Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

US Consumer Spending Falls as Trump Tariff’s Muddle Economy

2 days ago

US Supreme Court Lets Parents Take Kids Out of Classes With LGBT Storybooks

2 days ago

In Win for Trump, US Supreme Court Limits Judges’ Power to Block Birthright Citizenship Order

2 days ago

California’s Newsom Sues Fox News for $787 Million for Defamation Over Trump Call

2 days ago

Motorcycle Collides With Tractor in Fatal Fresno County Collision

2 days ago

Fourth of July Celebrations Begin Saturday. Here’s Your Fresno Area Guide

2 days ago

Bill Moyers, Broadcaster and LBJ’s White House Press Secretary, Dies at 91

3 days ago

State Department Approves $30 Million for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

3 days ago

Cargo Ship That Caught Fire Carrying Electric Vehicles Sinks in the Pacific

3 days ago

4 Million Acres of California Forests Could Lose Protection. What Trump’s ‘Roadless Rule’ Repeal Could Do

4 days ago
What the Republican Party Might Look Like if Trump Loses
d8a347b41db1ddee634e2d67d08798c102ef09ac
By The New York Times
Published 11 months ago on
August 14, 2024

Former President Donald Trump raises his fists at a campaign rally in Harrisburg, Pa., on July 31, 2024. It is rare in American political history for a single figure to dominate a party as thoroughly as Trump does the modern Republican Party, without delivering a string of electoral wins or otherwise reshaping the political landscape, Jamelle Bouie writes. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Opinion by Jamelle Bouie on August 13, 2024.

Jamelle Bouie

Opinion

Donald Trump is behind. He trails in the pivotal postindustrial swing states and is treading water in the Southern and Sun Belt states — Arizona, Georgia and Nevada — that could help him find an alternative path to 270 electoral votes. In just a few months, Trump may join the exclusive club of two-time presidential losers.

Too Early to Make Predictions About November

Of course, it is still too early to make any real prediction about November. But the sharp reversal in Trump’s electoral fortunes raises an obvious question worth thinking about now: If Trump loses, and perhaps especially if he loses badly, what comes next for the Republican Party?

It is rare in American political history for a single figure to dominate a party as thoroughly as Trump does the modern Republican Party, without delivering a string of electoral wins or otherwise reshaping the political landscape. Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan all defined and redefined their respective parties, but they did so in the context of strong political organizations and movements that could deliver consistent, and sometimes crushing, victories over their opponents.

Not so with Trump. One of the defining attributes of his leadership of the Republican Party is the extent to which he has so thoroughly reshaped Republican identity while leading Republican politicians to a string of election defeats across the nation. After his surprise win in 2016, Republicans either lost or underperformed in 2018, 2020 and 2022. Trump himself was a one-term president, the first since George H.W. Bush lost his bid for reelection in 1992. And the closer Republican candidates tie themselves to Trump in competitive elections, the more likely it is they will lose, from Kari Lake in Arizona to Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania.

As striking as the relative electoral weakness of the Trump-era Republican Party is its total inability to either govern or police the boundaries of its coalition. Trump himself has no program beyond his own prejudices and impulses. “Build the wall” and “mass deportation now” reflect a deep-seated hostility to nonwhite immigrants that has no basis other than rank bigotry. “Stop the steal” and Trump’s broader obsession with so-called election integrity is nothing more than an attempt to operationalize his core belief that he cannot actually lose an election, or anything for that matter. Fittingly, the Trump-led Republican Party declined to devise a platform for the 2020 presidential election and produced a set of Trump-esque slogans for its 2024 one. To the extent that there is a Republican agenda, it is a product of the hard-right ideologues and conservative organizations that see Trump as a willing vessel and vehicle for their own interests.

Trump’s leadership has also occasioned the total collapse of the boundaries (such as they were) separating the far-right fringe of American politics from its mainstream. The former president provides license for — and inspiration to — a large crop of right-wing extremists who disdain democracy and openly fantasize about the use of violence to eliminate their political opponents. “Some folks need killing,” Mark Robinson, the Republican Party’s nominee for governor in North Carolina, declared at a church event in June.

