The Republican Party’s Decay Began Long Before Trump

It’s pretty simple: money, money, money. Get the excessive dark money out of our politics.

I often go back to the Newt Gingrich era, the "zero sum" attitude arrived. But it would NOT have worked if the majority of the party had not bought in. The GOP defined a grievance. The GOP offered a relief from the grievance. And in Trump they put into place their solution. This fall the electorate will decide if the solution will work.

I felt the shift start post, Reagan. The right hated Clinton. They REALLY hated having a black man in office. I saw this coming with the Tea Party. I told republican friends their party was being highjacked by nuts. I sold advertising on News Talk radio, which carried Limbaugh. I watched his listener's hate build and build. And Trump came along and tapped that vein of discontent and hate.

Worms can only thrive on something that's already rotten.

What a difference in conversation now. Biden stepped down 6 days ago.

The Republican Party's decline began in 1980 thru 1992 when Reagan and the first Bush waged full out war against the working class of America. In 1980, America was great for the MAGAs (the white working class in America). They had good paying union jobs, they owned their own house, had good health care, had good pensions, could afford to send their kids to college, had savings rather than being buried in a mountain of debt. And, in 1980, 30% of all working Americans were part of a union. By the time the first Bush left office in 1992, that number was down to 10%. The decimation of the unions led to both parties pandering to the rich for their political donations (bribes). The first manifestation of that for the Democratic Party in 1992 was implementing globalization. First with NAFTA in Mexico before a full blown movement of all US manufacturing to China - and with it all of the good paying jobs that the MAGAs once had. Plus there were other things like allowing CEOs to own stock in their own companies which led to round after round of massive layoffs to prop up stock prices, the implementation of LBOs which destroyed millions of American workers' pensioin plans not to mention destroying the companies they worked for and the defanging of the SEC among other corporate atrocities. The second Bush picked up the ball from his father in 2000 thru 2008 having created the environment for the great mortgage scam of 2008 which threw millions of working class Americans out of their homes while not a single bankster was prosecuted. By the way, all of this was catering to the 1%, the elites represented by the Republican at the expense of the white working class conservatives who were decimated by what Reagan and the Bush's did to them economically. And, of course, this was all before Trump. Disenfranchised both economically and politically, the MAGAs chose Trump as their vehicle to tear down the political structure that had destroyed them economically. And Trump partially delivered, draining the swamp of the conservative Republicans who had stabbed them in the back. The MAGAs aren't done using Trump either. When he gets re-elected in November, they expect him to finish the job of draining the political swamp by making sure no Democrat gets elected to anything again. The MAGAs are all for a wannabe fascist dictator to get their retribution against the politicians who, using American democracy, stole everything from them. So yes, Trump is a symptom, not a cause of the death of the old style conservative Republican Party. They did it to themselves.

Clarence Thomas has taken $4,000,000 in “gifts.” There’s some serious decay right there.

compromise is the heartbeat of democracy. to perceive the opposition as your enemy puts you on the road to creating autocracy.

The media used to play a gatekeeper role, too, at least against those who said things that were profoundly ignorant, unhinged, and incoherent, remember that, Ezra?

trump went after his own party with WARP SPEED.

TRUMP IS an ENTERTAINER, I'M NOT BEING ENTERTAINED by him as PRESIDENT 😢😢😮

As an outsider from NZ looking in, from the 1960s, I can precis this with two points. 1. Right up until the resignation of Nixon, both democrats and Republicans were intrinsically linked to the Keynesian economics of the New Deal, high wages and high taxes, unionism and fair bargaining, protected pension schemes, and progressive development lead by government intervention. That ended after Nixon, with the take over of the Republicans by the extremist monetarist elite under the disguise of Milton Friedman and associates, advocating a complete reversal of those policies. They lied to the electorate and pushed through monetary reforms that ended all the protections, economic and political, for the average voter. 2. The Bushes continued with the same policies and further poisoned politics by sharpening the political divide by terming Democrats as traitors, especially with the connivance of Gingrich and others. They did this partly to entrench wealth and partly as revenge for Nixon. By the time Clinton and Obama came to power, the rot had set in, with Americans disinterested and suspicious of politics. Trump is the result. Lack of civics education isolated the masses of voters, and "race to the bottom" economics created sn underclass in America. At the moment, that underclass is leaderless because Trump betrayed them, but many don't recognise that fact - yet!!!!! When they do, there will be one of two things: either a revolt, or a resurgence of interventionist economics under real left wing Democrat politics.

