White Populism Is The Future Of The GOP

Editor’s Note: This is a work in progress.

.@Liz_Cheney: Donald Trump “does not have a role as a leader of our party going forward…

We should not be embracing the former president.” pic.twitter.com/c0M7iFkfO4

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) February 7, 2021

Well, this one went off the rails a bit — okay, a lot — but in a good way. Very happy to welcome @ChrisStirewalt to The Dispatch as a contributing editor and a regular on our pods and in our digital pages. https://t.co/w5DUvqc16X

— Stephen Hayes (@stephenfhayes) February 6, 2021

The Wyoming GOP is run by — or intimidated by — morons, cowards, and psychopaths. https://t.co/H09sjMN2V8 pic.twitter.com/KDAC8IPJqx

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) February 6, 2021

The guest is attempting to rebut my claims (in this interview by @seanilling: https://t.co/prsPhdH1Ws) that this is a dangerous time for American Christianity. She’s making my case for me. https://t.co/ncvTrWmA3g

— David French (@DavidAFrench) February 6, 2021

“Right now, in order to save this country we are going to need people who see the light. We are going to have to welcome people who in fact are late to the table… What we ought to do is say welcome, welcome to the team” – @SykesCharlie w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/nY6jdnSxIW

— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) February 5, 2021

“White Populism” is the future of the Republican Party.

I’ve coined this new term to describe what I am seeing in a bunch of recent surveys and polls. Specifically, I am referring to this 70/30 split that I see among Donald Trump voters.

Throughout my entire lifetime, the conservative movement and the Republican Party has been composed of two major groups. There are the “True Cons” or “Free Marketeers” or “Core Conservatives” who have dominated the party since the 1980s. These people tend to be White college educated, middle class conservatives who are small business owners who live in the burbs and who are defined by their belief in classical liberalism and free-market capitalism. There is also the Religious Right, the paleocons or the social conservatives who tend to live in the suburbs or rural areas. These people tend to be White working class or middle class Catholics or evangelicals who are pro-free market and motivated by social issues. These factions were united into the classic “three-legged stool” of conservatism which was based on Frank Meyer’s “fusionism” between capitalists, moralists and defense hawks in the Cold War.

The Republican Party is now a very different animal in the wake of Donald Trump. Mainstream conservatism as we have known it for decades has retreated within the party. Donald Trump has changed the demographics of the Republican Party by bringing in two huge groups of White voters. These Whites voters used to be adjacent to the GOP in the Center of the electorate until the 2016 election.

In 2017, there were four Republican groups, not two.