Trump’s Republican Party is a paradigmatically “hollow” party, according to the argument laid out by political scientists Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld in “The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics.” For all its activity, a hollow party “demonstrates fundamental incapacities in organizing democracy.” Its zombielike commitment to tax cuts and deregulation notwithstanding, the Republican Party from this vantage point is little more than “a personal vehicle for Trump’s vendettas and fantasies.” It offers nothing to the public, they observe, “besides praise for its leader.”

So what happens if and when that leader loses yet another national election for his party? What happens when, in the face of conditions that seem as favorable as they could be, the Republican coalition led by Trump still falls short?

Political Introspection if Trump Loses in November

There is not much precedent for the kind of political introspection that might result if Trump loses in November. When the long-serving Kentucky statesman Henry Clay lost his bid for the White House a third time in the presidential election of 1844, the Whig Party entered a period of crisis and profound soul-searching that would shape its decision-making for the remainder of its time in American political life.

“So superior had Whigs’ candidates and their position on the issues seemed that many believed that if they could not win in 1844, they could never win,” historian Michael F. Holt explains in “The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party.”

“The unexpected defeat,” Holt goes on to say, “forced disillusioned Whigs to reassess the purpose, the principles and the viability of their party.”

Some Whig Party postelection recriminations may sound familiar to modern ears. Many Whigs, Holt notes, blamed “Democratic fraud and demagoguery” for their loss. Others said that Democrats, who appealed to the votes of Catholic immigrants disturbed by rising nativism, had profited from a “massive and illegal naturalization of ineligible immigrants” and could not have won without the “spurious and illegal foreign vote.”

Some Whigs went as far as to contemplate party suicide, floating plans to dissolve the party and reconstitute under a new name. Less despondent Whigs urged their allies to focus their attentions on the next round of state elections, where they might prevail. The Whig Party was still strong, they said, and the public will soon reject their new Democratic president. “The nominal victory of our opponents, won by false pretenses and fraudulent voting, will yet prove their ruin,” said Horace Greeley, a prominent Whig and editor of The New York Tribune.

The Whigs did not retire their name or their party. But they did struggle to build a coalition that could win office, ultimately choosing to nominate, in the 1848 election, Zachary Taylor, hero of the divisive Mexican War, in an effort to appeal to as many voters as possible on as nonideological a basis as possible.

A defeated Republican Party in November would not be in as dire straits as the Whig Party was 180 years ago. It would still control at least half the nation’s governor’s mansions and may well control either the Senate or the House of Representatives. On the other side, the same structural advantages that would enable the party to weather a Trump defeat and exercise political power may make it all the more difficult for Republicans to pivot toward winning national majorities. If you can hold power through the counter-majoritarian structures and institutions of the American system, why would you work to build a broader coalition than the one you already have?

There is also the issue of Trump himself. He cares less for the fate of the Republican Party than he does for his personal and pecuniary interests. He has no reason to loosen his grip on the party and every reason to keep it in hand. The real question is whether there are Republicans who could pry it away from Trump. The failure of any Republican to successfully contest his leadership or offer a path away from his personal domination of the party is evidence enough that the answer is no.

The anticlimactic truth is that in the wake of a third Trump nomination and a second Trump defeat, the Republican Party would simply stumble along, stuck in his orbit and too weighed down by his gravitational pull to escape.

