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Dead Elephant?
My colleague John Kenneth White published a provocative column in The Hill newspaper last week with a headline bearing the warning:
“The Republican Party May Not Survive the Trump Day of Reckoning.”
John is an emeritus professor at Catholic University and scholar of party systems.
He has been warning about the demise of the Republican party for years, and
wrote a book about it called Grand Old Unraveling.
John and I are also co-authors of an upcoming book about the last three
elections and what they portend for the future.
It’s called Democracy on the Edge. But more on that shortly.
In his column, John presupposes that a day of reckoning is coming for
Donald Trump, and questions whether his party will crater in its wake.
He recognizes the differences in kind between past failed Republican
presidencies like Hoover, Nixon and Bush and what we’re experiencing
now as it relates to the hollowing out of the internal workings of the
party itself:
Trump’s takeover [of the party] allowed him to choke off any internal
opposition.
Prior presidents, including Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, had
to mollify opposing factions within the Republican Party. For Eisenhower,
it was the die-hard conservatives who never trusted his modern Republicanism initiatives, which emulated Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
For Reagan, it was the liberal Republican northeasterners who disliked
some of his budget and tax cuts.
But Trump has very few elected Republicans voicing opposition.
And those who have expressed disagreement are either exiled from the
party or face internal opposition from MAGA-minded Republicans whose
primary qualification is their undying allegiance to Trump.
Without that opposition, the party has become wedded to Trump the person.
Like everything else in Trump’s life, it has become an extension of himself.
So what happens to the organization if the person is discredited?
John recognizes that the idea of the Republican party dying is hard to fathom—
or, in his words, seems absurd. He acknowledges the considerable structural and
institutional advantages that work to keep the party afloat:
Since 1854, the Republican Party has been a major party whose status is
protected by election laws giving its nominees automatic ballot access.
Republicans have well-developed organizations at both the national and
state levels. The party is awash in cash. One-third of Americans identify as Republicans. And our winner-take-all electoral system marginalizes third
party candidates, often forcing voters to choose between Republicans and
Democrats.
But those advantages are competing with a record the nation has rejected and
the suffering it has caused.
The New Republic, in a quote I highlighted on Friday, described that
record well:
In the 15 months since he returned to America’s highest office, Trump has
launched the U.S. into a war with Iran, sparking a global energy crisis that
has raised the cost of living pretty much everywhere. He also invaded
Venezuela and kidnapped its leader, Nicolás Maduro, axed thousands of
staffers from the federal government and crippled some government
agencies, and used his office to target his political opponents.
He has hobbled America’s press, sowed doubt and distrust in the country’s democratic elections, undermined the judiciary system, pardoned hundreds
of people who served his personal interests—such as those who attacked
Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021—imposed nonsensical tariffs on U.S. trading
partners, aggressed America’s international alliances, abused the purpose of
executive orders, and endorsed violent immigration policies and detention
centers that have been compared to concentration camps, among other
issues.
I suggested that damage caused by MAGA governance could cost Republicans
far more than an election or two, as the conditions we’re seeing develop echo
earlier moments when our politics realigned in an enduring way. If 2026 and
2028 are generation-defining elections, the Republican party will find itself in
the minority for years, until it can rebuild from the damage Donald Trump has
caused to its brand.
John’s piece takes that argument a step further. He wonders if the party as
an entity will cease to exist under the weight of the wreckage Trump has caused.
It’s a topic he and I have discussed at length over the years, and it informs the
work we did together in Democracy on the Edge. We regard the elections of
2020, 2022 and 2024 as a trilogy where democracy was on the ballot.
In 2020, America used constitutional means to remove an authoritarian leader
from power and successfully pushed back his attempt to stage an insurrection.
In 2022, Democrats outperformed expectations for an incumbent party in a
midterm year and prevented election-denying MAGA Republicans from
assuming state and federal offices across the country.
In 2024, however, voters let the would-be insurrectionist re-enter the White
House through the front door.
John and I were of the opinion when we discussed writing the book that saving democracy would require winning all three of these elections.
Winning two out of three left democracy in peril and the country at a crossroads.
Now that we are well over a year into Donald Trump’s second presidency, the
damage he is doing to the country and the world has become undeniable to a growing majority of the public. That makes a reckoning with what is happening
appear unavoidable when this era is over. Looking ahead, it’s reasonable to
consider what that will mean for the country, democracy, and our political
parties.
In Democracy on the Edge, we explore the state of both major parties and
consider what history tells us may be in store for them when Trump’s second presidency is over. Wolves and Sheep readers will find the familiar theme of realignment throughout the book, in the service of a more comprehensive
argument than what you’ll find in any given Substack post.
If you’re interested in reading more about Democracy on the Edge, you can click here to access the book’s home page on the
University Press of Kansas website. And if you are interested in pre-ordering a
copy, type the discount code 24ONTHEEDGE at checkout and receive
30% off the list price.
