So I feel like we can't talk about why the GOP is going all in on Trump without first establishing how much the traditional manner of information dissemination has been inverted among conservatives in a way that it hasn't been for liberals.
Traditionally, the way in which ideas were spread among the national body politic was top down; you…
So I feel like we can't talk about why the GOP is going all in on Trump without first establishing how much the traditional manner of information dissemination has been inverted among conservatives in a way that it hasn't been for liberals.
Traditionally, the way in which ideas were spread among the national body politic was top down; you had outlets or media organizations and think tanks who would talk about stuff and then essentially wait to see if the larger voting base responded to whatever they were saying. This was because the general voter, even among primary voters, was fairly low information and concerned about lots of different things, and while they might really focus on one or two issues, by and large the people who were all in on one thing were in a minority that wasn't large enough to sway the party. This is still how it mostly works in the democratic party; sure you have your Jacobin types, your bernie bros, your really online MSNBC commentators, but none of these people command any real majority among Democrats to sway much of anything.
This isn't how it works in the GOP. Conservatives, having spent basically two decades ginning up paranoia among their base, created a system where the majority of their primary voters are not just high information (mostly in misinformation, but high info refers only to how much they're seeking it out/internalizing it), but who set the agenda for the rest of the party. This didn't happen overnight. In 2008, that voter who asked McCain if he thought Obama was a secret muslim was one of these. Then the Tea Party happened, which was a direct rejection of the 'normal' Republican. And by 2016, Trump tapped into these people, and revealed that they weren't a minority in the GOP, that they were a majority. Or, at the very least, had a floor of about 40%, which is essentially a majority when we're talking factional politics.
What this means is that the people on the top aren't setting the agenda, they're following an agenda set by the people on the bottom. They're not leading, they're following. The people at NRO don't have any real power; the question of 'do people listen to them' comes down to 'do they say what their voters want to hear or not?'
Trump in this light is not an outlier, he's a natural progression of what was already happening. He was the first person to look around, see the people for who they were, and cater directly to the people who were demanding to be catered to. Perhaps it was because, as a grifter and businessman, he had a lizard like cunning for exploiting people who want to be exploited; like P.T. Barnum before him, he understood that suckers are suckers because they want to be suckered into things. People will happily give you money and attention if you make them feel good and validated. Or, if we want to go back to Caesar, this is the 'bread and circuses' concept of rulership fashioned for a modern audience.
But we also need to recognize that the tastes of the conservative electorate have irrevocably shifted, like they've suddenly been exposed to the car for the first time and no longer need a horse. They've discovered computers; they no longer need or want typewriters. Now that they know, consciously, that they have power, they demand that their power be reflected in the wider party. Which means that if you want a job in this party, you have to appeal to the voters as they are, not as you wished them to be. In focus groups, over and over, voters have expressed to not go back to pre-Trump. Meaning that anything that is going to defeat Trumpism has to be entirely post-Trump. Guys like DeSantis, who are pre-Trump creatures, are already working from a handicap. And anyone talking to pre-Trump people about how they're going to defeat Trump with pre-Trump values is wasting their time.
To put it another way, once civil rights became a plank of the Democratic party in the 1960s, George Wallace style racism was entirely out, and voters would not support candidates who expressed it. That's why they all left the party and became Republicans. In a similar vein, if you're a pre-Trump conservative, you're no longer desired by the Republican voters who make up the party.
So we're in this situation where the 'gop establishment' such as it is, pretends that a spade isn't a spade. That the party that hates elites and foreigners and anyone who isn't a Christian is going to vote for someone like Mehmet Oz, a muslim, or someone like Ron DeSantis, an Ivy League educated pre-Trump conservative. If you're a republican and go 'invading Mexico and having muslim bans and fighting disney is crazy' you might as well not be in the GOP, because that's what the GOP base demands.
People looking for a way to defeat Trump that comes from the top down are wasting their time; unless you change the GOP voters, you're not going to have anyone else. When 60% of GOP voters say they'd vote for Trump even if he was convicted of a felony, that tells you everything you need to know about how much power the people on top have.
