July 21, Matt Wilson, political science professor specializing in elections at SMU Dallas, for a piece analyzing the GOP’s philosophical drift from Reagan to MAGA. Published in the Orange County Register under the heading A very MAGA convention: Trump, Vance, and the transformation of the GOP: https://tinyurl.com/4yww5p6y
The last night of the Republican National Convention featured professional wrestling legend Hulk Hogan ripping his shirt off at the podium, a rap call-and-response with delegates led by Kid Rock, and an introduction of the former President of the United States by the President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Power Slap. This capped a week that had prominently featured speeches by reality TV star Savannah Chrisley and model, rapper, and former exotic dancer Amber Rose. Clearly, this is not your father’s GOP.
These icons of pop culture may have been the most visible departures from Republican conventions past, but they were not the most significant ones. More fundamentally, many of the issues and themes emphasized at this week’s event would have been shocking to a Republican audience as recently as ten years ago.
For decades, throughout the Reagan-Bush era of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, conservative and Republican identity in America rested on a “three-legged stool:” embrace of free market economics, robust projection of American military power to resist tyranny abroad, and support for traditional moral and cultural values. Of these, only the last clearly remains a part of the GOP agenda, and even it was in some ways soft peddled at the recent convention.
By Matthew Wilson
The last night of the Republican National Convention featured professional wrestling legend Hulk Hogan ripping his shirt off at the podium, a rap call-and-response with delegates led by Kid Rock, and an introduction of the former President of the United States by the President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Power Slap. This capped a week that had prominently featured speeches by reality TV star Savannah Chrisley and model, rapper, and former exotic dancer Amber Rose. Clearly, this is not your father’s GOP.
These icons of pop culture may have been the most visible departures from Republican conventions past, but they were not the most significant ones. More fundamentally, many of the issues and themes emphasized at this week’s event would have been shocking to a Republican audience as recently as ten years ago.
For decades, throughout the Reagan-Bush era of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, conservative and Republican identity in America rested on a “three-legged stool:” embrace of free market economics, robust projection of American military power to resist tyranny abroad, and support for traditional moral and cultural values. Of these, only the last clearly remains a part of the GOP agenda, and even it was in some ways soft peddled at the recent convention.
Perhaps the most jarring address of the convention, at least to the eyes and ears of traditional Republicans, was the speech by the president of the Teamsters’ Union. As one would expect, he extolled the virtues of collective bargaining, condemned right-to-work laws, and railed against corporate greed. That’s what union bosses do (although usually at Democratic conventions). Much more surprising, however, was the range of other speakers who echoed these themes—most notably Vice-Presidential nominee J.D. Vance.
Vance claimed that financial elites consistently exploit working people, called for a national industrial policy and tariffs on all imported goods, implicitly supported wealth redistribution, and disavowed any notion of entitlement reform. For a party that trumpets its steadfast opposition to any hint of socialism—and bases much of its appeal to Latinos in particular on that opposition—this is remarkable stuff.
Likewise, various speakers at the convention laid out a foreign policy vision that departs significantly from traditional Republican approaches. Calling on America’s European allies to step up their defense spending is not novel—presidents of both parties have been doing that for decades. What is new, however, is the implication that these increases would accompany a declining U.S. commitment to the trans-Atlantic alliance and a less resolute response to Russian aggression.
Ronald Reagan must be turning over in his grave at the fact that Democrats seem more bothered than Republicans by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Of course, the GOP convention offered little specific about Ukraine policy in the event of a Trump victory. Instead, the message seemed to be that, had Trump been president, the Ukraine invasion would never have happened in the first place. The underlying logic of that claim, however, is curious. It implies that Vladimir Putin, contemplating the invasion, would have feared a vigorous American military response—exactly what the isolationist wing of the GOP now argues must be avoided at all costs.
The area where today’s GOP would be most recognizable to its Reaganite forbears is in the domain of cultural and moral conservatism. As has long been the case, Republicans remain committed to gun rights, opposed to racial preferences, and supportive of a robust role for faith in American civic life.
Even here, however, there are signs of what Reaganite conservatives would see as “slippage.” The party dropped its long-standing call for a national abortion ban, deferring instead to state action and condemning only late-term abortion. The GOP platform, along with multiple speakers at the convention, accepted gay marriage as a fait accompli. To be sure, there were repeated calls to keep biological males out of women’s sports, and a decidedly religious “vibe” at the convention—Republicans remain much more comfortable than Democrats with Christian language and imagery in public spaces. But the convention overall was long on performative religiosity and relatively short on specific invocations of social conservatives’ issue priorities.
All of these shifts are electorally defensible, and parties exist first and foremost to win elections, not to articulate coherent and consistent political philosophies. They do, however, speak to a profound and ongoing redefinition of what it means to be “conservative.” Will it provide the basis for a stable and enduring Republican majority, or even for victory this fall? That remains to be seen. But it is no longer debatable that the GOP has been changed in profound and enduring ways.
Matthew Wilson is a political science professor and senior fellow of the John Tower Center for Public Policy and International Affairs at SMU Dallas. His research focuses on public opinion, elections, representation, and the role of race and religion in politics.