion from the electorate. He worried not at all if his labels were incorrect or bald-faced lies. Rationality and facts had nothing to do with his assaults. Grab the headlines, grab the news bite for the evening TV shows and move on [7].

As part of his plan to remake the Republican Party, Gingrich moved to nationalize congressional campaigns. He was not content to focus on local issues or personalities; he wanted national issues to dominate Congressional campaigns. He wanted the national agenda of the party to command the debate.

In the 1994 Congressional campaign, he convinced the party to promulgate a “Contract with America”: a nine-point program that would substantially reform the American political scene. Drawing on elements of President Reagan's inaugural address, he promised shrunken governments, lower taxes, welfare reform, and fewer federal regulations that only hampered American entrepreneurial activity [18].

In the 1994 congressional election, the Republican Party gained 54 House seats and nine US Senate seats and gained control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. With a Democratic President, Gingrich moved to neuter the President. Gingrich vowed to block every piece of legislation proposed by President Clinton and improvised a new tool: shutting down the entire federal government by refusing to approve all federal funding. He set a terrible precedence [6]. One that Donald Trump would later find very attractive. Gingrich was sure that voters would swarm to support his newest gambit. They did not, and soon he lost his Speaker's Chair and shortly left the Congress a rejected, spent leader. But his fiery rhetoric, his endless, irresponsible initiatives, and attacks on his own people would eventually provide potent fodder for Donald Trump's campaigns [7].

In 2000, George W. Bush, former Governor of Texas, ran for President against Al Gore, President Clinton's Vice President. The 2000 election was one of the most controversial elections since 1876 and set a pattern that would foretell Donald Trump's election in 2016. Bush failed to win a majority of the popular vote, and the Republican Party challenged the Florida tally. The issue went to the Supreme Court, and the conservative majority ordered the recount halted, and the Court made Bush a minority president.

Still smarting from his father's defeat in 1992 to Bill Clinton, Bush knew that one of the failures of his father's had been promising to lower taxes and then yet raising them during a fiscal crisis. He vowed he would never deny the Republican mantra, lower taxes. He would lower taxes and shrink the federal government by denying funding to Democratic social issues. Another Republican orthodoxy that Trump would gleefully follow.

In 2004 Thomas Frank wrote a keystone book: What's the Matter with Kansas. He found that in recent elections, the voters of Kansas no longer voted for their economic self-interest or public policy issues but rather focused singularly on cultural topics such as abortion or gay marriage or prayer in school. They also developed at ever- increasing antipathy for “liberal” coastal elites who appeared to hold cultural values antithetical to those of Kansas. T. Frank found that Kansas, the epitome of Middle America, had come to despise the liberal “elite” that seemed to populate and control the coastal states. He found they were more engaged with cultural issues like abortion rights and gay marriage than in local infrastructure or better schools. His finding would explain the swell in Republican voters across Middle America [13].

In 2004 Bush ran for reelection against John Kerry, and another pattern emerged that would benefit Trump in 2016. The issue of gay marriage roiled the media and Christian evangelicals across Middle America. Many saw this as the new iconic, cultural issue that rivaled even abortion. Republicans began to see more success from cultural issues than from traditional policy initiatives [9].

The world's financial market crashed in 2008 and sent the presidential race onto untraveled waters. Barack Obama, the first black candidate for a major party, campaigned against John McCain, Republican Senator from Arizona. Race and the changing demographics of America were now on the front burner in national politics in a way never seen before. America's population had been evolving for decades; white Christians were slowly losing their historical domination of the electorate. The Black and Hispanic population was surging, especially in the burgeoning urban centers of the nation's coastal regions. The nations by-ways that remained white and Christian were more threatened by the change than the metropolitan counties. Often urban, suburban areas more readily accepted the change that enveloped their daily lives. They experienced multiculturalism every day and knew it did not threaten them, did not harm them. They often enjoyed the new diversity of restaurants that populated their neighborhoods; the diversity of films that populated their local cinemas.

The unique variety that their children experienced in their schools and in play they felt enriched their family. Trump would harness these raised fears, feed the bigotry and hatred, and openly encourage it.

During Obama's tenure and before, the world trading system underwent a vast paradigm shift. Globalization most fundamentally shifted the profile of the world economy and America's economy. These profound changes would forever change the voting patterns across America.

