History of the Republicans: Grand Old Party Is Dead

Trump voters want to break the system. To understand this phenomenon, you must understand the path of the Republican Party in the U.S.

The postwar Republican Party has long been home to radical reactionary currents. The exiled sociologists of the Frankfurt school noted the authoritarian characteristics of surprisingly broad sections of the U.S. electorate and their susceptibility to demagoguery. The American two-party system forced them to identify with one of the two parties, and Republicans were the obvious option. Why?

In his 1964 essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” historian Richard Hofstadter discussed the far right’s penchant for conspiracy theories, their paranoia and nativism and why they described a battle between the hated global elites and the common folk in almost cosmic terms.

That same year, Arizona Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater ran for president: a staunch fiscal conservative and militant anti-communist who denounced the moderate forces in his own party because they didn’t support using nuclear weapons in Vietnam.

Goldwater lost to Democrat Lyndon Johnson but won 38% of the popular vote. Goldwater won in states where Donald Trump is strongest today: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, and also in Goldwater’s home state of Arizona. The evolution of the Grand Old Party into the zombie that it is today was driven further and further to the right by the successive Republican leadership and from below.

The top Republican of the 1980s, Ronald Reagan, radiated a charisma that concealed a toxic strain. Reagan increased military spending, cut taxes for the wealthy, reduced nonmilitary spending, such as money for social services, and curtailed federal regulations, all measures that exacerbated social inequality.

The spending cuts by Reagan and the Republicans in Congress led to cuts in assistance for families, Medicaid, food stamps, school lunch programs and job training programs, all programs that disproportionately benefited many African American households.

In the 1990s, the Republican shift to the right accelerated, and a logic took hold that made it possible for the right wing in the party to outdo each other in their radicalism.

Moderate colleagues had to defend themselves against the accusation of being liberal compromisers; loyalty to an increasingly extreme ideology became the acid test of Republicanism. From Reagan to the Tea Party movement of the late 2000s, a “seditious conservatism” took root.

According to critic Fintan O’Toole, the “violent hatred of government became a government agenda.” The insidious racism that had long accompanied the upper-class party was further reflected in the radical base’s denigration of all social policies, affirmative action, progressive housing, education policies and compromises with Democrats. The Republicans’ illusion, O’Toole said, was that they could control the grassroots insurgency.*

The final trigger for the implosion of the party was George W. Bush, who filled his cabinet with neoconservatives who are now part of the Republican mainstream. The result was the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which cost the lives of 7,000 Americans and $4 trillion to $6 trillion, devastated the Middle East and failed to defeat al-Qaida.

The Culmination: Trump

This catastrophic development brought the versatile entertainer Trump to the top. He adapted to the requirements: a non-Republican who promised to drain the swamp that the Republicans had themselves created. The party itself became the object of Trump’s contempt and with it also the party’s adherence to the constitutional values of the republic. The remaining mainstream party members sealed their fate either by leaving the party or by joining the insurgency against Trump in the hope of outlasting him.

The party accused Republicans such as Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Ted Cruz of being traitors, “Republicans in Name Only.” The difference between Trump and the Bush family, Nikki Haley, Mitch McConnell or Liz Cheney is that Trump and his supporters openly vowed in the name of MAGA to tear down the system that guarantees civil liberties, equality under the law and democratic principles.

MAGA’s understanding of making America great again is to loot the state and turn it into something else entirely: likely an isolationist, white male autocracy, in which justice is administered by armed civilians and the ultrarich to increase their wealth. For the less educated, low-income Americans who glorify Trump for rebelling against the system that has failed them, it will even get worse.

On Jan. 6, 2021, the anger of the mob outside the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C, was clear to see. They were there not only to lynch the Democrats, but also Republican Vice President Mike Pence.

Both Trump and Biden will win fewer votes in November than they did four years ago. Whether Trump wins or loses, the GOP itself is dead — and by its own hand.

*Editor’s note: Although accurately translated, the exact language of this quoted remark could not be independently verified.