Trump is the apotheosis of McCarthyism, & i refer to both Senators McCarthy...

I would highly recommend Heather Cox Richardson's "Democracy Awakening", which traces the roots of the authoritarian right back to before the Confederacy and shows how figures from Nixon to Reagan and Gingrich, while not ostensibly authoritarian figures themselves, employed authoritarian tactics and language in pursuit of power and got the snowball rolling.

This is what I needed to hear, and, read. Thank you. Having lived to my mid-70's, i was bewildered by the 2020 Republican "convention". Well, both conventions really. I'm going to listen to this a few more times, take notes, anf order the audible version. Clearly, I'm way behind the curve of events. Who scares me more than Trump is Mike Johnson, the True Beliver. Bring back the gatekeepers? 😮

Your comment about how the “GOP is an engine for turning social resentment into tax cuts” is spot on! I’d add “tax cuts for corporations and billionaires”.

Delegates as gate keepers seems to contradict the analysis of political science: delegates who go vote in converntions always represent the more radical groups of a party.

I think DJT gets too much credit for his come behind win n 2016. He was surrounded by people like Bannon, Stone, Limbaugh, Steven Miller and many others who had already identified the huge dissatisfaction in the working classes both republican and democratic with their “establishments”. They just needed a narcissistic strong man - enter DJT. He followed their script for the most part. He would have just raised his brand name and walked off into the sunset except by exploiting those schisms in both parties he unexpectedly won the election by a very thin margin. With the taste of power and the immunity that goes with being a sitting president, he doesn’t want to let go of either. Again in 2024, he doesn’t care about governing, he just wants the power and to stay out of jail. Democrats need to be pointing this out and talking to the working class about why Biden does want to be president and what he can do for them.

Interesting to learn the history of this question. Thank you. But I see the problem of the old system for the Democratic party. People will not vote for the candidate if he is elected by the "establishment". I also understood the problem of "establishment" finally. I am a naturalized US citizen, I was not born here and I didn't get the sentiments behind "government is run by the establishment". It looks like the reforms were inevitable. I also understood why Republicans ever were winning the elections on such ridiculous issues. They created more illusion of care about the voters' needs. I think the establishment can't be a gate against populists anymore. It should be education and a better understanding of your interests for people who vote. But I disagree about Joe Biden. So far I see him as the strongest candidate among Democrats. He is moderate, he reduces the antagonistic pressure, he is willing to compromise where it is possible and stay strong where compromise is impossible. I see few candidates who can be good in the future. Kevin Newsome for example. But I see that right now he will be attacked worse than Biden - the narrative that California is a communist state with a failed economy is very strong and supported by the media. I live in California and I know that it is a false narrative but even in California people believe it. Politicians also think that if you have a woman candidate then women will vote for her, or if it is a black candidate - blacks will vote. Also false narrative most of the time. I am a woman but I will not vote for Nikki Haley because she will destroy the middle class and most likely cause a recession. I support women's rights and I am pro-choice but the same is Biden. I also like Pete Buttigieg as a candidate but I don't think that the fact that he is gay will be beneficial for his election. It doesn't influence my vote, and there could be few people who will vote for him just because of that, but there would be lots of homophobes who wouldn't. And he needs to prove himself positively so he will be able to show more of his achievements. Kamala Harris is also a great politician, but she is not popular either. The fact that she is a woman and a person of color will not help her at all. So I see Biden as the strongest candidate so far.

And the other problem is that voters only have the realistic choice between 2 parties - and not between 3 or 4, as it is possible in more advanced democracies like in Europe. If voters dislike the Democrats and dislike Trump - so what then?