In 1956 Malcolm McLean developed the first standardized, intermodal container and customized an old cargo ship to carry them. His first ship transported 58 containers from New Jersey to Texas. International trade would never be the same. Today, the largest ships carry 23,964 containers, and the vessel weighs (228,383 tons) twice the weight of the largest US aircraft carrier [35].

Containers changed international trade; it was cheaper to ship a part manufactured in Shanghai to New York than have a product manufactured in Ohio with union wages. Just in time, manufacturing became the rage, and auto plants in Indiana could rely upon parts arriving from Tokyo just as the assembly line needed them. Massive inventories were no longer needed; no huge warehouses crowded the factory lots. Slowly, inexorably blue-collar workers, well-paid union laborers lost their jobs of many years. Manufactures hired fewer workers; local suppliers lost their contracts; local vendors, coffee shops, hardware stores, florists lost their jobs. Small and medium-sized cities across Middle America died, and the citizens were confused and angry at the destruction of their lives. Who was to blame, who would be their defender? All the media told them that the coastal elite loved the new global economy; they flourished in new wealth from the trade, they flourished in the fresh bounty brought to their stores.

Donald Trump rode a wave, a tsunami of change in communication. The new social media turbocharged his rise in politics. He did not make any of it happen; however, he benefited enormously from the serendipitous timing of his campaign and the communication revolution.

In 1996 Robert Murdoch, an Australian news magnate, bought 20th Century Fox and hired Roger Ailes to head a new 24-hour TV news network: Fox News. Ailes designed it to counter the perceived liberal bias of CNN and contend with the other new 24-hour channel: MSNBC. Roger Ailes, a former associate of Lee Atwater, worked with the Bush campaign to defeat Governor Dukakis in 1988. Ailes learned about dirty tricks in politics from the best. Ailes wanted Fox to counter CNN and bring a definite conservative slant to the news [5].

Technology roiled the entire communications field. The Internet, and the alternative sources of news it provided, was destroying national TV. Local newspapers were suffocating and dying as young people turned more and more to their digital sources. As the disaffected voters of Middle America sought friendlier voices than the coastal elite networks, Fox News seemed to hear them and understand them. Fox stars Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham provided a powerful echo chamber for the anger and resentment so many felt as the new demographics swirled across the land. When Hannity let his emotions rail against the liberal media, the voters of Middle America tapped their MAGA red hats and joined him in his cries. Early on, Fox News saw Trump as one of their own and became his bullhorn. Soon FOX seemed like a state propaganda agency for his administration [8].

Other social media appeared, just in time, to bolster Trump's arrival on the political scene. As early as 2009, Trump joined Twitter, another internet platform that enabled him to blast out his raw thoughts. Trump needs little sleep and often used the early AM hours to flood his followers with the latest of his screeds. He tweeted over 25,000 times before being banned [37]. At one point, he had 88.9 million followers on Twitter. No other president had ever had such unfettered access to his acolytes. His verbal control over his followers was eerily like that practiced by Jim Jones over his cult members in Guyana [36].

He did not design this platform, but it was tailor-made for his needs and his skills. It enabled him to by-step the national media; the White House press office shrunk under Trump. He had very few official news conferences: he did not need them to reach out to his public. Instead, he forced the national media to report on all his tweets as important news stories. He got his view out and avoided having to answer troubling questions from professional reporters.

The Trump and Obama relationship shaped much of the Trump agenda in the White House. As early as 2011, Trump appeared on his favorite Fox News show and repeated and amplified the conspiracy theory of the radical right that Obama was born in Kenia and was a Muslim like his father. Taking a page from Newt Gingrich, he attacked the Democratic candidate with the biggest lie. Trump delighted in telling all who would listen; Obama is not a citizen, Obama is a Muslim, Obama is a liar. It became his chronic mantra.

Trump even lied that he sent a team of men to Hawaii to probe Obama's background and that they were finding plenty. Of course, all that was a lie as well. When Obama finally released his birth certificate from Hawaii, the whole “crisis” stilled [32].

During Obama's service in the White House, Mitch McConnell prepared us for another new norm for President Trump. Early, during Obama's first term, October 23, 2010, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared his “number one priority is making sure President Obama is a one-term president”. Taking a page from Newt Gingrich's playbook, McConnell wanted to kill any Democrat initiative. He offered no alternative programs; he refused any proposed compromise; he planned to destroy any Democratic policy [19].

