Sunday, November 06, 2016

"The Party He Now Leads Will Continue Its Long Historical Trajectory with or without Him"

"The herd quality of parties explains why the most pessimistic observers of the Republican Party during the Obama era have been right—indeed, Trump's rise has proven many of us to have been insufficiently pessimistic about the party—and the optimists wrong. The optimists have believed that the GOP could elide, or move beyond, its most fanatical and retrograde elements with some kind of killer app: Just the right kind of presidential candidate, or Speaker of the House, or domestic-policy innovation, could reposition Republicans as a serious, responsible governing force.
"But it hasn't worked because the outliers in the party have a way of pulling the herd in their direction."
 
Jonathan Chait at New York ponders the "Trumpist transformation of the Republican Party."

And Alex Shepard at The New Republic argues that "the obliteration of political norms" brought about by Trump "will become only more ingrained in the coming years, thanks to Trump and his Republican enablers, as the GOP works to undermine the legitimacy of the government, the media, and other national institutions." 

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