The Republican Party's Decay Began Long Before Trump
About this episode
Recorded the morning after Trump's 34-count hush-money conviction, this conversation asks how the Republican Party grew so weak it fell to a hostile takeover. Klein's thesis: the problem isn't Trump alone but the party that let him bend it to his will. Rosenfeld and Schlozman, authors of 'The Hollow Parties,' argue both parties were hollowed out over decades: post-1968 McGovern-Fraser reforms destroyed the parties' gatekeeping function, so an outsider celebrity could capture the nomination; parties became vehicles for media-driven fundraising — from Richard Viguerie's direct-mail machine to today's small-donor churn — rather than organizing constituencies. They trace the 'Long New Right,' an apocalyptic, conflict-driven style continuous from Buckley-era fusionism through Gingrich to Trump, and argue Trump sniffed the gap between movement conservatism's unpopular agenda (tax cuts) and what voters wanted. It closes on Democratic hollowness too, citing Biden's contingent 2020 nomination and the party's erosion of its own gatekeepers.