What we're seeing with the GOP now is less a deviation from the norm of American conservatism and more a return to the norm after the deviation of the Goldwater/Reagan turn. I discussed this with historian Paul Matzko in an earlier episode of the show:
That's a fair point. But you have to go back further, past Eisenhower, I think, or else implicate Reagan as part of a process that began with Nixon and the Southern strategy. Even allowing for some continuity, there's no doubt that Trump's Republican party is unlike anything any living voter has seen before. I had a go at this a while ago https://crookedtimber.org/2020/07/20/the-republican-phase-transition/
I did a double-take here "Look, have the parties changed fundamentally? ".
Rather than "No", I was expecting
"Yes, the Republican party has been taken over by anti-democratic far-right racists".
though of course there's a case that it was always this way, just less obvious about it.
What we're seeing with the GOP now is less a deviation from the norm of American conservatism and more a return to the norm after the deviation of the Goldwater/Reagan turn. I discussed this with historian Paul Matzko in an earlier episode of the show:
https://reimaginingliberty.com/episodes/the-history-and-evolution-of-the-american-right-w-paul-matzko
That's a fair point. But you have to go back further, past Eisenhower, I think, or else implicate Reagan as part of a process that began with Nixon and the Southern strategy. Even allowing for some continuity, there's no doubt that Trump's Republican party is unlike anything any living voter has seen before. I had a go at this a while ago https://crookedtimber.org/2020/07/20/the-republican-phase-transition/