In this issue
After Richard Nixon’s narrow loss to John F. Kennedy, Jr. in the 1960 presidential election, Republicans faced an electoral choice: court the growing Black vote in urban centers, or woo disaffected southern Democrats disappointed with the party’s championship of civil rights.
The GOP chose the latter. “That’s where the votes are,” as the infamous political analyst Kevin Phillips would later write in The Emerging Republican Majority.
Thus was born the “Southern strategy,” which helped propel Nixon to the White House in 1968. Capitalizing on racial resentment and white discontent, “it was premised on the alleged hostility of Irishmen, Italians and Poles, whose ethnic traits were conservative, toward Jews, Negroes and affluent Yankees, whom history had made liberal,” reported the New York Times in 1970.
By all accounts, the Republican Party’s initial embrace of xenophobic populism was strategic, not ideological. Phillips, for instance, cynically recommended that Republicans not dilute the Voting Rights Act because “the more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans.”
Today, however, xenophobic populism is a feature, not a bug, of the modern GOP. It fueled Pat Buchanan’s nativist campaign of 1992; it ran beneath Newt Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution” in 1994; and it was the raison d’être of the Tea Party revolt of 2010. Seen in this light, Donald Trump is no anomaly, but rather the apotheosis of a long-running historical trend, catalyzed by a deliberate political calculation half a century ago.
Yet Trump’s ascent is also unique, political scientist Seth Masket argues, because it happened in defiance of the GOP establishment. While the party elite had been able to neutralize, harness, or contain the ugliness of its xenophobic elements in the past—Buchanan’s campaign, for example, was a novelty and a nuisance, but not a real threat—it could not contain Donald Trump. Trump is the raging id of the GOP set free.
In his new book, The Elephants in the Room: How Trump Voters Seized the Party from Republican Leaders, Masket points to several phenomena that led to the emasculation of the GOP establishment by Trump and his MAGA backers. These include the rise of conservative talk radio; the growth of social media; and the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, which enabled an explosion of independent spending outside the party’s control. Another key element was the adoption of primaries, which shifted the power to choose nominees from party bosses to the party faithful. (Democrats, incidentally, were the first to shift to primaries, after their chaotic 1968 convention led to major reforms in the party nomination process.)
Trump’s profligate use of endorsements (down to county supervisors and local judges) is another source of leverage over the establishment, Masket argues, by ensuring loyalty among “his” elected officials. Moreover, these endorsements have real power. According to an analysis by Masket and his colleagues, a Trump endorsement translates to a 16-point advantage in a primary. “That’s a ridiculously large effect for one person’s endorsement to have,” Masket says.
The big question, of course, is what happens after Trump. Masket says there’s little reason to believe that the establishment will bounce back right away. The more likely scenario, at least in the short term, is factionalism and chaos as the various wings of the party fight for control.
Reading Masket’s book, I couldn’t help but notice parallels between what’s happened to the GOP and what’s happening now within the Democratic Party and its struggles with the DSA. I asked Masket this very question in this week’s podcast, which you can preview on Substack. The Elephants in the Room could prove a cautionary tale for Democrats in 2028.
Permitting progress. Congress is on the verge of passing bipartisan permitting reform legislation—a rare but significant instance of responsible governing that could bring down consumers’ utility prices and strengthen the nation’s grid. Among other things, the legislation would speed up approvals for large new energy projects, a process that can otherwise literally take decades if multiple states and jurisdictions are involved. Adherents of the “Abundance” movement are the legislation’s loudest champions, but progressives should find plenty to cheer too, argues Editor Kainoa Lowman, because it promises to rein in utilities. In particular, he writes, the bill “would take meaningful steps to prevent unpopular corporate interests—namely, utility companies—from hindering the transition to cheaper, cleaner energy sources.” Read here.
A rogues’ gallery of candidates. They’re potential child abusers. They’ve hired Nazis. They’ve stolen from taxpayers and donors. They’re Islamophobic. They’re election deniers. And they’re all running for Congress. Editor Nate Weisberg chose ten of this year’s worst candidates in a fine collection of scoundrels, scalawags, and the downright scary. See if your picks match his. (And no, not all of them are Republicans.) Read here.
Talarico vs. El-Sayed. Politics Editor Bill Scher contrasts the defensive styles of Democratic Senate candidates James Talarico and Abdul El-Sayed, both of whom have come under a barrage of attacks from their well-heeled GOP opponents. Talarico, running in Texas, is facing criticism over his remarks on transgender rights, while El-Sayed is weathering accusations of his family’s sympathy toward the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood. One is conciliatory; one is combative. See which strategy Bill considers more effective. Read here.
Plus…
As much as the Republican Party has been captured by its populist base, it’s equally at the mercy of its billionaires.
According to a new analysis by the fundraising platform Oath, U.S. billionaires have plowed about $433 million into the 2026 midterms, with about 80 percent of the spending going to Republican candidates up and down the ticket.
Outside spending can have an outsized influence and undercut party leadership. This is another way Trump has tipped the scales in his favor. The chart below, based on data from OpenSecrets, shows the staggering sums individual donors spent on outside spending in 2024. Keep in mind that these figures exclude both direct giving to candidates and so-called “dark money” spending that doesn’t have to be disclosed under federal campaign finance laws. All told, the top 20 individual donors to conservative groups in 2024 spent $1.22 billion—compared with a mere $185 million from liberal donors.
The chart also raises an interesting dilemma for Democrats. On the one hand, the absence of a bevy of billionaires puts Democrats at a severe financial disadvantage. In 2024, Democrats’ spendiest billionaire—Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz—gave just $50 million to outside groups (compared to $290 million for Elon Musk). If Republicans manage to salvage seats in Congress this fall, it’ll be because of their access to massive amounts of cash. On the other hand, the lack of billionaires could be helping to preserve the Democratic Party’s relative independence. Billionaires don’t yet control the Democratic Party in the same way they control the GOP.
At least not yet.
As always, thanks for reading, sharing, subscribing, and commenting.
Have a great week!
Anne Kim, Senior Editor
The post How Trump Crushed the GOP Establishment appeared first on Washington Monthly.
