-
Party Crashers: How Far-Right Demagogues Took Over the GOP
- Dissent
- University of Pennsylvania Press
- Volume 64, Number 2, Spring 2017
- pp. 147-151
- 10.1353/dss.2017.0047
- Article
- Additional Information
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Since the mid-twentieth century, practitioners of Trump’s style of right-wing populism have posed a particular dilemma for the Republican Party. Conservative leaders need the votes of their admirers to advance conservative programs. But, unlike right-wing populists, ideological conservatives were less comfortable making flagrantly racist, sexist, and violent statements to win over voters. That a right-wing populist captured the GOP and defeated the uninspiring Democrat nominee is thus part of a longer tradition on the right.