January 30, 2024

"Mr. Trump’s wing is, by a comfortable margin, the largest and most dominant force in his party."

"No power center in the Republican Party can exist without the blessing of his movement, and we have yet to see a national political figure who can survive even the slightest bit of conflict with it. If there is any remnant of a pre-Trump Republican establishment, the trajectories of the campaigns headed by Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis illustrate its imminent fate."

From "Trump Has Devoured the Republican Establishment" (NYT). 

Useful graphs:

 
  

45 comments:

Leland said...

Now do Biden. How many winning seats did he endorse?

I think a more interesting test is how many candidates won by endorsing border security, including Democrats who endorsed it in the past. I know it doesn’t explain DeSantis poor showing, but I think other things can explain his weak campaign.

Original Mike said...

"In 2016, almost no elected Republicans endorsed Trump. In 2024, most of their endorsements went to him"

And the NYT is surprised by this? In 2016 Trump hadn't been President yet.

The NYT needs better thinkers.

Gunner said...

But Twitter Never Trumps constantly say his endorsement is the kiss of death! They wouldn't be lying, would they?

Kevin said...

Rose: Mr. Andrews... I saw the NYT graphic and I see it in your eyes... please, tell me the truth.

Thomas Andrews: The Biden campaign will sink.

Rose: You're certain?

Thomas Andrews: Yes. In six months or so, all of this will be at the bottom of the Atlantic.

Cal Hockley: What?

Thomas Andrews: Please, tell only who you must. I don't want to be responsible for a panic. And get to an electric vehicle quickly, don't wait. You remember what I told you about the electric vehicles?

Rose: Yes... I understand.

traditionalguy said...

OMG does this mean Bad Orange Man Trump has won the political wars? No wonder he is suddenly under 90+ criminal indictments. Politics cannot kill him.

typingtalker said...

Is Trump dominant because he is really good at his job (which right now is being a candidate for US President) or because all potential competitors are lousy at the job of candidate?

wendybar said...

Thank God. Nikki Hillary is okay with Judicial corruption. Imagine what Trump COULD have gotten done, if the Progresive Republicans actually backed him and their constituents. Instead, they laid in the Progressive party bed together with the Pelosi's, Schiff's and Schumers.

Iman said...

Harris*Blinken*Biden

Winkin’*Blinken*Knob

Josephbleau said...

The democrats have outsmarted themselves. Hillary, Reid, Polosi, and Schumer trusted negativism. If the dems would have taken a building year in 2020 and let Trump win, he would now be term limited and some new young democrat would be ready to go full humanitarian liberal against DeSantis or Haley. Progressive policy would not have been damaged and the dem would win on hopeinchange.

If Beiden starts a war in the ME then even Michelle may not win. But dems are not known for giving their brains a chance to work before deciding what to do.

Darkisland said...

The NYT isn't often right and I fear they are wrong again. I wish it were true. I wish President Emeritus Trump really had devoured the Republican establishment.

He has driven them into hiding, to some extent, but they are still there and they will likely come back when he leaves the stage. Luckily for America, I don't think he will ever leave the stage short of death. Maybe not even then.

Let us hope he keeps going like 22 getting MAGA republicans elected (90% plus success rate) and non-MAGA republican's defeated.

John Henry

Original Mike said...

That second graph is interesting. I've heard the claim that Trump is damaging the republican party by getting fringe candidates nominated who then go on to lose in the general. Not having the inclination nor the time to research this myself, I've tended to believe it. Unless there's something else to the story, it doesn't seem to be even close to true.

Gusty Winds said...

Don't you wonder if Bernie supporters wish they could have taken of the Democrat Party?

But they bent a knee and bowed to the Hillary 2016 Superdelegate scam, and the Biden 2020 Super Tuesday fix.

Wonder what is feels like to be Romney, Bush, or Paul Rino? Are they blinded by arrogance, or do they ever reflect on what made tens of millions of people who voted and supported us, now despise us?

nbks said...

This totally underestimates the stranglehold that the old GOP has on the purse strings and focus of the party via creeps like Ronna Romney McDaniel

nbks said...

This totally underestimates the stranglehold that the old GOP has on the purse strings and focus of the party via creeps like Ronna Romney McDaniel

Howard said...