In a like-minded way, when Supreme Court Justice Scalia died in February 2016, almost a year before the next President would take office, McConnell pledged that the Senate, under his leadership, would not consider any candidates that the democratic President would nominate. Again, destroy any possibility of negotiation, destroy any chance for Democrats to claim any victory. Raw-edged politics again frustrated productive politics [10].

On June 16, 2015, Trump declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President. In that announcement, he stated that Mexican immigrants to America were rapists and criminals. Other countries also only sent us their worst. When George H.W. Bush used racist ads to bolster his campaign, we knew he was not a racist. With Donald Trump, it was very different; we knew he was a racist, and his livid dialogue was dog whistles to every bigot and racist in America that Trump was one of them (A dog whistle is a phrase used to indicate a subtle message that is “coded” so only those predisposed to hear it will understand).

The Democrats argue that Trump was a white nationalist. He hated immigration and the demographic change it was bringing to America. As one of his major promises in his campaign, he promised to build a big, tall wall across the 1954 miles of the Mexican border. Brown Latinos were a threat to white America. To neuter the voice of the national media, he organized widespread rallies in all the swing States. He promised the tall wall at those massive assemblies but even promised that the Mexicans would pay for it. Never had the American people seen a candidate who lied like Trump. The Washington Post was so concerned it assigned a reporter to fact-check all his public statements. They counted, during his four years in office, 30,573 lies [20].

At Trump's rallies, he was usually unfettered. No handlers moderated his tone; no advisors could dampen his rhetoric. The national press, always in the back of the auditorium, could and did critique his presentations. They reported on the violence of his supporters and noted how he encouraged the violence. He called the assembled press corps “the enemy of the people” to discredit the media reports. After repeating that night after night, he neutered the media's attempt to muzzle him. The liberal media had been a bane to republican candidates for decades, and Trump provided a new way to vitiate the 4th estate.

He sold his campaign like a TV show. His iconic MAGA hats (Make America Great Again) swept the rallies and the nation. He created his own cult; his own tribe gave them the icon to identify each other. Trump posters blossomed across Trump's America. Many communities, engorged with rage and resentment, found in Trump a new voice. He seemed to hear the cries; he seemed to share their rage at the coastal elites.

With Fox News working as his echo chamber, their status anxiety, their hatred found a new sympathetic leader. They loved his rage; they loved his fiery rhetoric; they loved his hatreds.

The 2016 campaign broke the book on how presidential campaigns evolved in America. First, for the second time in just 16 years, a minority vote elected the President. Hillary Clinton won 48.2% of the popular vote, and Trump won 46.1% but gained the majority of electoral votes. Second, social media formats influenced many voters for the first time. Third, foreign nations invested heavily in influencing the election results, and Fourth, traditional democratic voters, left the party in significant numbers.

The 2016 election was the 5 th time a candidate lost the popular vote yet won the electoral college count. In 1824 Adams won with only 31.6% of the popular vote. (It went to Congress and Adams won there.) In 1876 Tilden won 50.9% but lost in a brokered deal, 1888 Cleveland won 48.6%, yet Harrison was seated, and in 2000 Gore got 48.4% but lost to Bush at 47.9%. Close elections, disputed elections often challenge the validity of the new administration [3].

Social media platforms played a significant role in the 2016 tally. With the death of local news, the massive atomization of TV channels, the arrival of conservative echo chambers (Fox News), many voters turned to their ubiquitous, digital companions. Facebook news sites informed many, and the governing algorithm rarely challenged perceived values. They most often echoed the views detected in prior viewing patterns. Twitter, another powerful site, again fed their viewers their reflections; they never truly educated or challenged pre-existing biases [1].

Perhaps, the most disturbing change in the election was the arrival of alien voices anonymously tilting the field to Trump. Russian President Vladimir Putin did not like Hillary Clinton. He knew she would be very harsh in her relations with Russia. He had to work with her when she was Obama Secretary of State. He did not like being confronted by a woman. Having seen Trump running his Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, Putin probably felt sure he could manipulate him.

Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager, had experience working with Ukrainians loyal to Russia. Manafort provided those Russian agents with sensitive campaign polling data that identified which issues were most vital, in which election districts, for the critical swing states across the nation [22]. The supposed Russian cyber operatives used vital intelligence information to tailor specific Facebook ads to inform just targeted voters. With just the right propaganda to secure those key votes, Trump won surprising victories. We will never know the impact this clandestine, foreign operation had on the outcome of the election. But in such a close election, that input could quickly have been telling.

