One of the rare things that liberals and conservatives can agree on at the moment is that the Republican Party is the party of former President Donald Trump – and Trumpism, arguably, is the GOP.
But Trump, with his incredible upset with Hillary Clinton, ushered in a new wave in conservative politics.
The “modern” Republican Party is trending more toward those outside the inside-the-Beltway GOP establishment and away from increasingly woke Big Business and big donors. That’s according to a report by Axios on Friday.
The online outlet queried 14 top GOP strategists of varying stripes about changes in the party since 2014 – the last pre-Trump election and the last time the midterms were held with a Democrat in the White House.
Previously, the consultants said, power within the GOP belonged to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the NRA, the Koch brothers, Heritage Action, the Drudge Report, National Review, and groups like Tea Party Express, FreedomWorks, and the Senate Conservatives Fund.
Now, however, the true power brokers are Trump, his family, and former aides. But they also include Tucker Carlson and Fox News, the Club for Growth, Daily Wire, Breitbart News, and “influencers” such as Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, Dan Bongino, Joe Rogan, Jack Posobiec, Charlie Kirk, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Also making the cut were Steve Bannon and the anti-abortion group, The Susan B. Anthony List.
Axios noted that in 2016 much of the “institutional GOP worked against Trump.” “Much of the heft they believed their endorsements carried evaporated as voters saw in real-time how Trump had little need for them and ultimately obliterated them,” the report added. One consultant dismissed the old guard as “paper tigers.”
Based on its conversations with the consultants, Axios segmented its analysis into four categories: institutions, endorsements, conservative media, and donors.
The bottom line for each one:
First, institutional “conservatism” as discussed in D.C. no longer matters because much of that mindset dismissed Trump and he devastated them by running against many establishment ideas, such as promoting tighter immigration controls and economic nationalism.
Second, as for endorsement, Trump’s is the only one that matters.
Third, Tucker Carlson is the “king” of conservative media, and Fox remains a favored outlet. But, the consultants told Axios, individual media personalities like Steve Bannon, Candace Owens, Dan Bongino, Joe Rogan, Dave Portnoy, Charlie Kirk, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and websites like Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire and Breitbart are the most influential among conservatives and allow candidates to simply bypass the “mainstream” media.
Finally, Axios noted, big donors are on the way out, as “Trump’s unprecedented success in GOP small-dollar fundraising has also driven party leaders to invest more in donor prospecting, list acquisition and data projects that can hone the party’s grassroots money game — and make it less reliant on top donors’ six- and seven-figure contributions.”
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