The Devolution of the Republican Party into Populism
America’s GOP has become a populist vehicle
Last week’s spectacle that was the Republican Nominating Convention marked a significant development in American politics, namely the devolution of one of the two major parties into a populist shell of its former self. The party has abandoned its values to stand solely for the whims and ideas of its head whatever those may be. This change bares serious consequences for the entirety of the American political system and it should not be assumed that the party will be able to normalize once Trump is gone.
Populists are charismatic leaders with an unmediated connection with their base that relies on that base’s perception of the candidate as one of them or their voice against an elite that excludes them. As a result, populist parties serve only to propagate the cult of personality of the candidate and mobilize their supporters, with many coming into existence just months before an election. The 166-year-old Republican Party would seem impervious to such a label, and for most of its history that would be correct, but during the administration of President Donald Trump the party has become yet another democratic institution to succumb to the egotistical ambitions of the president.
Both parties have become more about their presidential candidates over the course of the twentieth century as politics become more national and ever more accessible. Presidential candidates have become the faces of their parties while they occupy the post. As the United States has become more polarized elected officials increasingly feel like their fortunes are tied to that of their party’s presidential candidate. This has created a terrifying obedience to the president within his own party that has eviscerated the jealousy of congress for its own power against the power of the executive. While this trend is worrying enough, what is happening in the Republican Party is worse still.
While it might seem like an eternity ago, the Republican Party did not espouse many of the principles that Donald Trump did in 2016. During his run for the nomination, he was lambasted in no uncertain terms by Republicans like Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and many others. Just weeks before the election, Paul Ryan told a party conference call that he was done defending the party candidate and his untenable positions. Only Romney can claim to have remained true to his pre-Trump stance. Since then the party has adopted uncharacteristically authoritarian, economically nationalist, and anti-globalist positions while GOP lawmakers struggle to find justifications for every outrageous claim and comment the president makes. For years we have seen members of the Republican Party vehemently support positions they used to oppose and denounce the president’s in party opponents as bad conservatives and bad Republicans.
Now with last week’s convention, a traditional celebration of the party, the Republican Party has completely voided any independent identity it may have had. The conventions speakers, a cast of members of the Trump family and people who owe the president their jobs, paraded out to regurgitate his talking points with virtually no effort to reflect a party or ideology larger than Trump himself. The party literally shouted out a violently populist message of destroying the other side before they destroy us. To amplify their rhetoric the convention trotted out right wing internet sensations like Nicholas Sandmann and Mark and Patricia McCloskey. Their appearances serve only to forward Trumpian culture wars that the Republican Party has now made its own. As if all this wasn’t enough to show people that the party is now just a vehicle for Trump, the party took the time to declare it so. In a move that garnered far less attention than the fiery speeches, the Republican Party declined to produce a new platform and instead reaffirmed its sole purpose as the party of Trump. Since June, the Republican Party has maintained that it would carry over its 2016 platform citing an empty excuse about the pandemic logistics. The party has not produced a platform because it does not have one. To be Republican is to be a Trump supporter and there is no longer a difference. The small resolution that the party did adopt uses Trumpian language to attack the media, President Barack Obama, and of course, Vice President Joe Biden, before declaring “the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.” This is the Republican Party today, a populist vehicle for the support of President Trump’s policies, whatever they may be that day and no matter how diluted. It has no ideology.
For comparison, the Democratic Party did indeed produce a new platform at their convention where a wide array of speakers represented different aspects of the party. This included disillusioned Republicans like John Kasich with individuals from the left wing of the party like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who not only differ from Biden but also have been extremely critical of him in the past (Ocasio-Cortez insinuated that he shouldn’t be in the party at one point). The convention also included speeches from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama the party’s most recent candidate and president (That pesky Post Office must have lost George Bush and Romney’s invitation to the RNC). Obviously, the nominating convention was about Biden but it was also about the larger party he represents not the electoral vehicle that represents him.
When political parties cease to represent ideas or causes and become mere vehicles of mobilization the entire political system suffers. Voters no longer know where the candidates they are deciding between stand or who will most closely mirror their beliefs on the nation stage. The system of representation breaks down. This problem will not magically disappear with Trump either. One need only look to the Justicialist Party in Argentina, more commonly known as the Peronist Party. More than 45 years after his death the party mythology still emanates from Juan Perón and his wife Eva. There is no guarantee the Republican Party can escape a similar fate as it submits its entire identity to Donald Trump whose family may well go on to dominate the party for years to come. The GOP resolution adeptly declared, “All platforms are snapshots of the historical contexts in which they are born.” This is indeed a snapshot of the history of the Republican Party and it is a sad one.
Sources:
· “Resolution Regarding the Republican Party Platform.” Party Resolution, August 2020. https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/docs/Resolution_Platform_2020.pdf?_ga=2.165306300.2055661719.1598124638-455285808.1584478680.
· Epstein, Reid J. “The G.O.P. Delivers Its 2020 Platform. It’s From 2016.” The New York Times, August 25, 2020, sec. U.S.
· Forgey, Quint. “AOC: ‘In Any Other Country, Joe Biden and I Would Not Be in the Same Party.’” POLITICO, January 6, 2020. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/06/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-joe-biden-not-same-party-094642.
· Brand, Anna. “House Speaker Paul Ryan Says He Won’t Defend Trump.” NBC News, October 10, 2016. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/paul-ryan-says-he-won-t-defend-donald-trump-n663711.