Trump Taking Over The GOP?

CTH is calling it a “bloodbath”—or at least they’re quoting others to that effect, and not contesting that characterization. Given that I’ve always believed that Sundance fronts for Republicans who were ousted by the McConnell wing of the party, this looks somewhat positive. I mean, if CTH sees something positive going on in personnel moves at the RNC it must be out of the ordinary:

They Call it a “Bloodbath at the RNC” as Team Trump Begin Cutting 60 Staff Jobs and Canceling Vendor Contracts

Alright, alright, alright. All the right people are pearl clutching as the new MAGA RNC leadership starts eliminating positions, reprioritizing the Republican National Committee on the functions that matter, and canceling professionally republican vendor contracts.

Essentially, the business end of the professionally republican RNC is being taken apart and retooled as a more election centric operation.

This follows appointment of co-Chairs Lara Trump and Michael Whatley. Lara is a lawyer, as is Whatley, but Whatley is the one with long political experience in party organizations going all the way back to the 1980s and Jesse Helms. Read about him here. He sounds promising, making allowance for Wiki’s loaded characterizations:

In June 2019, the North Carolina Republican Party selected Whatley to succeed Robin Hayes as their chair. Whatley was closely involved in President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, including participating in the December 2020 phone call on which Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" the votes he needed to win the state.

Following the United States Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, Whatley refused to place blame with Trump, saying that only those who participated in the riots bear responsibility. In February 2021, Whatley said "we certainly saw evidence of voting irregularities, of election counting irregularities in a number of places around the country", and that the reason Trump won North Carolina was his state party's vigilance against Democrats' attempts to cheat.

Time will tell.

Larry Johnson says this means Trump is taking control of the party apparatus, which he neglected to do—to his detriment—in the period 2016-2020.

Two names — Michael Whately and Lara Trump — signal we are seeing a new Donald Trump. What? Yes, Whately and Ms. Trump are the new co-chairs of the Republican Party. Gone is the establishment darling, Ronna McDaniel, who has been an unmitigated disaster during her time helming the RNC. So why is this significant? During the 2016 and 2020 campaigns Trump ignored the need to gain control of the Republican Party. He was too trusting, too naive. By replacing McDaniel, Trump is sending an unmistakable message that he is taking control of the Party apparatus. That’s what I mean when I pose the question, “are we seeing a new Trump.”

Moon of Alabama, of all people, has an interesting article on US politics—a digest of an FT article:

Why Non-White Voters Are Moving Away From Democrats

The single thing in MoA’s post that I found most interesting/informative was a chart that demonstrates over time—starting in 2012—that non-White conservatives are progressively voting more in line with their conservative views, rather than sticking with the Dems. That’s the good news. The caveat is the obvious question, Just how many of these people are there in absolute terms? The author of the FT article says that number is:

As the number of Black Republicans has risen from ~5% to 15% (the figure among young Black adults today), the Democrat-voting norm is eroded and the stigma of voting Republican reduced

Obviously, the author picked Black Republicans because Blacks are the single demographic among non-Whites that identifies most lockstep with Dems. With that in mind, here’s that chart:

As the author points out:

Asian, Latino and especially Black voters were misaligned, with large numbers of non-white ideological conservatives voting Democrat in that year’s election

You can find a twitter thread digest of the FT article, with more interesting charts, here. Samples follow.

Obviously, with this chart the usual caveat applies. Certain demographics have more room for movement than others, so percentages are relative.

Here’s confirmation of a common sense observation—people who live in a bubble tend to conform to the norms of that bubble:

When people have more diverse social groups, there’s less social pressure to vote for the dominant party in the community, so non-white conservatives feel they can vote Republican.

A practical example? Apply the usual caveat.

Two more graphs and that’ll be it.

But here’s the real flip-flop, and in a sense it’s the real bottom line: