‘Vandalism With a Purpose’ and the Future of the G.O.P.

Republicans will spend the next 20 months debating and deciding whether Trumpism will be on the ballot in 2022. Will party leaders continue to embrace Donald Trump’s populist rhetoric? Can it resonate with voters if Trump isn’t the one saying it?

Ross Douthat, an Opinion columnist at The New York Times, and Michael Brendan Dougherty, a senior writer at National Review, offer their own definitions of populism and debate with Jane populism’s merits, if Trumpism is real and whether Trump allies in the Republican Party will be the future or the demise of the Grand Old Party.

Referenced in this episode:

Michael Brendan Dougherty in National Review: “The End of Populism? Don’t Bet on It.” “Trumpism After Trump.”

Ross Douthat on how Trumpism ate populism, whether there is a Trumpism after Trump and, in a prescient 2013 column, “Good Populism, Bad Populism.”

Jane Coaston on why Trumpism has no heirs and, in National Review: “What If There’s No Such Thing as Trumpism?”

Christopher Caldwell in The New Republic: “Can There Ever Be a Working-Class Republican Party?”

Ken Burns’s series with Stephen Ives “The West,” chronicling America's process to become a continental nation.

Ross Douthat’s book Grand New Party, on how Republicans can win the working class.

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You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Argument" at nytimes.com/the-argument, and you can find Jane on Twitter @janecoaston.

Special thanks to Shannon Busta.

“The Argument” is produced by Phoebe Lett, Elisa Gutierrez and Vishakha Darbha and edited by Alison Bruzek; fact-checking by Kate Sinclair; music and sound design by Isaac Jones.