So in this moment, they have a choice. They can go the Youngkin and DeSantis route, where they can pivot to whatever grievance the GOP base has at the moment, going all in on drag queens and bud light and hope that whatever they do won't destroy them in a general election. Or, they can retire and disappear, because they're about as welcome in the Democratic party as cholera is. Reality is, the amount of people actively desiring pre-Trump republicanism in 2023 couldn't fill up a mid-sized stadium, let alone win a general election.
Much like how Goldwater conservatism couldn't win the 1980s, Reagan conservatism cannot win in 2023. And the voters have shown that if their preferences aren't adhered to, they'll go where their preferences are adhered to. Meaning the question for places like Fox and NRO is 'do I choose to change who I am or do I choose self destruction?'
Most of them choose the former and pretend like nothing has changed. Many of them become anti-anti-whatever and hope that this is good enough to pass muster among consumers, while blaming 'the left' so that they don't have to accept that they're no longer wanted or valued in their own party.
When we say 'they can't quit Trump' what we should be meaning is 'the GOP voters do not want to quit Trump, and you are not going to replace Trump with what they had before, anymore than you could convince people using computers to return to pen and paper.' The world is now different, and you either accept that or you go extinct. The people on top know that they're not driving this ship, the people who vote are. And the second they deviate, they'll be replaced. That's just the state of play.
I agree with most of that. But the problem the GOP has is that they can only win primary elections with the orange idol or his wannabes. They cannot win general elections (with a few exceptions). The deplorables did not vote before 2016. There are many of them, yes. But there are also many swing voters who no longer vote R because they understand who these a--holes are. The GOP has a problem. Recent history shows that they can't win anymore. 2016 was an anomaly caused by Hilary and Comey. Since then, they just lose. The orange idol would bail out if he cared about the party, but obviously he cares only about himself and the great grifting opportunity. The ONLY shot the GOP has is to dump trump. Then they might get the swing voters back. Who cares if the deplorables stay home.
All true, from my perspective, and saddening from many angles. The transformation of the Republican Party sought since the 1980s by the far right is almost complete. It has become the party of white grievance, inspired by notable thinkers such as Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and Carlson. It's no longer the Grand Old Party, but rather the Party of the Old South. Trump is its avatar, until he is replaced by someone younger and just as charismatic, like Carlson. The Reaganite "establishment" welcomed the dittoheads to gain power, which the latter now have and the former now don't - and won't. Many aspects of our government need modernization, but the Republican party will instead follow the old authoritarian models exemplified by Xi, Putin, and Orban.
They don’t want to quit Trump because he is their bomb, to blow it all up. These folks have no interest or intention of being in a society that doesn’t place them at the top of the power structure. They can’t take the proverbial ball and go home in this situation, so instead they will sabotage the game until everyone else quits or gives in to them so they shut up. They’re infantile whiners who thanks to the NRA are armed and scared of even seeing someone that doesn’t look like them. This is who the Republican Party is afraid of. Weak.
You should listen to Ezra Klein’s podcast from a few days ago, it was a replay episode but it was very good, he and his guest (an author of a book about the history of the GOP) made some of the same points.
My question would be: who exactly would do this, and where would they get the money to do it?
Look, there's a reason why the party isn't nominating Pence or Kemp or Hogan. There's a reason why they're not running. There's a reason why guys like Sununu are touting how pro-2nd amendment they are while cashing in on Democratic party passed gun restrictions.
At this point, anyone who existed pre-Trump is either dead of old age or politically irrelevant or politically compromised. The people who existed pre-Trump are now all in the DeSantis/Romney lane; and the only reason they still hold any power is because of their pivot to Trumpism writ large.
Because the thing is, you can't 'create a lane' like this. The lane has to already exist for it to work. As an example, in the Democratic primaries of 2020, there were lots of people who tried to create a lane, Bloomberg among them, thinking they could somehow present an alternative to Biden and Sanders, the two front-runners. And he couldn't! All of the money in the world wasn't enough, because politics is not about creating lanes. It's about finding voters where they are and capitalizing on their energy.