In 2016, the Republican Party was too weak to stop Trump, and after eight years of his leadership it is too weak to break the hold he has over most of its voters and many of its elected officials. If Trump does lose in November, the Republican Party will still be his, for as long as he wants it to be.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Jamelle Bouie/Doug Mills
c.2024 The New York Times Company

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

I Detest Netanyahu, but on Some Things He’s Actually Right

DON'T MISS

University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration

DON'T MISS

How Did the Supreme Court Rule? Here’s a Look at the Big Cases

DON'T MISS

Mamdani’s NYC Primary Win Sparks Surge in Anti-Muslim Posts, Advocates Say

DON'T MISS

Trump Sends in DOGE to Slash Federal Gun Regulations by July 4

DON'T MISS

Tensions Flare at Announcement of Major Fresno County Gang Takedown

DON'T MISS

Measure C ‘Blackmailed’ As Fresno Enviro Coalition Gets Huge Say on Transportation Tax

DON'T MISS

Despite $49M Deficit, Fresno Unified Gives Top Brass 5% Raise, 3% One-Time Bonus

DON'T MISS

US Consumer Spending Falls as Trump Tariff’s Muddle Economy

DON'T MISS

US Supreme Court Preserves Key Element of Obamacare

UP NEXT

University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration

UP NEXT

How Did the Supreme Court Rule? Here’s a Look at the Big Cases

UP NEXT

Mamdani’s NYC Primary Win Sparks Surge in Anti-Muslim Posts, Advocates Say

UP NEXT

Trump Sends in DOGE to Slash Federal Gun Regulations by July 4

UP NEXT

Tensions Flare at Announcement of Major Fresno County Gang Takedown

UP NEXT

Measure C ‘Blackmailed’ As Fresno Enviro Coalition Gets Huge Say on Transportation Tax

UP NEXT

US Consumer Spending Falls as Trump Tariff’s Muddle Economy

UP NEXT

US Supreme Court Preserves Key Element of Obamacare

UP NEXT

US Supreme Court Lets Parents Take Kids Out of Classes With LGBT Storybooks

UP NEXT

Fresno Unified Trustees Will Get Automatic Raises on Tuesday

Mamdani’s NYC Primary Win Sparks Surge in Anti-Muslim Posts, Advocates Say

22 hours ago

Trump Sends in DOGE to Slash Federal Gun Regulations by July 4

2 days ago

Tensions Flare at Announcement of Major Fresno County Gang Takedown

2 days ago

Measure C ‘Blackmailed’ As Fresno Enviro Coalition Gets Huge Say on Transportation Tax

2 days ago

Despite $49M Deficit, Fresno Unified Gives Top Brass 5% Raise, 3% One-Time Bonus

2 days ago

US Consumer Spending Falls as Trump Tariff’s Muddle Economy

2 days ago

US Supreme Court Preserves Key Element of Obamacare

2 days ago

US Supreme Court Lets Parents Take Kids Out of Classes With LGBT Storybooks

2 days ago

Fresno Unified Trustees Will Get Automatic Raises on Tuesday

2 days ago

Alleged ‘Fake’ ICE Agents Charged. Fresno Court Date Set

2 days ago

I Detest Netanyahu, but on Some Things He’s Actually Right

Like a lot of people of center-right/center-left political leanings, I’ve spent the past few decades detesting Prime Minister Benjamin Netan...

21 hours ago

2022 Election Rally for Netanyahu
21 hours ago

I Detest Netanyahu, but on Some Things He’s Actually Right

University of Virginia President James Ryan Resigns
21 hours ago

University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration

22 hours ago

How Did the Supreme Court Rule? Here’s a Look at the Big Cases

Zohran Mamdani Speaks to Supporters
22 hours ago

Mamdani’s NYC Primary Win Sparks Surge in Anti-Muslim Posts, Advocates Say

American Flag Revolver
2 days ago

Trump Sends in DOGE to Slash Federal Gun Regulations by July 4

Rob_Bonta_Speaking_At_Press_Conference_1280x720
2 days ago

Tensions Flare at Announcement of Major Fresno County Gang Takedown

Garry_Bredefeld_Sandra_Celedon_Mesure_C_1280x720
2 days ago

Measure C ‘Blackmailed’ As Fresno Enviro Coalition Gets Huge Say on Transportation Tax

Fresno_Unified_Raises_1280x720
2 days ago

Despite $49M Deficit, Fresno Unified Gives Top Brass 5% Raise, 3% One-Time Bonus

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend