In this fascinating book, John Ehrenberg convincingly argues that Donald Trump does not represent a different brand of Republican Party politics but rather the continuation of a brand that has been honed over the course of the last half-century. Using examples including Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, George W. Bush, and Newt Gingrich, Ehrenberg draws a clear historical throughline from decades-old forays into white identity politics to the Republican politics of today.
That does not mean, of course, that Trump’s presidency and Trump himself did not mark an inflection point in the evolution of the party’s message. In Ehrenberg’s words, Trump’s “dalliance with racial antagonism was qualitatively different from that of his Republican predecessors” (p. 108). In his telling, therefore, Trump did not start the fire but rather acted as an accelerant to a Republican Party already adept at using racial resentment to gain electoral supremacy.
The heart of the book moves chronologically, tracing in detail the people and events that helped move the Republican Party toward a party that is willing to manipulate institutions to gain and maintain power. Ronald Reagan, the Tea Party, George Bush, Pat Buchanan, and David Duke all play key roles in Ehrenberg’s story of the devolution of democratic ideals. The chapters are organized loosely around each president’s time in office, a structure that allows for a fairly easy-to-follow narrative flow.
The final chapter of White Nationalism and the Republican Party discusses the effects of this increasing Republican focus on white nationalism in the face of an increasingly diverse nation and concludes that the only logical result is minority rule: “Faced with profound demographic changes that will only intensify, the Republican Party has become increasingly authoritarian and antidemocratic. Having closed off all alternatives save one, it has mastered the art of using the most antimajoritarian institutions of the federal government” (p. 114). This chapter provides the crux of the argument summarized in the subtitle of the book, Toward Minority Rule in America.
The past half-century of Republican rule, as told in this book, is also notable for its regional flavor. Ehrenberg cites V. O. Key (p. 23), the eminent southern political scientist regarding the role of race and electoral politics in the South, discussing at great length the southern strategy to curry the favor of white voters by, in the words of Barry Goldwater, going “hunting where the ducks are” (p. 8). The Republican Party, in Ehrenberg’s telling, is one that is based largely in the South and has used and will continue to use explicitly southern appeals to white nationalism. This part of the book and its argument is reminiscent of Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields’s masterful The Long Southern Strategy (2019). Like Maxwell and Shields, however, Ehrenberg recognizes that appeals that initially saw success in the South are now national in scope: “What used to be a southern problem is now a national problem” (p. 115). This argument should appeal to scholars of southern politics who have long argued that American politics is increasingly southernized, and it ties to scholarship highlighting Trump’s embrace of the South (Angie Maxwell, “Why Trump Became a Confederate President,” The Forum, 2021).
Some portions of White Nationalism and the Republican Party have parallels to existing treatments of the modern Republican Party, but that does not mean that it is not an original and important contribution. The book’s clear narrative structure and ability to weave in insights from multiple disciplines and (perhaps just as importantly) multiple methodological traditions mean that the synthesis and analysis in this book cannot be found elsewhere. It is also clearly positioned in the tradition of New Political Science. Ehrenberg does not feel constrained by the empiricist’s dispassionate description and causal analysis; his views on Trump and the current Republican Party are clear throughout.
Although the book has much to offer, the period being discussed at various points in the narrative can be difficult to ascertain. For example, on p. 4, Ehrenberg argues that the “Republicans have been the nation’s dominant political party for the past 40 years,” but the next page refers to the “Republicans’ fifty year hegemony.” The half-century seems to be the timeframe used most often, but there are examples and roots of today’s modern Republican politics that harken back more than 70 years. It is possible that the author wishes to keep this starting point vague, because identifying “the beginning” of any political movement or idea is a fool’s errand. Nonetheless, consistently identifying the scope of temporal analysis, or at least acknowledging the difficulty of such a task, would serve as a helpful guidepost for readers and scholars who will rely on this work.
More substantively, the focus of Republican politics examined in this book is at the federal level, which might leave some readers to wonder whether these same patterns are evident in the states. Even the claim that the Republicans have been the dominant political party for the past 40 years might be a questionable assumption were states and localities a more explicit part of the focus. Particularly in today’s America, where perhaps the most prominent examples of attempts to manipulate the levers of power to gain and maintain minority rule are at the state level, a focus on (or at least a tip of the hat to) state politics and federalism might be helpful. For example, Jake Grumbach’s Laboratories against Democracy (2022) would provide a helpful companion volume for those who wish to explore many of these questions at the state level.
The book may also have benefited from a more formal consideration of what constitutes a political party. Revealing all the contours of this debate would be a distraction from the tight structure of this book, but a brief discussion of what the author means when he describes “the Republican Party” might be helpful. Some of this is revealed in the fascinating details of the people and events of the last half-century, but the reader still might be wondering to what degree these trends are being felt at the grassroots of the party or whether they are simply elite-dominated trends. To borrow again from V. O. Key, does white nationalism and the path toward minority rule exist in “the party in the electorate,” the party organization,” the “party in office,” or in all three at once? (Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups, 1942).
In the end, White Nationalism and The Republican Party makes a welcome addition to the rapidly growing shelf of books on what Trump’s presidency means for the future of the Republican Party and democracy in America. It should also be read by scholars of political parties and the presidency, particularly those in the New Political Science tradition.
