Whither the Republican Party?

Excerpts from the New York Times article by Patrick Healy and Jonathan Martin:

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"By seizing the Republican presidential nomination . . . Donald Trump. . . and his millions of supporters completed what had seemed unimaginable: a hostile takeover of one of America’s two major political parties. . . .

"Rarely if ever has a party seemed to come apart so visibly. . . .  Many Americans still cannot believe that the bombastic Mr. Trump, best known as a reality television star, will be on the ballot in November. Plenty are also anxious about what he would do in office.

"But for leading Republicans, the dismay is deeper and darker. They fear their party is on the cusp of an epochal split . . . .  Yet if keeping the peace means embracing Mr. Trump and his most divisive ideas and utterances, a growing number are loath to do it.

"The ties between Republican elites . . . and voters have actually been fraying for years. Traditional power brokers long preached limited-government conservatism and wanted to pursue an immigration overhaul, entitlement cuts, free trade and a hawkish foreign policy. . . , but [voters] never became truly animated until Mr. Trump offered them his brand of angry populism . . . . 

“Mr. Trump is an unlikely spokesman for the grievances of financially struggling, alienated Americans . . . .  But as a shrewd business tactician, he understood the Republican Party's customers better than its leaders did and sensed that his brand of populist, pugilistic, anti-establishment politics would meet their needs. . . .  [T]hese voters now see Mr. Trump as a kind of savior. . . 

"Mr. Trump now feels so empowered that he does not think he needs the political support of the party establishment . . . . He is confident that his appeal will be broad and deep enough among voters of all stripes that he could win battleground states like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania without the support of leaders like Mr. Ryan. . . .

"Although he plans to meet with Mr. Ryan and House Republican leaders on Thursday, Mr. Trump said he would not materially change his policies or style to win their endorsements. 'Everything is subject to negotiation, but I can’t and won’t be changing much, because the voters support me because of what I’m saying and how I’m saying it,' Mr. Trump said. 'The establishment didn’t do anything to make me the nominee, so its support won’t really make much difference in me winning in November.' . . .  

"Combining modern-day fame and an age-old demagogy, he bypassed the ossified gatekeepers and appealed directly to voters through a constant Twitter stream that seemed interrupted only by television appearances. In doing so, he seemed to grasp that a new twist on direct democracy was in the offing: that disaffected voters who tune out the traditional modes of political communication might be reachable through their smartphones, and Twitter messages . . . .

[Quoting Robert D. Putnam, author of "Bowling Alone"]:  “'The economic deprivation of the last 30 years for working-class whites, combined with growing social isolation, was really dry tinder. . . .  And Mr. Trump . . . lit a spark.   He constructed a series of scapegoats that these folks would find plausible, . . .  He was willing to say things that might have always been popular, but you couldn’t say it.' . . . 

“'The party has never been more out of touch with our voters,” Vin Weber, a former Minnesota congressman, said of the two factions, acknowledging that Republicans could splinter completely after this election.  'I don’t know how you reconcile a lot of them.' . . .  [F]ew in the party now deny that the threat of an enduring split is real.

“'I think there’s a pretty clear Trump wing of the party coming to life,' said Barry Wynn, a prominent fund-raiser . . . .  But I have to think that four or eight years from now, the Trump wing will be a little more traditional, a little less hard-edged, and will be blended into the party just like the evangelical Pat Robertson voters were after the 1988 election. . . .At least I hope that’s what’ll happen.”

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This further amplifies what I quoted in yesterday's post about Paul Ryan's trying to preserve the integrity of the party for the future.   Ryan's plan seems to assume a Trump loss, but these authors seems less assured of that.   Who wins will make a huge difference in what happens to the party.   If Trump win, he then owns the party;  if he loses, then his brand is no longer in ascendancy. 

But, for sake of argument about the party, let's consider what happens if he wins.  Is it then a party that can hold together by finding common ground?   Is Donald Trump the new leader of a redefined party?   Or is he the catalyst for an overdue split and redefining of conservatism?   Or is it bigger than that?   Are we ready for a more-than-two party system?

Ralph