There's a reason why our last three presidents, nearly every president since Reagan, has done this. Biden, Trump, Obama, Clinton, and Reagan all did this. Bush rode the wave of patriotism and squeaked out a win in 2000, and HW Bush rode the Reagan wave, but all the others capitalized on the preferences of voters as they already existed.
Reality is that if we can understand 'lanes' in the GOP right now, there are precisely two. There is the Trump lane, which is occupied by the former president. And there is the DeSantis lane, which isn't so much it's own lane as it is a shoulder to the Trump lane, and is entirely dependent on the idea that 'Trump was great but also I want to go further and be more capable, but I don't want to actually fight the guy I think is rightly the current president' and that's not really a viable lane.
Also, the Trump lane is controlled by 60% of the GOP electorate, which means there is no other viable lane.
Beyond that, the people closest to running as 'normal' conservatives are someone like Haley, who is not going to win because no one who is anti-trump is going to win in a party that loves Trump. What you're saying is like saying the way to win the GOP nomination in 1992 was to be anti-Reagan. It's madness on its face.
“ Reality is that if we can understand 'lanes' in the GOP right now, there are precisely two. There is the Trump lane, which is occupied by the former president. And there is the DeSantis lane, which isn't so much it's own lane as it is a shoulder to the Trump lane”
I guess you could describe any other lane (eg. normie GOP) like a small bike 🚲 lane (little to no traffic).
Is this the lane that Christie is trying to put his toe in while keeping alive the, "Trump may die" possibility?
I think that "Trump may die" possibility is what is keeping anyone from really doing that kamikaze run. The people who could do such a think just can't conceive of the notion that the old GOP they were a part of isn't just around the corner.
So I feel like we can't talk about why the GOP is going all in on Trump without first establishing how much the traditional manner of information dissemination has been inverted among conservatives in a way that it hasn't been for liberals.
Traditionally, the way in which ideas were spread among the national body politic was top down; you had outlets or media organizations and think tanks who would talk about stuff and then essentially wait to see if the larger voting base responded to whatever they were saying. This was because the general voter, even among primary voters, was fairly low information and concerned about lots of different things, and while they might really focus on one or two issues, by and large the people who were all in on one thing were in a minority that wasn't large enough to sway the party. This is still how it mostly works in the democratic party; sure you have your Jacobin types, your bernie bros, your really online MSNBC commentators, but none of these people command any real majority among Democrats to sway much of anything.
This isn't how it works in the GOP. Conservatives, having spent basically two decades ginning up paranoia among their base, created a system where the majority of their primary voters are not just high information (mostly in misinformation, but high info refers only to how much they're seeking it out/internalizing it), but who set the agenda for the rest of the party. This didn't happen overnight. In 2008, that voter who asked McCain if he thought Obama was a secret muslim was one of these. Then the Tea Party happened, which was a direct rejection of the 'normal' Republican. And by 2016, Trump tapped into these people, and revealed that they weren't a minority in the GOP, that they were a majority. Or, at the very least, had a floor of about 40%, which is essentially a majority when we're talking factional politics.
What this means is that the people on the top aren't setting the agenda, they're following an agenda set by the people on the bottom. They're not leading, they're following. The people at NRO don't have any real power; the question of 'do people listen to them' comes down to 'do they say what their voters want to hear or not?'
Trump in this light is not an outlier, he's a natural progression of what was already happening. He was the first person to look around, see the people for who they were, and cater directly to the people who were demanding to be catered to. Perhaps it was because, as a grifter and businessman, he had a lizard like cunning for exploiting people who want to be exploited; like P.T. Barnum before him, he understood that suckers are suckers because they want to be suckered into things. People will happily give you money and attention if you make them feel good and validated. Or, if we want to go back to Caesar, this is the 'bread and circuses' concept of rulership fashioned for a modern audience.
