Vol 5 – Issue 2 by Catalyst

Author:Catalyst
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-08-25T20:35:42+00:00

Conclusion

The events of the last year have led many to hope that the Republican Party will return to normal in the aftermath of Trump’s presidency. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed his unique combination of incompetence and indifference with an urgency that simply could not be ignored. Similarly, the pathetic stunts through which Trump and backers like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell tried to overturn the 2020 election results only underscored his weakness. Finally, the riots at the Capitol on January 6 seemed to be a nail in the coffin of Trumpism, as even Trump stalwarts like Lindsey Graham lined up to denounce the president.

The Capitol riots also marked a new level of discord between the Republican Party and the business community. Everyone from the Business Roundtable to the Chamber of Commerce to Americans for Prosperity denounced the riots. Trump’s strongest backers, like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, found themselves completely isolated. Some businesses signaled they would stop donations to Republicans entirely, while many more said they would stop donations to any politicians who voted against certifying the election results.105

Yet these actions proved less substantial than many had hoped. When the Republican Conference stood strong beside Trump during the post-riot impeachment hearings, the business boycott began to fall apart. By March, the Chamber of Commerce announced it would not proceed with the boycott. As the Biden administration moves to expand the welfare state, raise corporate taxes, and enact new environmental reforms, there is little doubt that many sections of business will migrate back to what is still Trump’s GOP. Indeed, even during Trump’s disastrous last year, both the Chamber of Commerce and the Koch brothers’ network worked to push Trump’s plans for reopening as soon as possible.106

These dynamics reveal the failures of potted Marxist paradigms like treating Trump or the Tea Party as a radicalized middle-class insurgency. Since the 1980s, the Republican drive to the right has been powered by the shifting political interventions of capital. If the GOP now pursues policies that are frequently opposed by large sections of capital, that fact only testifies to the profound divisions that exist among the uniquely disorganized American capitalist class.

This article has given little attention to alternative “demand-side” theories of Republican radicalization that focus on the GOP’s voters. Examples of these include research that directs attention to racial and sexual resentments among the Republican electorate or emphasizes the role of right-wing media in pushing the party to the right. While these kinds of studies have made real contributions to understanding the party, they cannot function as explanations of the party’s move to the right unless the inability to block that move by forces interested in opposing it is also explained.107

If Republican radicalization is rooted in the weakness of the parties and the disorganization of capital, it is unlikely to reverse so long as those dynamics persist. Moreover, there are strong reasons to expect continued conflict between Republicans and large sections of business. In particular, the party’s discarding of even a rhetorical commitment to the

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