Trump Remade the GOP Into the Doomed Party of White Identity

[Zorro]

It’s become a party full of people who see themselves as victims, and believe that they are losing what should be their country.

In the wake of the attack on our U.S. Capitol, I have continued to wrestle with what has happened to the GOP and the conservative movement, as well as whether either are salvageable. It’s clear that Trump’s base is what gives him leverage. Even now, with Trump defeated, some Republicans cite their political and physical fear of the base as their reason for opposing impeachment.

For the last four years, it might have sounded like a distinction without a difference to say that most Republican-elected officials were actually afraid of Trump’s supporters (not Trump). However, with Joe Biden about to be sworn in, this distinction becomes a more important diagnosis: Merely getting rid of Trump won’t solve the problem. The Republican Party and the conservative movement have been conquered and transformed by the barbarians at the gate. How do you rescue people who don’t want to be liberated?

Merely installing new leaders (assuming that were possible) isn’t enough. In a democracy, leaders will eventually reflect the values and priorities of their voters. Trump was a magnet for those white voters who no longer share traditional bourgeois values (and a repellent for those—these days, often college-educated suburbanites—who do), which means that even after he is gone, the tail will wag the dog in that direction.

I call these new MAGA Republicans “immigrants”—a name most of them would find ironic, if not objectionable. But stick with me. Like any nation, a political party or movement requires constant replenishment of its ranks. But preserving your founding principles also requires assimilation, lest your vision and traditions disappear after one generation. In the 21st century, two waves of immigrants joined the GOP: first liberals mugged by 9/11, and then a Trump wave that mingled working-class whites, angry about the changing culture, with formerly apathetic voters wowed by Trump’s celebrity. Both waves brought a flood of refugees who did not share what might be thought of as a Reagan-conservative worldview.

Not to paint with a broad brush (one of the stories of the 2020 election was Trump’s appeal to—and improved performance among—various groups of people of color, particularly Cuban-Americans in Florida), but MAGA voters are generally white Americans without a college education who feel like they have lost their place in the world. They culturally identify as Christian, but don’t often set foot in a church, and find the moralizing of a Mitt Romney (or even a George W. Bush) at best off-putting. They craved a sense of meaning and purpose, so they turned Trumpism into their religion. They also don’t have a deep philosophical commitment to what we might call Burkean conservatism, or a particular loyalty to the party of Lincoln.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-remade-the-gop-into-the-doomed-party-of-white-identity

[Midnight Writer]

1. I don't think Trump "remade" anything. He is the culmination of decades of GOP strategy.

[Skittles]

2. Trump simply brought what was already there out into the open

he gave permission to be an openly racist asshole