For 70 years, the Republican Party has dominated American politics.
Three things that had their origins within the Republican Party have foretold our future: the rise of a personal presidency that placed the president above the party; a conservative rebellion that propelled the candidacies of Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan and the collapse of the GOP establishment that allowed Donald Trump to achieve a hostile takeover of the party apparatus.
During the Roosevelt-Truman era, the Republican Party lost five straight presidential elections. No major party in the modern era has suffered such a wipeout and survived. As Thomas E. Dewey, a twice-defeated Republican candidate in those years, perceptively noted in my book, “Grand Old Unraveling: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, and the Rise of Authoritarianism”:
“Sixteen years in the wilderness transforms a party.”
Republicans eventually found a winner in Dwight D. Eisenhower. But Eisenhower’s success came at the Republican Party’s expense. Instead of relying on the party to win, Eisenhower created “Citizens for Eisenhower.” Led by the titans of big business, the group boasted of having 29,000 clubs and 250,000 members, including independents and disaffected Democrats.
Eisenhower’s successors followed his lead and separated themselves from their party, including Democrats Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. But it was the Republican Party that perfected what political scientist Theodore J. Lowi called “the personal presidency” with Eisenhower as its progenitor and Richard Nixon and Donald Trump as his successors.
Another vital component of the GOP story was the emergence of a well-funded conservative movement that originated in the 1950s. Enraged that someone without strong Republican ties was seeking the party’s top spot in 1952, conservative Ohio Sen. Robert A. Taft, known by the moniker “Mr. Republican,” challenged Eisenhower.
The result was a bitter battle at the Republican Convention. Actor John Wayne, an ardent Taft supporter, confronted an Eisenhower supporter and yelled, “Why don’t you get a red flag?” Harry Truman, who feared a loss to Eisenhower and was confident any Democrat could beat Taft, said of his preferred candidate after his convention loss, “Of all the dumb bunnies, he is the worst.”
Taft’s defeat and Eisenhower’s subsequent embrace of the New Deal — including constructing the federal interstate highway system, establishing a Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and signing the National Defense Education Act — enraged conservatives. But Eisenhower dismissed them, saying, “Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.”
Barry Goldwater had none of it, deriding Eisenhower’s administration as nothing more than a “dime store New Deal.” Propelled by an enthusiastic core of conservative believers, Goldwater captured his party’s presidential nomination in 1964.
His nomination paved the way for Ronald Reagan. In 1964, Reagan was a struggling actor well past his prime. But Reagan gave a bravura performance endorsing Goldwater. Two years later, he was elected governor of California.
After Reagan’s landslide victory in 1980, his conservative tax and budget cuts agenda dominated American politics for decades. Only Barack Obama’s election and the onset of the Great Recession signaled the end of the Reagan regime.
Donald Trump’s surprise 2016 win set the Republican Party on a different course. Today, Trump’s America First agenda is the party’s default position. No longer a champion of free trade or countering Russian influence overseas, particularly in Ukraine, Republicans have succumbed to Trump’s dictates. His hostile takeover represents the final evisceration of the party establishment left over from the Reagan years.
Donald Trump’s embodiment of the personal presidency has overturned the Republican Party’s adherence to well-established norms. When a party loses an election, as Trump did in 2020, there is often a period of reflection followed by renewal. But Trump’s many attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory, and the Republican party’s inability to accept defeat, means that the threat the party poses to our democracy isn’t over.
A Trump victory in 2024 will surely mean that the Republican Party is forever changed and the domination of one man over our constitutional form of government will be complete.
But a Trump loss isn’t the end of the story. The political polarization that Trump exploits will continue unsatiated. Whether the Grand Old Party can expunge itself of Trump and reestablish its traditional commitment to conservative principles remains unknown.
Either way, the story of the Republican Party will continue to shape our collective memories. It is what moved me to write “Grand Old Unraveling.”
Never before has one party so completely dominated and changed American politics. And whichever future the voters and the Republican Party choose to pursue will shape our politics for decades to come.
John Kenneth White is a professor of Politics at The Catholic University of America. His latest book is: “Grand Old Unraveling: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, and the Rise of Authoritarianism.” He can be reached at johnkennethwhite.com.