Trump did not put together his victory at the polls in a usual manner. He brought forth a unique style and a unique collection of issues, and through no action of his, they correlated with the needs of many voters of Middle America.

Perhaps the most irreligious, the most immoral man ever to contend for a national office shared some chords with white Christian evangelicals. They saw Trump as a voice for the “right to life”, and he promised them, conservative judges, to fight their battle on this issue (One of the few campaign promises he kept). The evangelical also was threatened by gay marriage and the issue of school prayers. He sang their song at rally after rally. Evangelicals felt disrespected by mainline churches; they felt muted by the national media, they emotionally linked to his feelings of disrespect and disapproval by the coastal elites. When Trump hammered the press as “enemies of the people”, they felt the same; when he lamented the changing demographics across America, they felt the same. It had nothing to do with his church attendance or his immoral and/or illegal practices. He felt as they [38]. Emotions ruled; facts were irrelevant [11; 15; 32].

Unspoken was the fear of rising change in America. It was not a mistake that they often titled them “white” Christian evangelicals. They saw the shifting population as America turned brown; they saw the drift of their young from counties losing population to those urban centers on the coast. They saw the constant secularization of their youth as more and more Americans, when asked their religious affiliation, responded: none.

We already detailed the blue-collar workers who feared globalization and immigration; they stood as one with Trump. He would cut off trade deals; he would restore industry. Another layer in these voters' attraction to Trump was his chronic misogyny. He attacked Hillary as a woman; he attacked Mika Brzezinski (a noted TV anchor); he attacked Megyn Kelly, a Fox News anchor who dared criticize Trump. He could not abide criticism and never by a woman.

Another characteristic of his voters, again dominantly male, was a penchant for less- educated voters to align with Trump [11]. He hated who they hated. The coastal liberals always seemed to live the high life: solid incomes, enviable quality of life, and all expecting a bright future. They felt none of that and felt Trump resented and hated those high hats as well. Trump was their rebel. The elderly, in those counties losing population, also felt lost. Their children, finding no chance of local employment, drifted off to the booming urban centers. Their quality of life dimmed as their towns slowly shuttered, as the best and brightest left. Trump made them feel as if at least someone cared [16].

In the 2016 election, Trump became the 5 th president to lose the popular vote but secure the Electoral College tally. Clinton won 48.2% of the popular vote to 46.1% for Trump. She had 2,868,686 more votes than Trump. Yet, he garnered 304 electoral votes to her 227 [4].

Results

Donald Trump did not lead his followers to his candidacy. He found them and acquired their causes. His racism led him to oppose immigration and the demographic changes sweeping America [17]. The blue-collar union workers loved that. His disdain for international trade and multilateral treaties joined him with those anti-globalization forces. His pathological narcissism called all the bigots and white supremacists to hear his dog whistle and let them know he was one with them [39]. To those feeling abandoned in the counties losing population, he offered an authoritative voice that proclaimed: “I am the only one to fix it”. They needed a simple answer to their anguish. He provided a simple refrain: Make America Great today.

Perhaps Trump's greatest failure was international relations. It only takes looking at three issues to tally his incompetence.

To the surprise of many, in June 2018, Trump agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un to de-nuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Neither Kim Yung-Un's father nor Grandfather had been successful enough to meet with a US President. It was a tremendous victory for North Korea. Trump, as usual, did little homework and was ill-prepared for such a crucial meeting. Kim Yung-Un had demonstrated that he now had nuclear warheads and intercontinental missiles to threaten the United States. The US needed to reduce or eliminate that new threat.

Trump reveled in the TV coverage of the event and the worldwide notoriety he had brought him. He had campaigned as the great dealmaker and unmatched negotiator. At this summit, he accomplished nothing. He made no deal; He negotiated no reduction of weapons [34].

It was similar in his relationship with Xi Jinping in China. In the first year of Trump's administration, the trade deficit with China went from $346 billion in 2016 to $418 billion in 2018 [12]. Even before his campaign, Trump lamented that China was duping the U.S. During the campaign, he vowed he would still the Chinese dragon. Not to be. Hating multilateral deals, he quickly pulled the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and seceded a vast opening for the Chinese to increase their trade. Trump vowed to use tariffs to tame the Chinese deficit, and when imposed, they cost the US consumer dearly. He promised to curb China's raping of US technology when they seized patent rights. Xi Jinping knew Trump was desperate to close a deal, so Trump folded on many of the critical points sought by the US. The great dealmaker, the great negotiator, failed again [26; 27; 30].

