Trumpism and The Soul of the Republican Party

Eilidh Thomson 

Rhode Island, USA

Donald and Melania Trump at the Vatican (History in HD / Unsplash)

The Republican Party, also known as the “Grand Old Party,” has been entrenched in American politics and identities since the mid-nineteenth century. It was originally established as a progressive group in the years leading up to the Civil War and has since then prided itself as the party of the “Great Liberator” Abraham Lincoln. In the custom of American politics, the party has gone through ideological and social changes since its Antebellum beginnings, drifting away from the progressivism that called it to abolish slavery towards the economic and social beliefs of conservatism. This change began during the Reconstruction Era and was solidified during the Great Depression, with Republican leaders like Hoover taking a more laissez-faire approach to the economic and social crisis. Since then, the party has been characterized by its commitment to: American traditionalism, states’ rights over “federal oppression”, a strong military, free enterprise, and the promotion of morality in American legislation. The GOP became the party of Eisenhower, Reagan, Bush, and most recently, Donald J. Trump.

While the party had already been significantly altered, no change has restitched the fabric of its foundations quite like the presidency and empowerment of America’s 45th, and soon-to-be 47th, President. Not just due to an immense ideological shift, although the party has been progressively leaning further to the right, but also because of the significant control that one individual can now exert over millions of party members. A leader of the same party that called for the impeachment of Democratic President Bill Clinton because of his affair with his intern Monica Lewinsky has become ever more popular following 32 felony charges of falsifying business records to produce hush money to silence porn star Stormy Daniels from exposing his affair. A party with leaders who demonized former presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris as a “nasty woman” and simply ignored Trump’s boast about how his stardom allowed him to “grab [women] by the pussy” - amongst hundreds of other deplorable statements. All of this and more has caused many Americans to look at the Republican Party and ask: what happened?

The answer lies in the run-up to the 2016 election and the strategy Trump utilized to cannibalize the Republican Party and demonize any opponent. He was already a household name before his run, hosting shows like The Apprentice on NBC, making movie appearances and commercials, and running the conglomerate Trump Organization (which appeared to be successful in the eyes of the American public but was later found guilty of a criminal tax fraud scheme). This was appealing to voters who did not know much about politics or candidates but could recognize the celebrity name. Despite having no political or military experience, his business endeavors were extremely impressive to most of the electorate, as American culture adores “American Dream” capitalist successes. But most effectively, Trump played to the insidious emotion most people suppressed: hatred.

Before his run, disagreements between candidates were just that: disagreements. Following his explosive and vicious approach to politics, disagreements have escalated into “them vs. us”. Instead of policy pitted against policy, people were pitted against other people. Trump’s unchecked tendency to speak all evils of his mind was mistaken for “brutal honesty,” and those with opinions laced with racism, sexism, antisemitism, xenophobia, etc., felt as if they were freed from the societal morals that have forced them to keep their thoughts at bay. Floodgates were opened. Mistakenly, the Republican politicians around Trump responded to his taunts with the same angry energy, stooping down to his level and further normalizing the degradation of decorum in American politics. In contrast, less Democratic leaders fell into the same raw antagonism as Trump and his followers, which caused the public to see Trump as a leader who could truly “speak his mind” and Democrats as too afraid to. There began the shift, and since then, Trump has taken the GOP tumbling down a path of unprecedented contempt. To lose him as their leader would mean losing the freedom of hate speech and commitment to extremes that have become the new American privilege.

The United States will enter a new era of Trump in the White House, and it is unlikely that a reversal of the lack of propriety within the GOP will occur during that time, or, if Lara Trump remains a leader within the GOP, following the end of his second term. What can be hoped for is that new generations of politicians will make the conscious move to attempt another step change which removes hate from government and sees those from other parties as their colleagues of different viewpoints, not enemies of American democracy.