But we also need to recognize that the tastes of the conservative electorate have irrevocably shifted, like they've suddenly been exposed to the car for the first time and no longer need a horse. They've discovered computers; they no longer need or want typewriters. Now that they know, consciously, that they have power, they demand that their power be reflected in the wider party. Which means that if you want a job in this party, you have to appeal to the voters as they are, not as you wished them to be. In focus groups, over and over, voters have expressed to not go back to pre-Trump. Meaning that anything that is going to defeat Trumpism has to be entirely post-Trump. Guys like DeSantis, who are pre-Trump creatures, are already working from a handicap. And anyone talking to pre-Trump people about how they're going to defeat Trump with pre-Trump values is wasting their time.
To put it another way, once civil rights became a plank of the Democratic party in the 1960s, George Wallace style racism was entirely out, and voters would not support candidates who expressed it. That's why they all left the party and became Republicans. In a similar vein, if you're a pre-Trump conservative, you're no longer desired by the Republican voters who make up the party.
So we're in this situation where the 'gop establishment' such as it is, pretends that a spade isn't a spade. That the party that hates elites and foreigners and anyone who isn't a Christian is going to vote for someone like Mehmet Oz, a muslim, or someone like Ron DeSantis, an Ivy League educated pre-Trump conservative. If you're a republican and go 'invading Mexico and having muslim bans and fighting disney is crazy' you might as well not be in the GOP, because that's what the GOP base demands.
People looking for a way to defeat Trump that comes from the top down are wasting their time; unless you change the GOP voters, you're not going to have anyone else. When 60% of GOP voters say they'd vote for Trump even if he was convicted of a felony, that tells you everything you need to know about how much power the people on top have.
So in this moment, they have a choice. They can go the Youngkin and DeSantis route, where they can pivot to whatever grievance the GOP base has at the moment, going all in on drag queens and bud light and hope that whatever they do won't destroy them in a general election. Or, they can retire and disappear, because they're about as welcome in the Democratic party as cholera is. Reality is, the amount of people actively desiring pre-Trump republicanism in 2023 couldn't fill up a mid-sized stadium, let alone win a general election.
Much like how Goldwater conservatism couldn't win the 1980s, Reagan conservatism cannot win in 2023. And the voters have shown that if their preferences aren't adhered to, they'll go where their preferences are adhered to. Meaning the question for places like Fox and NRO is 'do I choose to change who I am or do I choose self destruction?'
Most of them choose the former and pretend like nothing has changed. Many of them become anti-anti-whatever and hope that this is good enough to pass muster among consumers, while blaming 'the left' so that they don't have to accept that they're no longer wanted or valued in their own party.
When we say 'they can't quit Trump' what we should be meaning is 'the GOP voters do not want to quit Trump, and you are not going to replace Trump with what they had before, anymore than you could convince people using computers to return to pen and paper.' The world is now different, and you either accept that or you go extinct. The people on top know that they're not driving this ship, the people who vote are. And the second they deviate, they'll be replaced. That's just the state of play.
In this environment, including NRO, there’s no appetite for smart, conservative opinion.
You are smart
thank you!
I agree with most of that. But the problem the GOP has is that they can only win primary elections with the orange idol or his wannabes. They cannot win general elections (with a few exceptions). The deplorables did not vote before 2016. There are many of them, yes. But there are also many swing voters who no longer vote R because they understand who these a--holes are. The GOP has a problem. Recent history shows that they can't win anymore. 2016 was an anomaly caused by Hilary and Comey. Since then, they just lose. The orange idol would bail out if he cared about the party, but obviously he cares only about himself and the great grifting opportunity. The ONLY shot the GOP has is to dump trump. Then they might get the swing voters back. Who cares if the deplorables stay home.