Smells like Teen Spirit

Skeptical Voter said...

Okay Trump is a dominant force in today's GOP.

Who or what is a dominant force in today's Democrat party? It's certainly not Joe--he was "installed" not elected. And the shine has kinda worn off his old senescent carcass. Can the Democrats "install" him again? It looks doubtful.

So just who is the head Democrat in charge? I'd argue it's Obama although he doesn't want to be seen to have his hands on the lever of power. Is it someone else? Is it a clueless cabal? {I think I'm getting closer here.}

AlbertAnonymous said...

Not yet he hasn’t, but it’s a good start. And it’s not just the “republican establishment” he needs to devour or destroy. It’s the deep state establishment in DC.

When federal workers protest the president’s policies and demand no aid to Israel, and assume they can’t be fired, there’s a problem. This entrenched permanent federal bureaucracy is a death spiral. They care only about themselves and who’ll keep them in power.

It’s the hunger games in real life. All the districts vs. the capital.

tim maguire said...

If I want to know the value of a Trump endorsement, I won't find it by looking at who won and who lost, I'd find it by checking polls the week before and the week after, with maybe a glance at the final election results.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

That's good news. And while the Democrat fraud machine is unlikely to be overcome anytime soon, at the very least the new anti-Establishment counterculture is gaining strength while the reactionary Left continues to gorge and rot. Kicking and screaming, the Republicans are being dragged to an evolutionary advantage.

wendybar said...

What the GOP did to themselves. THEY hated us when we were fighting for less taxes in the Tea Party, and they do NOTHING to want to make ANY of us want to vote for them, when they keep on caving to Progressive policies. THEY DID THAT. Not us.

Scott Gustafson said...

I think this is really about Swamp Critters versus Outsiders. The GOPe figured out how to benefit financially from the Swamp long ago and are now part of the problem. Over time, the rest of the GOP has figured out that the Swamp is the problem and hence Trump’s influence has grown.

Scott Gustafson said...

"Who or what is a dominant force in today's Democrat party?"

Preservation and expansion of the Swamp - where they make all their money.

Robert Cook said...

"When a man unprincipled in private life, desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper . . . despotic in his ordinary demeanour — known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty — when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the nonsense of the zealots of the day — It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may 'ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'"

- Alexander Hamilton

wild chicken said...

Oh, it was hilarious here in MT in 2016. I went to the big fundraiser with all the state candidates speaking and NO ONE would say his name. But he was so "present" anyway.

In 2017 they were all Trump Trumpety Trump.

Tom T. said...

"via creeps like Ronna Romney McDaniel"

Trump endorsed McDaniel.

Rory said...

The big problem is that Trump has no ideology, so there will be no disciples when he goes.

Rabel said...

"There are very powerful people who want to keep you out, and what they're willing to do is put their money where their mouth is in a big way," said the head of the Arizona Republican Party to Trump supporter Kari Lake in attempting to bribe her to stay out of the Arizona Senate race.

That sounds like a power center in the Republican Party existing without the blessing of Trump's movement.

Will we ever get an ID on these people? Is anyone even trying?

Rusty said...

"Who or what is a dominant force in today's Democrat party?"
Every illegal that has crossed the boarder.

mikee said...

I remember when Newt Gingrich ran on his Contract For America, with a list of 8 operational reforms to vote on during the 1st day of the new legislature, and 10 bills written before the election and publicized widely, to be voted on in the 1st 100 days. Not all of it passed, but everyone knew what the people who got voted into the House were trying to do. It was called a gimmick and a stunt. Today it would look like the most responsible election campaign held in decades.

tim in vermont said...

I have no interest in ever supporting any 'Republican' who supports the jailing of non-violent J6 protesters, or the persecution of Trump, ever, ever, ever. I would rather vote for the real Democrat, than a Democrat in Republican cloth.

tim in vermont said...

"When you are on the outside trying to get in, DC is a cesspool, but once you are elected, it becomes more of a hot tub" - Ronald Reagan

Well, he said something like this.

Big Mike said...

