Is it Trump’s Party now?

The rise of Donald Trump to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee is a politically significant moment in American history. Defying all predictions, the real estate mogul has slashed and burned his way to the top.

He has followed his own rulebook, tapped fear and anger, especially among lower middle class whites, to ride an anti-establishment wave. In the process, he has awakened and mainstreamed forces of hate and white supremacy.

In his acceptance speech at the party convention last week, Trump painted a dismal, ominous picture of America, overwhelmed by illegal immigrants, open to terrorists and losing its financial and military edge in the world. Its tone was more dark and Nixonian than sunny and Reaganesque.

Trump’s Republican Party stands against free trade, against immigration and against the burdens of America’s treaty obligations to other countries. The editorial board of The Washington Post was so alarmed, it took the unusual step of denouncing the candidate a day after his nomination instead of waiting for the campaign to unfold[1].

“To the extent he has views, they are wrong in their diagnosis of America’s problems and dangerous in their proposed solutions. The consequences to global security could be disastrous,” the editorial declared.

It’s too early to say whether the party’s moorings have changed forever or only for the length of the campaign. What’s clear is that the balance between pro- and anti-trade and immigration forces has shifted.

The new centre of gravity is with the white blue-collar segment that is shut out of the new economy, left behind by the old, and struggling to make sense of the present. It has thrown its support behind a man who wants to build walls and deport people. The alliance between this working class base and the party’s upper crust, wealthy establishment is broken.

Trump fancies himself as a leader uniquely equipped to “Make America Great Again” because “nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” The nationalist authoritarian streak is unmistakable. He has no experience of elected office and has shown no inclination to join hands with the Republican leadership in the U.S. Congress to work together. His policy prescriptions change almost daily.

Although Trump has captured the party, he presides over a divided house and the internal party battles are by no means over. Nor are the battles with minorities – he has definitively alienated black and Hispanic voters by repeatedly attacking them and blaming them for “the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities.” He has declared that Islam “hates” Americans.

Many top Republicans either refused to attend the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last week or gave Trump a lukewarm endorsement[2]. The bitterness was palpable even as Trump’s disorganized campaign tried to paper over the eruptions.

Rival candidate Ted Cruz spoke at the convention but pointedly refused to endorse Trump and urged the delegates to “vote your conscience.” Cruz was booed off the stage and his wife taunted as they left the venue. Weeks before the convention, his delegates had tried to invoke a “moral clause” in the rule book to allow delegates pledged to Trump to vote differently if they so chose. The attempted “coup” failed miserably after the rules committee threw out the proposal.

The moderate wing of the party was largely absent. Prominent absentees included Jeb Bush, the Bush family dynast whose star dimmed early in the primaries, and John Kasich, the governor of Ohio – the host state for the convention. Marco Rubio, another contender and the great “establishment hope” chose to speak via video rather than fly from Florida to Ohio.

It was left to Trump’s children to give testimonials about their father – not an encouraging sign for someone who wants to be president of the United States in these fractious times. Many party stalwarts and donors still can’t believe that Trump conquered their party, squashed 16 other candidates, and will face Hillary Clinton in November.

In fact, the only thing that unites various factions of the Republican Party is their hatred of Clinton – a negative rather than a positive organizing principle.

Speaker after convention speaker demonized Clinton in a manner that seemed to go beyond the political. The tone was misogynistic. T-shirts with the logo “Proud to be a Hillary hater” were selling well. One Trump delegate called for her execution for the deaths of Americans in 2012 in Benghazi, Libya while Ben Carson, once a presidential hopeful himself, made a long, vague connection implying that Clinton was a follower of Lucifer.

Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey who was on the short list to be Trump’s vice president, putting on his best prosecutorial hat asked the delegates “guilty or not guilty” as he recited Clinton’s alleged crimes – the deaths of Americans in Benghazi, Libya and her use of a private e-mail server for which she was under an FBI investigation.

National polls show both candidates running neck-and-neck and the average of recent polls prepared by Real Clear Politics shows Clinton at 44% and Trump at 42.5%[3]. The narrow gap can’t be comforting to the Clinton campaign, especially in light of her high unfavourability ratings.

The Democratic Party convention this week will have its own drama given the release by Wikileaks of 20,000 e-mails exchanged among staffers of the Democratic National Committee[4]. Some of the e-mails discuss undermining Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s primary rival for the party nomination, who finally bowed out recently after a spirited campaign.

Sanders had long alleged that the party structure helped Clinton during the primaries instead of being neutral, which tipped the balance in her favor.

The road between now and voting day in November will be rocky and treacherous.