When Donald Trump was elected, scholars of American politics ferociously debated the future of the Republican Party. Optimists argued that Trump had little support in the GOP, and would slowly be reined in by movement conservatives like Paul Ryan and Lindsey Graham.
Pessimists like me argued that Trump had a lot of support among the Republican base and would be able to reshape the party in his own image after a protracted civil war. He and his allies would start running primary candidates to challenge more traditional conservatives and eventually replace the current crop of officeholders.
It turned out that both camps of the debate were thoroughly naïve. Once Trump became the figurehead of the Republican Party, the full partisan tribalism of this ugly political moment came to drive conservatives into his arms. He didn't need many actual primary challengers, much less a protracted civil war, to reshape the GOP in his image. Some conservatives, like Ryan, simply decided to vacate the field. Others, like Graham, reinvented themselves as Trumpian populists. Two years into the president's reign, the Republican Party has become a blind tool of his whim.
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