The point is that these are Trump voters, not Republican voters. To his credit he realized early on that (1) both parties had worked to suppress the Tea Party, rather than address their concerns; (2) the Democrats, in their wisdom, were running the the working class (including the union rank and file) out of their party and these people were looking for a new home; (3) Americans in general were fed up with the neocons and their endless wars (what was our strategy for victory in Afghanistan -- did we even know what victory would look like?); and (4) while the Chamber of Commerce was presuming to dictate US industrial policy to the Republicans, the corporations that the CoC supposedly represented were giving the vast bulk of their donations to the other party.

Trump gave the people who felt that they had no home in either party a home. People like the working class, the middle class, the small business owners, and the former Tea Party members. Will they still have a home in the Republican Party when Trump has completed his 2025 - 2029 term? At this point I don't think anyone knows.

Jamie said...

Is this supposed to be their way not to damn all Republicans? "Trump has seized! Seized! the Republican reins, it's not the fault of the Good Republicans"?

But the graphs indicate that the Trump-endorsed congresspeople largely won their elections... so it still damns the Republicans who voted for them, doesn't it?

So I conclude that yes, it's Insider vs Outsider and the David Brooks Republicans who rely on the NYT for news can rely on it still to defend them.

My husband listened to James Carville's Democrat strategy today. It was, of course, to keep hammering on Trump's essential evil and the terrible peril he represents. The Biden people can be coy about it, he said, and talk about Biden's accomplishments... but we, we happy few, we need to keep driving home Nazi, fascist, rapist, evil, democracy at stake...

But shouldn't we be airing his speeches, so people can hear for themselves how crazy he is? he was asked.

No!! he thundered. We shouldn't give him any legitimacy, absolutely no normalization.

Or is it because if they did warn their voters, "Please watch the following segment with this in mind: this guy is crazy and evil," and then they aired a Trump speech, people might be able to hear for themselves that he doesn't sound crazy or evil? And they might think back on 2016-2019, at least (and maybe even the second half of 2020, in which Trump was in favor of reopening or at least leaving it up to the States, though his opponents AND The Science advisors were holding out for tighter lockdowns and continually saying he was in favor of killing Grandma and Junior), and realizing things were better then?

Candide said...

None of this matters if vote counters will allot Biden 80 million votes again.

Ampersand said...

People figured out that triangulation incentivizes extreme demands. The Republican Party got along for decades with an approach that essentially said that the left might be correct in their intentions, but asked for too much too fast, and that the Repubs would only agree to half of what the left wanted. So the left figured out that they needed to want 10 times more than they wanted yesterday, moving the Overton Window way to the left.

And now the normies look at soaring debt, soaring deficits, inflation, a huge influx of illegal immigration, the breakdown of the family, soaring crime, the loss of moral consensus, an aggressively self-protective administrative, intelligence and law enforcement colossus, and rampant corruption at the highest levels of government. They seem to have concluded that triangulation is now suicide.

MadTownGuy said...

Funny that the article calls it "Mr. Trump’s wing," when he doesn't own it. His policies - opposing the (D) Party's nonsense (the trans agenda, pushing for electric cats, calling farming "ecocide," etc.) and promoting common sense (securing borders, dialing back runaway spending, emphasizing jobs over free stuff) - strike a common chord with people in both parties, even if not everyone. It's along the lines of calling people who object to the nonsense "far-right.' If you're a radical leftist, anyone not down with your agenda is way to the right of you politically.

Ficta said...

"pushing for electric cats" I honestly spent a few seconds thinking that you were asserting that the Dems were trying to force people to switch to robot pets, which seems like it might be true. Lol.

Rich said...

Representative democracy through free and fair elections is the central issue of our times. Lincoln summarized the stakes in 1858:

A house divided against itself, cannot stand.

I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other.

Prof. M. Drout said...

You have to give Trump credit for realizing that the appearance of the Tea Party showed not some stupid "rise of new racism" but a return of economic populism that Reagan-era Democrats would have sacrificed their firstborns to generate. What triggered the Tea Party was FIRST anger at banks and BANKERS getting bailed out without even the slightest penalty at the same time middle class people were being told that taxes were going to have to go up and only second the fear that the health-care “reform” would take away freedom of choice and reduce quality for people who worked to give free stuff to people who didn’t.

