Trump effectively controls half of the party solely because he is who he is – a natural populist committed to appointing conservative judges. (Sidebar: What’s still something of a mystery is how thrice married and openly profane Donald Trump became the preferred voice of evangelicals in this country.) Substitute “evangelicals” for “Faith & Flag Conservatives” and combine that with anti-establishment/anti-elite Republicans (“Populist Right”) and you can understand how Trump not only won the Republican primary in 2016 but also remains such a potent force within the party. And, if we take it out of the language of Pew and put it more into our traditional ways of describing the coalitions within the GOP, Trump’s sustained strength within the party starts to make more sense. They “differ over corporate power, economic inequality and taxation of large businesses and wealthy individuals.”īut, for the purposes of understanding Trump’s continued appeal, the similarities between these two groups are what’s important. Pew is careful to note that these two groups are not monolithic. “Like Faith and Flag Conservatives, Populist Right strongly support Trump, and most (81%) would like him to remain a prominent political figure, including 57% who say he should run for president in 2024.” Most say Trump definitely or probably is the legitimate winner of the 2020 election.”Īnd the poll has this to say about the “Populist Right”: “They are among Donald Trump’s strongest supporters – both while he was in office and today. Of “Faith & Flag Conservatives” Pew notes: And what does link them? Their continued support for Trump – and the idea that the November 2020 election was not conducted fairly. Which makes the common threads between what those “Faith & Flag Conservatives” and the “Populist Right” all the more interesting. And their numbers dwarf those who Pew identifies as “Committed Conservatives” (18%) and the “Ambivalent Right” (13%). Those two groups then comprise approximately half of all Republican voters. THE POINT - NOW ON YOUTUBE! In each episode of his weekly YouTube show, Chris Cillizza will delve a little deeper into the surreal world of politics. Of those groups, two are the largest with 23% of Republicans and Republican leaners each fitting into each bucket: “Faith & Flag Conservatives” and “Populist Right.” The data splits the Republican Party into four main buckets: “Faith & Flag Conservatives,” “Committed Conservatives,” “Populist Right” and “Ambivalent Right.” What the typology poll seeks to do is to suss out the various factions within each of the two major political parties – and dig deep on what they believe and why. Which is exactly what Pew did – in its annual political typology survey. Unless, that is, you do a deep dive into the various strains of belief within the Republican Party – at which point it all starts to make some sense. Instead, Trump is the unquestioned party head and frontrunner for the 2024 nomination.Īll of which makes very little obvious sense. Any other person who presided over this much losing would be cast aside by a party desperate to move on. I’ve been continually baffled/amazed at how Trump has seemed to tighten his stranglehold over the party despite scads of evidence that make very clear that his presidential term was an unmitigated disaster for his side, electorally speaking. The greatest trick Donald Trump ever pulled was keeping the Republican Party loyal to him even after he cost the GOP control of the White House, Senate and House over his four years in office.
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