But his fixation on nationalism: American first got him into unique problems in Europe. He much preferred bilateral negotiations. Dealing with one adversary permitted him to feed his narcissism. Meeting with a group of leaders made him one of many, and the others were supposed to be his equal. He could not stand that. His pushing of the Prime Minister of Montenegro out of the picture of his first NATO meeting in May 2017 captures how desperate he was to occupy center stage [29].

His relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel was yet another example of his failure in different international affairs. Trump could not abide having to deal with a strong woman: a female that would challenge him.

He was horrified by her policy of admitting Muslim immigrants into Germany; he could not stand her criticism of his coronavirus response. The world saw a photo from the 2018 G7 conference where Merkel appeared lecturing Trump on global warming. It was one of those images that told the entire narrative [11; 40].

Conclusions

Many now conclude the Trump's four-year administration was the worst in American history [25]. Before Trump, only two presidents had been impeached. The House of Representatives impeached Trump twice. Facing the worst pandemic since 1918, Trump failed.

He again proved he was no administrator. Then after he lost the 2020 election with only 46.9% of the popular vote (Biden won with over a 7,000,000 vote's majority).

After the 2020 election, Trump harangued his supporters into assaulting the capitol building in a failed effort to halt the certification of the Electoral College tally. Trump was one of the few US presidents who refused to go to the inaugural of his successor. He proclaimed from the moment of the election that the results were fraudulent.

He claimed the election stolen, and he fostered what has now become the Big Lie. He asked his supporters to proclaim: repeat again and again and again “my election was stolen; I am the authentic President”.

His bankruptcy of the Republican Party is perhaps best shown by the platform he ordered for the 2020 campaign. There should be none. This action best describes what Trump did to the GOP. By Trump's command, all the Republican party need offer was Trump. The only campaign slogan needed was to support the beloved leader. Only he could heal the nation. No statement of policies was needed; there were none. The Republican Party was left with only Trump as the one all and be all [20].

The Republican Party faces a bleak future as demography forecasts a decline in their numbers for generations to come; more people of color, younger college-educated, and more woman voters bode ill for the GOP. However, they retain power despite the census forecasts. Republicans have a beneficial future in politics because of three structural elements of US politics.

One, the Electoral College is wildly favorable for the Republicans; as long as Wyoming (population 570,000) has three electoral college votes, while California (population 39,500,000) has only fifty-five votes electoral votes, the Republican party has a shot at winning the Presidency. In the last eight Presidential elections, the Democrats won the popular seven times; yet the Republicans won the Presidency twice [2].

Two, the Republican Party also has tremendous strength because of the nature of the US Senate; when a state like Wyoming has two senators, and California also has two US senators, the Republicans hold a huge advantage. The American demographic pattern, for several decades, is that more and more people of color, young people, college-educated people are moving to the coastal metropolitan centers and away from the rural states like Wyoming or even Iowa; as this trend continues, the rural States of America gain more and more power [24].

The third structural element, extensive gerrymandering to control Congressional district lines and all-district lines in State Legislative bodies, strengthens the Republican Party substantially. Every ten years, the US government conducts a census. From that data, the State legislative bodies redraw all election districts to reflect the new population figure. For instance,

Texas is gaining population rapidly, and Ohio is losing numbers so that Ohio will lose a Congressional seat (Texas will gain 2 seats, and Ohio will lose 1 [33]). The Republican legislature will control how those lines are drawn and maximize the benefits of republican office seekers [21].

Republican leaders do not feel that all these advantages are enough to ensure their dominance as the demographics flows against them, so now they are pursuing yet another anti-democratic maneuver: massive voter suppression. In all those states controlled by Republican “majorities”, they are passing myriad bills to suppress the vote and make it more difficult for people of color, college- aged youth, and young voters to make it to the polls. They have reduced the days and hours to vote, they have reduced the number of polling locations, and they have even made it possible for the legislature to change the vote tally if they disagree with it [14].

The Republican Party is doing all it can to maintain its minority-majority status.

References

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