Millions of Democratic families that had defected to Regan had been steadily bleeding away from the Republicans in successive elections (except for 2004 for 911 reasons). They voted for Obama because they assumed he'd go back to doing Democrat things like supporting unions and blue-collar workers. Oops.

Obama had a choice--he could continue the Clinton path of adopting the Republican economic agenda on trade, unskilled immigration, and offshoring in exchange for corporate money --or he could recognize an opportunity for him and his party by saving “healthcare reform” for the next term and making a strong populist move against the finance industry's parasitism and in favor of WORKING low-income people rather than transfer-payment-receivers.

But because Obama was promoted too fast (in part because Hilary Clinton's selfish ass blocked all other candidates), he didn't know how to do politics (vs. running for office). His overly complex attempt to invent a new health care system from scratch was immediately co-opted by the insurance and pharma industries (which now have the whip hand in all health-care decisions to the great detriment of everyone).

When people resisted this dog's breakfast of a plan that no one could explain but which was obviously going to cost more and limit choice, Obama lost his shit. Look at his face in those speeches: he was disgusted that anyone could possibly disagree with HIM, much less form a broad-based, working-class populist movement that likes of which the Democrats have been pining over since the 60s. Bitter and angry, he blamed everything on racism rather than his own ineptitude and unleashed racial conflict out of spite and because of fear that black voters might stay home in 2012 (unnecessary, as the Republicans had already bailed him out by nominating Mayonaise Romney).

If Obama had had the intelligence and instincts of Trump, he would have realized that those working-class voters were his for the taking. Had he significantly punished the fraud bankers, broken up big financial, protected what was left of American manufacturing with small tariffs against China, and preached racial healing as he had in the initial speech that put him on the radar--ALL OF WHICH, by the way, had been CORE Democratic-party principles for freakin-ever--we'd be measuring Mt. Rushmore for a new face. Instead he convinced a huge cohort of voters that the Democratic party despised them just as much as they thought the Republicans always had.

As Big Mike said above, these people aren't Republican voters, they're Trump voters. The Republican party can only keep them if the party takes their issues seriously. The crazy thing is that this is at all possible: Democrats, insanely, decided to cede the working class and small business owners to become a top-and-bottom-against-the-middle coalition of finance and management people coupled with gov’t workers, and payment-receiving, non-workers. Even if such a mess holds together for an election, you can't maintain it: with no middle class you can't generate the money flows that finance and management parasitize, and no orc army is going to limit itself ransacking the huts of the middle class when the castles of the elite are just sitting there waiting to be plundered. The end result will be terrible for everyone at every level (which is why it’s likely with these fools in charge).

Prof. M. Drout said...

Ficta said...
"pushing for electric cats" I honestly spent a few seconds thinking that you were asserting that the Dems were trying to force people to switch to robot pets, which seems like it might be true. Lol.

So Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" is going to be the next dystopian Science Fiction that comes true? Please, no. Please, please, please no.

Rusty said...

Jamie.
We got one thing going for us. In an RCP poll.(RCP poll are an agregate of polls) 66% of the people polled think the country is going in the wrong direction. If the election were held today Trump would be 6 points over Biden. A commanding lead. Even betting averages have Trump 11.5 points above Biden.
There aren't going to be 80 million votes or more to steal this one.

Leland said...

The big problem is that Trump has no ideology

Do you not know what the word ideology means? Do you not know what make America great again means? Do you lack discipline to discuss what it is you are writing?

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

I heard an interview on a radio show about a month back. I was driving from place to place and I did not hear the whole thing.
what I did hear - a GOP or R saying that "influence peddling was OK"

they all do it.

that's why the GOp are reluctant to go after Crook Biden.

NeggNogg said...

I initially misread the headline as "Mr. Trump's Wig" and now I can't stop giggling.

Tom Grey said...

These graphs are so good I tweeted them!
https://twitter.com/TomGrey56/status/1753537572570059088

It will be Trump's party only for a few years, maybe 3 more.
Unlike Obama, he won't be such a force after being President for a couple more years.
Tho, if the Dems cheat more obviously and steal the 2024 election (too), Dem deep state criminals can create a huge crisis.

When the truth about a candidate is censored before an election, the election is unfair; rigged; stolen. The truth of Biden's computer and corruption was censored - 2020 was unfair, rigged, stolen.