Dead Elephant?

My colleague John Kenneth White published a provocative column in The Hill newspaper last week with a headline bearing the warning: “The Republican Party May Not Survive the Trump Day of Reckoning.”

John is an emeritus professor at Catholic University and scholar of party systems. He has been warning about the demise of the Republican party for years, and wrote a book about it called Grand Old Unraveling.

John and I are also co-authors of an upcoming book about the last three elections and what they portend for the future. It’s called Democracy on the Edge. But more on that shortly.

In his column, John presupposes that a day of reckoning is coming for Donald Trump, and questions whether his party will crater in its wake.

He recognizes the differences in kind between past failed Republican presidencies like Hoover, Nixon and Bush and what we’re experiencing now as it relates to the hollowing out of the internal workings of the party itself:

Trump’s takeover [of the party] allowed him to choke off any internal opposition. Prior presidents, including Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, had to mollify opposing factions within the Republican Party. For Eisenhower, it was the die-hard conservatives who never trusted his modern Republicanism initiatives, which emulated Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. For Reagan, it was the liberal Republican northeasterners who disliked some of his budget and tax cuts.

But Trump has very few elected Republicans voicing opposition. And those who have expressed disagreement are either exiled from the party or face internal opposition from MAGA-minded Republicans whose primary qualification is their undying allegiance to Trump.

Without that opposition, the party has become wedded to Trump the person. Like everything else in Trump’s life, it has become an extension of himself.

So what happens to the organization if the person is discredited?

John recognizes that the idea of the Republican party dying is hard to fathom—or, in his words, seems absurd. He acknowledges the considerable structural and institutional advantages that work to keep the party afloat:

Since 1854, the Republican Party has been a major party whose status is protected by election laws giving its nominees automatic ballot access. Republicans have well-developed organizations at both the national and state levels. The party is awash in cash. One-third of Americans identify as Republicans. And our winner-take-all electoral system marginalizes third party candidates, often forcing voters to choose between Republicans and Democrats.

But those advantages are competing with a record the nation has rejected and the suffering it has caused.

The New Republic, in a quote I highlighted on Friday, described that record well:

In the 15 months since he returned to America’s highest office, Trump has launched the U.S. into a war with Iran, sparking a global energy crisis that has raised the cost of living pretty much everywhere. He also invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its leader, Nicolás Maduro, axed thousands of staffers from the federal government and crippled some government agencies, and used his office to target his political opponents.

He has hobbled America’s press, sowed doubt and distrust in the country’s democratic elections, undermined the judiciary system, pardoned hundreds of people who served his personal interests—such as those who attacked Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021—imposed nonsensical tariffs on U.S. trading partners, aggressed America’s international alliances, abused the purpose of executive orders, and endorsed violent immigration policies and detention centers that have been compared to concentration camps, among other issues.

I suggested that damage caused by MAGA governance could cost Republicans far more than an election or two, as the conditions we’re seeing develop echo earlier moments when our politics realigned in an enduring way. If 2026 and 2028 are generation-defining elections, the Republican party will find itself in the minority for years, until it can rebuild from the damage Donald Trump has caused to its brand.

John’s piece takes that argument a step further. He wonders if the party as an entity will cease to exist under the weight of the wreckage Trump has caused.

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It’s a topic he and I have discussed at length over the years, and it informs the work we did together in Democracy on the Edge. We regard the elections of 2020, 2022 and 2024 as a trilogy where democracy was on the ballot.

In 2020, America used constitutional means to remove an authoritarian leader from power and successfully pushed back his attempt to stage an insurrection.

In 2022, Democrats outperformed expectations for an incumbent party in a midterm year and prevented election-denying MAGA Republicans from assuming state and federal offices across the country.

In 2024, however, voters let the would-be insurrectionist re-enter the White House through the front door.

John and I were of the opinion when we discussed writing the book that saving democracy would require winning all three of these elections.

Winning two out of three left democracy in peril and the country at a crossroads.

Now that we are well over a year into Donald Trump’s second presidency, the damage he is doing to the country and the world has become undeniable to a growing majority of the public. That makes a reckoning with what is happening appear unavoidable when this era is over. Looking ahead, it’s reasonable to consider what that will mean for the country, democracy, and our political parties.

In Democracy on the Edge, we explore the state of both major parties and consider what history tells us may be in store for them when Trump’s second presidency is over. Wolves and Sheep readers will find the familiar theme of realignment throughout the book, in the service of a more comprehensive argument than what you’ll find in any given Substack post.

If you’re interested in reading more about Democracy on the Edge, you can click here to access the book’s home page on the University Press of Kansas website. And if you are interested in pre-ordering a copy, type the discount code 24ONTHEEDGE at checkout and receive 30% off the list price.