All true, from my perspective, and saddening from many angles. The transformation of the Republican Party sought since the 1980s by the far right is almost complete. It has become the party of white grievance, inspired by notable thinkers such as Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and Carlson. It's no longer the Grand Old Party, but rather the Party of the Old South. Trump is its avatar, until he is replaced by someone younger and just as charismatic, like Carlson. The Reaganite "establishment" welcomed the dittoheads to gain power, which the latter now have and the former now don't - and won't. Many aspects of our government need modernization, but the Republican party will instead follow the old authoritarian models exemplified by Xi, Putin, and Orban.
They don’t want to quit Trump because he is their bomb, to blow it all up. These folks have no interest or intention of being in a society that doesn’t place them at the top of the power structure. They can’t take the proverbial ball and go home in this situation, so instead they will sabotage the game until everyone else quits or gives in to them so they shut up. They’re infantile whiners who thanks to the NRA are armed and scared of even seeing someone that doesn’t look like them. This is who the Republican Party is afraid of. Weak.
Well said.
👍🏻
You should listen to Ezra Klein’s podcast from a few days ago, it was a replay episode but it was very good, he and his guest (an author of a book about the history of the GOP) made some of the same points.
Thorough and thought-provoking. Thanks.
Which is why we need to hasten this realization among Reagan conservatives so they stop reflexively checking R without looking at the candidates.
Incredible comment. Thanks for typing this.
My question would be: who exactly would do this, and where would they get the money to do it?
Look, there's a reason why the party isn't nominating Pence or Kemp or Hogan. There's a reason why they're not running. There's a reason why guys like Sununu are touting how pro-2nd amendment they are while cashing in on Democratic party passed gun restrictions.
At this point, anyone who existed pre-Trump is either dead of old age or politically irrelevant or politically compromised. The people who existed pre-Trump are now all in the DeSantis/Romney lane; and the only reason they still hold any power is because of their pivot to Trumpism writ large.
Because the thing is, you can't 'create a lane' like this. The lane has to already exist for it to work. As an example, in the Democratic primaries of 2020, there were lots of people who tried to create a lane, Bloomberg among them, thinking they could somehow present an alternative to Biden and Sanders, the two front-runners. And he couldn't! All of the money in the world wasn't enough, because politics is not about creating lanes. It's about finding voters where they are and capitalizing on their energy.
There's a reason why our last three presidents, nearly every president since Reagan, has done this. Biden, Trump, Obama, Clinton, and Reagan all did this. Bush rode the wave of patriotism and squeaked out a win in 2000, and HW Bush rode the Reagan wave, but all the others capitalized on the preferences of voters as they already existed.
Reality is that if we can understand 'lanes' in the GOP right now, there are precisely two. There is the Trump lane, which is occupied by the former president. And there is the DeSantis lane, which isn't so much it's own lane as it is a shoulder to the Trump lane, and is entirely dependent on the idea that 'Trump was great but also I want to go further and be more capable, but I don't want to actually fight the guy I think is rightly the current president' and that's not really a viable lane.
Also, the Trump lane is controlled by 60% of the GOP electorate, which means there is no other viable lane.
Beyond that, the people closest to running as 'normal' conservatives are someone like Haley, who is not going to win because no one who is anti-trump is going to win in a party that loves Trump. What you're saying is like saying the way to win the GOP nomination in 1992 was to be anti-Reagan. It's madness on its face.
“ Reality is that if we can understand 'lanes' in the GOP right now, there are precisely two. There is the Trump lane, which is occupied by the former president. And there is the DeSantis lane, which isn't so much it's own lane as it is a shoulder to the Trump lane”
I guess you could describe any other lane (eg. normie GOP) like a small bike 🚲 lane (little to no traffic).
You are on fire and I am here for it.
Is this the lane that Christie is trying to put his toe in while keeping alive the, "Trump may die" possibility?
I think that "Trump may die" possibility is what is keeping anyone from really doing that kamikaze run. The people who could do such a think just can't conceive of the notion that the old GOP they were a part of isn't just around the corner.
Sununu's not terrible. At least he's going after the orange traitor. And he does it with a smile on his face, which I like.
Joe Walsh tried doing this in 2020. We saw how it turned out.