congressional Republicans as heartless and cruel. Barack Obama repudiated timorous Democrats who went along with the disastrous Iraq War.
But Trump took this to a new level. From start to finish in 2016, he berated the GOP — both its individual leaders and its collective identity. He promised to protect Social Security and Medicare, knowing that the GOP desire to undermine entitlement programs was deeply unpopular. He cast himself as a crusading outsider, the enemy of the entire bipartisan “establishment.
As it is, the frequency with which candidates campaign against their own parties in the United States makes us an outlier, says Georgetown political scientist Hans Noel. In more common parliamentary systems, voters choose a party, then the leader of that party becomes prime minister. But here, the idea of a maverick who is beholden to no one has a deep appeal in a country whose national mythos is tied up with rebellion and independence.
Yet, thanks to Trump, the United States is likely to become even more unusual in this regard. As the GOP nomination campaign proceeds, the memory of 2016 will be ever-present in the candidates’ minds. They will remember well the contrast Trump presented with a large group of traditional politicians as he attacked the GOP, and how Republican primary voters thrilled to it.
Trump showed that naked contempt for one’s own party wouldn’t necessarily cause a problem in the general election. In 2016, 89 percent of Republicans